Retro Rewind - Video Store Simulator

I hate to give this game a straight up no because there is clearly good work and polish behind it. The art style is cute, the movies are funny, the minigames for your condiment stuff is well done. I have some minor gripes with the soundtrack being too short (by level 5 the music was driving me insane) But my biggest gripe with this game is that there is no 3rd aspect with gameplay. A lot of these simulator games have an "extra thing" to do with their subject matter that keeps you engaged. TCG has the card aspect, Teddy's Heaven has foraging and crafting, Arcade Paradise has the games, etc. This game has no 3rd secret sauce. Gameplay consists solely of working the cash register, checking in and rewinding movies, and restocking movies. After hiring my first employee to work the register, my gameplay consisted of standing in one spot and checking in the returned movies and putting them back out on the shelves. Once you unlock the second employee I don't even understand what is left for you to do gameplay wise. If working the register is all you are looking for... the vibes are great, the movies are cheeky, and the presentation is good. But even after being only halfway through the progression of the game and unlocking only half the shop so far, I feel like I have already run into the wall of "I guess I've done everything"

It's fun, but too grindy for no real reason and kind of simplistic. I enjoyed my time with it, but I have almost seven hours played and was still doing the same things I was doing five minutes into the game, with little to no change. My biggest gripe with Retro Rewind is that progression is far too slow and gameplay doesn't evolve with it. It takes ages to unlock new mechanics and, when you do, they barely even matter. The ability to sell slushies and popcorn is a good example: they take some time to unlock, you have to pay to fix the machines that make them, and now that I have them, I sell about three a week. That's it. They make no impact on my sales, they make no impact on customer satisfaction, they don't even affect queue times that much either. Slushies and popcorn are just there to do a little minigame every now and then. They are, ironically, purely for flavor. Unfortunately, the rest of the mechanics are on the same boat: Flavorful, but empty inside. Too far gone in the direction of keeping things cozy instead of providing the smallest hint of friction. There is a calendar with special events that make people rent more movies of a specific genre, but people rent whatever anyway if you run out of stock. You can hire staff who are more or less skilled at certain jobs, but that doesn't really matter when customers queing to checkout have practically infinite patience and time stops ticking at closing time. You can buy "adult" movies from a guy in an alley, and it's all supposed to be shady and secretive, but there's no reason NOT to have those movies in your store. You don't have to hide them, they don't affect the public perception of your store, there is no need to make a "back room" to keep kids away from that material, like real stores used to do. Hell, there's not even kids in the game, despite the target audience for Retro Rewind being 90% people with fond memories of video stores from back when THEY were kids and would go rent movies/games. It's a baffling decision. All in all, it's decent but wildly, almost violently overrated. If you, like me, first saw this game back when it was rated Overwhelmingly Positive and thought it would be cool, know that this is closer to a 7/10. I wish I could rate it meh, but that's not an option.

I don't understand the positivity for the game at this price point. If it was $5-10 I'd get it. I enjoy the vibe of the game, but it's incredibly repetitive, after expanding my store and getting hundreds of movies, it doesn't feel like I've actually achieved anything other than grind. The upgrades barely do anything, and i don't see anything else in the progression that is something other than different colours of movies...

As a big fan of shop simulators and survivor of both a decade working in a video store and then film school, you'd think this would be right up my alley, but I found the UI and controls to be really unintuitive and difficult, and I couldn't get over how lazy it seemed that all the film titles are procedurally generated instead of parodies and homages to actual films. I want this same game but with better controls and UI and actual movies referenced in my store's stock, posters, etc. At least let the community mod the movie titles with our own!

For anyone who remembers the sacred Friday night ritual of browsing local video rental stores, Retro Rewind: Video Store Simulator by Blood Pact Studios feels like a warm embrace from childhood. It transports you straight back to the early 1990s, tasking you with running a cozy retail kingdom filled with physical media. It is true that in the late game (around level 20), a slight repetitiveness can set in, and the hired employees could sometimes work faster. However, as a relaxing 'cozy' experience that will remind you of the scent of popcorn and plastic, Retro Rewind works absolutely flawlessly.

Тот случай, когда не стоит верить крайне положительным отзывам. Симулятор очень однообразный и нудный. По сути все, что можно делать в игре - это разносить кассеты по полкам и стоять на кассе. Уровни качаются очень медленно для такого "разнообразного" геймплея. Найм сотрудников никак не помогает, потому что даже самые быстрые работают довольно медленно. Можно в начале нового дня поставить сотрудника на разбор кассет и уйти в афк на 5-10 минут, настолько они медленно делают свою работу. Еще есть особые снежинки, которых если в первый же день попросить работать быстрее, то они увольняются 🤡 Из плюсов выделю только то, что НПС и сотрудники не багаются, как это бывает в симуляторах.

Простой, душевный симулятор. Хочется отметить: - В игре просто приятно раскладывать кассеты и отсчитывать сдачу - Тут нет какой-то стратегической глубины или сложных экономических схем. Все достаточно казуально - Даже после того как взял все ачивы, хочется зайти и сыграть 1-2 игровых дня Имхо, на голову выше всяких колхозно сделанных TCG симуляторов и другого ширпотреба в этом жанре

It's the start of a good game, but not middle or end. Without a story to keep you going, your prime motivator is store management or levelling. And since store features are locked by level rather than just earnings, you're going to be focused on grinding through the same day repeatedly just to get enough XP for the chance to spend cash. Inventory management is largely meaningless, store features are decorative with no unique functions for attracting or keeping customers, employee management is non-existant beyond hiring, firing, and chastising to keep working. The game quickly becomes about occaisionally buying tapes and handing out pamphlets for the rare chance to buy a decoration- and rarely see genuine improvements to your results. It's a game with a whole lot of promise but not a lot of anything. If the developer makes DLC or a sequel that finishes the game, I'll be there with bells on. But for the time being, you get maybe an hour's worth of interesting play before the endless grind.