So I have a few thoughts about this game. Let's get this out of the way: My final time was about 60 hours. I could beat the game at 25-30 hours. Those last 30 hours were grinding money to unlock the final purchase in the game. (This was optional, but I wanted to see what it changed.) In a game where the creator's message is inherently anti-capitalist, and a critique of the money grind, this is both apt and really unpleasant to play. (And much in the vein of Spec Ops: The Line, when the game's message is "you'd be having more fun not playing this", I have opinions on the debatable success of your messaging. It'll work for some people, but not for everyone.)

With that out of the way, Final Profit is an RPG Maker game where you play as Madama Biz, formerly Queen Mab, ex-Queen of the fae. She has decided that the only way to defeat the looming Bureau of Business that is buying out and destroying their land is to become a capitalist herself and usurp it from within, hopefully without losing herself. There are no RPG battles; it's very much a shopkeeper simulator game like Recettear or Moonlighter for the first two acts of the game. The third act becomes an idle/incremental game on top of the shopkeeping, and is a large change in gameplay. The game is also queer, with queer relationships and non-binary characters showing up later on as you progress through the game. (Our lead being a proudly bald femme fae may also fall under that category, but I don't feel qualified to make that determination.)

As an RPG Maker game, there are several quirks to it that felt very familiar to me. In some ways I was taken back 20 years, to messing around with RPG Maker 95, and making esoteric choices for my RPG that were meaningful to me and my friends. Quirks and choices like secrets and puzzles that "the player community would figure out eventually", and making references and characters that strayed from archetypes for my own enjoyment and amusement. The author has a LOT of love for his characters and his message, and RPG Maker being an engine that allows him to realize this love is a wonderful thing. It also means that the game has a lot of rough decisions that will require a casual player to go looking around online to figure out what the heck the puzzle even is, let alone the solution. (As of 1.2.1, two that stood out were the vending machine puzzle and the chest cipher. The rewards were nothing special, but at the same time, I appreciate that the creator put in ridiculous puzzles that HE wanted for the sake of having them and giving the longtime/super dedicated players something to dig for.) I think this is a design decision that tends to work more often than not, because most players will just completely miss these incredibly hidden puzzles unless they know to look for them.

The characters are fantastic. They've got fun complexities, personalities, and dynamics that make them memorable and fun to interact with. Biz is regularly torn between her love of her homeland, her own desire for justice and her need to stay on track for her mission. The villains all use their financial status and business power to do manipulative and self-serving activities that feel reprehensible, yet all too grounded in reality. Biz's allies include Odina, a former villainess whose plans were effectively bought out by the Bureau and whose ojousama laugh is up there with the all time anime greats, (The camera zooms in just so she can do her "oh ho ho".) and Elora, a fae scout who was dispatched by invested parties to help Biz and whose loyalty is admirable. It's always fun to play a game where the entire cast is either likeably quirky, delightfully reprehensible, or entertainingly complex.

The music is really good. Many of the tracks are just great to listen to in the background even when not playing. The spritework is also well done, and utilizes the RPG Maker system very effectively.

The narrative and plot are pretty simple, but start peeling away layers and revealing additional worldbuilding and lore that make motivations and character relationships complex and intriguing. The creator very clearly has a vision of the world that Final Profit only manages to hint at, and I respect that greatly.

Gameplay-wise, as stated earlier, the first two acts are shopkeeping simulators. You need to buy or craft items to stock in your shop, and when in your shop you need to restock rapidly enough to allow the customers to keep buying your items. You can get upgrades to automate this and make them pay more, which gives you money to repeat the cycle. This gets you through the first few thousands of currency. However, once you get to the third act, prices are in the hundreds of thousands if not millions. You become a landlord, which the creator has strong opinions on, in order to make passive income that helps you amass enough money to complete the plot points and reach the end game. At this point, the shopkeep sequences make up some income, but are mostly just a means to keep yourself engaged between you finding sidequests and the aforementioned secrets to pass time while the income trickles in. Because you MUST amass enough currency to buy out several buildings, and most of the gameplay loop is buying upgrades to amass money faster, this is where the game becomes more of an idle/incremental game, and I personally found it to be a matter of going through motions for the sake of it.

Another odd quirk is that there are non-standard stats, like Alcoholism, Ruthlessness and Generosity. These stats have a few purposes (Alcoholism unlocks a shortcut and some conveniences, Ruthlessness and Generosity have effects on one sidequest and a few other choices) but otherwise don't do very much for a game where the main character is trying not to lose herself while engaging in a system that very much subsumes everything that interacts with it. Given that they're emphasized early on, it feels odd that they're so mechanically detached from gameplay. (A choice that unlocks a potential customer will give you ruthlessness, but your ruthlessness stat doesn't actually matter, for example.)

Overall, I'd say that it's an interesting game. The creator is still putting out updates to add more content and further flesh out the existing areas. I think as a shop simulator, it's reasonably fun. As an idle game, it's agonizingly dull. Within 30-35 hours, you can raise enough money to buy almost everything in the game, with the exception of the LAST property, which requires the capped amount of money at 1 billion. Considering that the previous highest purchase is 10 million, that should give you an idea of how tedious the grind is. (The benefit for doing this last purchase is an alternative ending, on top of your base 5, and achievement if you're playing on Steam.) Having to join the Discord to learn the solution to some of the esoteric puzzles also personally annoyed me, because Discord is a very fleeting way to store information. (Most of the puzzle solutions were on a guide written on Steam, which I appreciated.) Nevertheless, I think it's worth playing, and I applaud ManaBrent for his clever and engaging RPG Maker game that tells a fine narrative of combating capitalism, queerness, and trying to maintain ethics and morals in a system that prioritizes ruthlessness, and hope he continues to make quirky games that tell the messages he wants to tell.