Prior to its release, news outlets universally compared the game's overall presentation to Capcom's visual novel legal drama series Ace Attorney.

The player must complete a series of stock trading objectives by traveling around a city to various points of interest and interacting with non-player characters (NPCs) to advance the story.

Hints are given to the player on whether to perform one of these actions when active stocks begin to flash red, indicating a big event is about to occur via a news report.

[1][2] Plans to develop Kabu Trader Shun began in the spring of 2005 when Yukio Ando submitted a proposal for the game to publisher Capcom.

[4] Ando previously served various roles like designing, planning, and scenario writing for numerous Capcom titles including Haunting Ground, Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams, and the Breath of Fire series.

[12] Prior to the start of the project, Kitabayashi had limited knowledge of stock trading, while Ando claimed to have had quite a bit of personal experience in the field.

[6] To accomplish this, Ando decided to include adventure game elements and gameplay that would simulate stock trading in a simplified, fun way.

[17] The game's plot incorporated drama inspired by popular shōnen manga as well as some true events, such as a 2006 securities scandal and law enforcement raid of internet service provider Livedoor.

[26] As with many Capcom games of the era, anthology manga based on Kabu Trader Shun was published by Enterbrain under its Bros. Comics EX imprint in the months that followed.

[27][28] Prior to its release, news outlets universally compared Kabu Trader Shun to Capcom's visual novel legal drama series Ace Attorney (Gyakuten Saiban in Japan), which features a similar anime-style presentation and adventure game elements.

[2][4][20][21][29] When playtesting Kabu Trader Shun, Anoop Gantayat of IGN declared that the game had "the potential to be the Gyakuten Saiban of Wall Street.

Game director Yukio Ando expressed disappointment that it was two points shy of reaching the publication's coveted "Gold Hall of Fame.