The game was brought to the Western audiences with English localization by Carpe Fulgur, a two-man development group consisting of Andrew Dice and Robin Light-Williams who had come to meet through the Something Awful forums.

[11] Dice saw value in the possibility of bringing Japanese titles to the West as "above all what the Western gaming audience likes is a unique experience", an opportunity afforded by the growing dōjin market in Japan.

[11] After forming Carpe Fulgur, Dice and Light-Williams considered approaching Gust Corporation, offering their services to translate games from the Atelier series, but ultimately decided against the idea.

Williams specifically suggested Recettear, which had favorable word-of-mouth in Japan, and whose developers, EasyGameStation, were eager to open the game to the Western market.

[11] Though there was some trepidation due to the distance between countries and between Dice and Light-Williams (who, at the time, lived on opposite sides of the United States), EasyGameStation agreed to work with Carpe Fulgur for the translation.

For example, as the game is set in a seemingly European village, the original script's mention of rice and tofu felt out of place, and Carpe Fulgur replaced these with more appropriate foods.

[13] Carpe Fulgur expected only to sell about ten thousand units within six months, considering that they were a new company bringing a Japanese game to what they believed to be a niche market for Western countries.

[12] Dice was also aware of a large number of players that would immediately identify the game as Japanese and would refuse to play it, and considered this in their initial sales estimates.

[12] The revenue from the game allows them the opportunity to participate in more industry events, possibly expand to other systems besides Microsoft Windows, and port other titles based on newfound interest in other Japanese developers.

[10] Quintin Smith of Eurogamer considered the shopkeeping activity rather addictive, similar to "a tiny gambling session, where a confluence of factors can result in you having the best or worst day ever", leading the player to play "just one more [turn]".

[8] Richard Cobbett of PC Gamer noted that "while you do spend most of it doing the exact same simple things, doing so quickly becomes a frothy, capitalistic bubblewrap".

[21] IGN's Charles Onyett noted that, once the player has learned the habits of various characters, the price haggling "degenerates into a thoughtless, mechanical exercise", but random fluctuations in the market such as the result of news events or trending items helps to keep the shopkeeping interesting.

Smith praised the exploration, considering it "more competent than any number of games [he] could mention", citing the control of the adventure character and the unique attack patterns of the enemies.

[citation needed] Onyett stated that "the combat can become wearyingly repetitive in later stages" with larger dungeons, but that it suited the purposes of Recettear appropriately.

[20] Sam Marchello of RPGamer found that she would have often arrive on a new dungeon floor near a trap, allowing enemies to swarm her characters without much chance to respond, and believes that "players may find themselves reloading save files simply to get themselves into a better position".

Onyett called the translation "very well done", with "the tone is bubbly and frequently funny in an internet message board kind of way", and ties in the various gameplay elements well.

[10] At the 2011 Independent Games Festival, Recettear was given two honorable mentions for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and Excellence in Design categories.