Those of you who share my passion for fashion sims may remember a series for Nintendo and 3DS called Style Savvy (Also known as Fashion Boutique and Girls Mode). Developed by Syn Sophia, this series of games is excellent.
Each of them has their own story about how you own a boutique of your own, you get to meet lively, memorable characters while working as a stylist, and best of all, you have a wealth of customization options. Fans have been craving a new dress-up game like Style Savvy for Nintendo Switch since the 2017 launch of the pop-icon-inspired Style Savvy: Styling Star.
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Of course, Syn Sophia listened and recently proposed fashion dreamer A hybrid handheld device for Nintendo. That said, even though I haven’t been able to put it down for the past week or two, it’s still far from what I’d hoped it would be. While it’s fun to give people baseless fashion advice, the game feels dull, bland, and lifeless compared to its spiritual predecessor.
We live in the age of social media (or its collapse, if you’re feeling cynical), and Fashion Dreamers tries to make this a central warning of its game, but to its detriment. Fashion dreamers don’t open a boutique and cater to their customers’ needs or go to showrooms to buy new clothes, but rather gain social media followers. Previously memorable characters have been swapped out for less engaging caricatures, your “boutique” is just a showroom that players can visit without any substantial purpose, and even clothing customization isn’t as exciting as it once was. .
With all that in mind, it didn’t stop me from playing the game tirelessly for hours on end. While it’s nowhere near what I expected, or the energy and engagement of the Style Savvy series, it’s still fun to dish out unfounded fashion advice to NPCs or other players’ muses. Each time you do this, you gain followers, and the more followers you gain, the more central areas (called cocoons) you can access.
Even so, there’s still a lack of excitement for exploring new hub areas. They’re all the same, with characters who can give fashion advice, a salon and a pop-up area where you can collect new clothes. After a while, there’s no incentive to really keep using Fashion Dreamer; you no longer have to increase your boutique’s profits, you don’t have to work hard to earn cash from customers to buy new clothing, etc. There are no restrictions, which is fine for some players, but hurts the actual appeal of the game.
Syn Sophia has successfully modernized the series and certainly does not disappoint players in terms of the number of costumes available. If you want a game where you can dress up your characters in new outfits over and over again, Fashion Dreamer is the game for you. You can take tons of photos of your character’s outfits, amass a large social media following, and unlock more clothes in the process. But that’s the game loop of Fashion Dreamer. It’s very similar to the Style Savvy series, but the lack of challenge or overarching goal other than gaining as many social media followers as possible makes it feel a bit disappointing.
Let me reiterate that even though Fashion Dreamers often feels lifeless, I still can’t call it a bad game. I definitely had a lot of fun with it and will no doubt return to it when I feel like playing dress-up nonchalantly. But the lack of challenge, goals, or any real gameplay aside from amassing cult status in the fashion world has led me to do something I never imagined I’d be doing in 2023, and that’s return to Style Savvy. While Fashion Dreamer undoubtedly gives many players the freedom they dream of, I can’t help but miss the challenge provided by its spiritual predecessor.
