The Style Savvy games of the DS are a thing of legend for a particular corner of the gaming world. With thousands of outfits to put together for characters, they felt infinite in their offering for anyone interested in fashion. The developer, syn Sophia, is back with a new game for the Nintendo Switch. Despite a seemingly shallow gameplay loop, there is a bit of fun to be had in this new exploration. Just don’t go expecting the heights of Style Savvy. Here’s our review of Fashion Dreamer for the Nintendo Switch.

Cozy games might be all the rage now, but back in the days of the Nintendo DS, there were gamers who quite literally only played these simulation-heavy titles. Focused on things like fashion, being a cooking savant, or raising digital dogs, these titles skewed heavily toward girls, immediately earning them a judgemental scoff from boys. Fashion Dreamer is a callback to those types of games, inviting players to do something simple: put together looks for people, earn followers, and then do it all over again.

Fashion Dreamer invites you to create look-its, which are just outfits posted on the in-game social media platform, for NPCs. Taking into consideration each NPC’s tastes and what’s trending, you’re aiming to earn followers by putting together looks on a three-star (or heart) ranking system. As you put together looks and gain followers, your influencer ranking rises. All that this does, however, is give you access to more NPCs and more outfits. This is the entirety of the game, with some smaller activities built in. Sound limited? It sort of is.

Designing clothes yourself is something that I enjoyed quite a bit. You earn designs from completing tasks and then essentially have control over the color of each item. Designing pieces adds them to your inventory so that you can utilize them in look-its. This is a nice way to expand your inventory of outfits, because at the start of the game, you’re essentially putting together the same 4-6 outfits over and over. As you build up your offerings, the game does get more fun. It just takes way too long to expand your arsenal.

You can dress men and women, but they’re all skinny and end up looking pretty similar across the game. It’s a shame. There’d be a really good space to provide some inclusivity here that matches the fashion industry’s growing effort to show body types of all shapes and sizes. Instead, you’re given NPCs who are thin and have simple requests like a color or preference for tracksuits over dresses. Most frustrating of all, if you don’t follow these rules, you’re not really penalized. You just earn a little less credit.

Fans of the previous syn Sophia titles are likely to feel like the game is offering less this time around. It’s worth noting that nobody called this a sequel to those games or claimed they would be similar. The goal here is to share looks with other players via online connectivity. I didn’t have much luck with that since I was working on the review before the game’s launch, but I did hop on to see other player’s creations before finishing this piece. It didn’t feel all that different from seeing NPC-created looks, however.

With only limited knowledge and experience playing the Style Savvy games, I’m not all that disappointed in Fashion Dreamer. I had quite a bit of fun putting together outfits and progressing my ranking. The problem here is that online connectivity doesn’t really offer you a personal connection with other players and their creative choices. They might as well be AI-concocted looks you can check out and add to your inspiration board. Fashion is a conversation between enthusiasts, and this game has little to say.

Overall, there’s fun to be had in Fashion Dreamer if you enjoy fashion and putting together outfits. Style Savvy fans may be disappointed, but I had a fun enough time progressing through the game. Without a detailed online mode or any real narrative or story guiding you through the game, you’re not really in a fashion stylist simulator so much as running on autopilot as you piece together outfits for uninspiring NPCs. This isn’t a failure to revisit the days of DS simulator games, it’s just a little half-baked.

A Nintendo Switch review copy of Fashion Dreamer was provided by XSEED Games for the purposes of this review.

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Fashion Dreamer

$49.99

6.5

Score

6.5/10

Pros

• Great simulator for putting together outfits
• Plenty of room to be creative with making your own pieces

Cons

• Online experiences are a little impersonal
• There's no guide or drive to keep going other than simply putting together more outfits
• Takes the fun out of fashion, or at least the community of it