Fashion Dreamer Review

Gaming Hound - Fashion Dreamer Review - Saffron Taylor

Fashion “do”, or fashion “don’t”?

Good quality fashion games on consoles are few and far between. Along comes Fashion Dreamer for the Nintendo Switch – from the same developer as Style Boutique (or Style Savvy) - syn Sophia. There was so much excitement from finally getting something that was similar enough to the aforementioned series, and from the same creators, people were hoping for something just as excellent. Since then, the reaction has been mixed.

You create your own avatar – called a Muse, and there’s a decent variety of customisation to begin with, but you unlock more eye colours, hair colours and more as you play the game and level up NPCs by giving them ‘Lookits’, which is basically an outfit using the items you have liked or created. You walk around worlds called Cocoons, and there are four with different themes. There are both solo and online modes, and online mode encourages social interaction with players from all around the world. Like other players’ outfits, make a Lookit for them too or visit their Showroom.

Another fun feature is taking photos by either going to a Photo Egg or using the Drone Camera. The Photo Egg is essentially a booth in the Salon where you take a solo picture, change the background, and add a variety of stickers. The Drone Camera is for taking photos out in the different Cocoons, and you can take them with the various NPCs. Change poses, use filters, or use borders and show off some creativity. Also available are two minigames – Bingo (to collect points for spending with) and the Gacha, where you use tickets to obtain clothing relating to the Cocoon you are in.

One of the biggest draws would be that you create your own brand and items, though the only thing you can do is essentially re-colour items, which then means that online players would ‘like’ the item of yours and add it to their inventory. You can also display items and outfits in your very own Showroom, but it is a bit small and limited. However, you can also customise it with different furniture, wallpaper, and flooring to make it your own.

The graphics and interface are clean and easy to read/look at, and the soundtrack is rather relaxing and fun, but the game lags quite frequently, especially when you start acquiring tons of items.

Whilst I enjoyed this game to begin with, it got repetitive pretty quickly. The tutorial is short and there is no story, which is fine, but eventually you go through the same gameplay loop repeatedly. It can be addicting constantly liking other players’ items, taking photos and creating your own items, but there’s not much more than that. I feel like the game certainly has potential if the developers continue to update it often, otherwise the player base will dwindle fast.

Overall, I give this game a 7/10. There were initially some quality-of-life features that were missing, like being able to save outfits and being able to zoom in on your Muse or NPCs when making a Lookit. These have since been added, but they really should have been there at the start. It does seem the developers are listening to and implementing feedback at least, and hosting events for players to pick the game back up and get limited time items. It all depends on your playstyle whether you think this game could be something you would enjoy. Some people have hours and hours clocked in, but others drop it after not that much playtime.

© Saffron Taylor for Gaming Hound 2024