Nintendo DS
Imagine: Fashion Stylist
| Graphics: Sound: Gameplay: Overall: |
3.00 5.00 5.00 4.00 |
| Votes: | 1 |
| Reviews: | 1 |
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| Reviewer: S.S.?? | Date: Mar 22, 2025 |
| Going into this game, I remembered a quote from one of my favorite Youtubers. “Playing the Imagine series, if it’s from Japan, it’s usually great! If it’s from America, it’s mediocre at best.” Or something along the lines of that. I believe this holds true for this game. I, in fact, actually own this game for my DS, but never got around to playing it because of other games I owned such as Barbie Groom and Glam Pups, or Girl’s Fashion Shoot. Once I finally got around to “playing it”, and by “it”, haha, well, let’s just say, my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
Graphics: 3 The 3D models were horrendous. They were polygonal and very janky. Along with being extremely polygonal, they were very ugly. Most of the models have stray pixels around them, making them look like they're being followed by flies. There's very few options to choose from for hairstyles and makeup, and on top of it all, you can't even change your skin color even though there are MULTIPLE customers who are black and Asian! The 2D art, however, is gorgeous. The 2D art is mainly used for the magazines, but the characters and expressions are vivid and stylish. The girls in the magazines look really pretty compared to the 3D models, and the magazine designs are cute as well. Sound: 5 The music is okay at best and ear-grating at worst. The most notable piece is the music that plays when you change your wardrobe. The MIDI instruments clash and the loud drums and make the whole piece hard to listen to. Gameplay: 5 The game makes helping the customers a bit confusing because instead of the customers stating the direct styles or colors of clothes that they want, they are very specific. Terms such as "mauve", "chestnut", and "azure" are used instead of pink, brown, or blue, and there are multiple terms that are used for the same color. Additionally, terms such as "up-market", "creative", and "folk" are used. The game doesn't outright tell the player what these terms mean, and it often leads to the player just having to figure out what the term means. This was intentional game design, as they implemented a magazine system for "tips" on what certain terms mean and what styles go together, however, I found that most of the magazines are unhelpful, and don't tell you what "creative" or "up-market" actually mean. They also introduce a "convince" system and a "reserve" system, neither of which were used after the tutorial introduced them. Either no customers ever asked for something very specific like in the tutorial, or I always had it in stock. The customers are pretty easy to please, so the convince feature was rarely ever used. There's also a mechanic called "expert-eye", where you can observe the customer's fashion to get a sense of what they like. Each customer has 3 colors, 3 styles, and 3 brands that they mainly wear. At the start, you can observe 2 pieces of clothing, but later on it increases to 3. I liked this feature at first, but it became increasingly harder to figure out what combinations of pieces of clothing unlocked knowledge of their fashion style. I would observe every piece of clothing only for none of the colors, brands, or styles to be filled out. The fashion show mechanics are fine. The camera button minigame is a great way to keep you on your toes while playing this game, but the part where you have to align the sides of the camera with the overlay is a bit finicky. I never used the salon. It's completely optional and a waste of time, considering how bad the hairstyles and makeup are. Overall, the controls are a bit clunky and the game can be confusing. Overall: 4 Personally, I wouldn't replay this game. It's very lackluster in terms of gameplay, so there's not much incentive to keep playing in freeplay mode. Overall, compared to other fashion games, it's pretty mediocre. Just play Style Savvy. |
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