REVIEW: Fashion Dreamer


Title	Fashion Dreamer
Developer	syn Sophia
Publisher	XSEED Games / Marvelous
Release Date	November 3rd, 2023
Genre	Simulation
Platform	Nintendo Switch
Age Rating	Everyone
Official Website

I have never played a fashion game like this before. I know syn Sophia is the developer behind the Style Savvy games that were on the Nintendo DS and 3DS, but I’ve never played them. What caused me to take on this review is the fact that, regardless of my lack of experience with games focused on fashion, I do love dressing up my character in various other types of games which allow it. I’m that player who will sacrifice a bit of stats to make sure my characters still look good. Thus, I was very intrigued by Fashion Dreamer and wanted to try it out. Not to mention this is yet another more chill casual game, which is what I’ve been tending to lean towards when taking on reviews lately.

Fashion Dreamer is a pretty basic fashion game. By that I mean, there aren’t a lot of concepts or things going on. At the start of the game, you get a Muse to dress up. A Muse is what your customizable character is called. You can pick your hairstyle, nose, eyes, height/body type, skin tone, hair color, lips, etc. There are quite a lot of options to choose from. I should mention, though, that the body type options are limited. You basically just pick a height from the selection they have available and certain proportions change a little bit depending on the height you choose. There aren’t any sliders to decide how slender or curvy your character is or anything else such as that. You can choose from a few different face shapes, however. Anyway, once you’ve created your first Muse, it’s time to jump into the virtual world of Eve.

The game takes place in this virtual world, Eve, where there are four different Cocoon areas to hang out in. Well, there is only one Cocoon to start and you have to unlock the other three. The goal of the game is to become a fashion influencer and spread your brand. You’re able to like other characters’ outfits to collect usable clothing pieces. There is also a pop-up area where the most popular clothes and clothes other people have shared show up, so you can also hit like on those to collect them as well. In the game’s offline mode, there are pre-made CPU characters who will be around town and ask you to create Lookits for them. A Lookit is essentially a new overall outfit. Sometimes they may also like what you’re wearing and copy your outfit. Either of these will give you random rewards, such as gacha and bingo tickets and color palettes. The color palettes you can use to create your own items. You’ll need E-Points to unlock and create different clothing pieces. Creating your own clothing essentially just requires you to change the colors of pre-existing styles of clothes, and the more color palettes you unlock, the more choices you have.

E-Points you’ll get for anyone liking your outfit, liking your shared clothing pieces that pop-up in their game, stuff shown in your showroom, and so on. Your showroom is a small space you can decorate and display clothing in however you like, in addition to other items you’ve collected. The game contains both an online and offline mode. While you can collect E-Points offline, the process is extremely slow. This game is a lot more fun and active if you play online. Online you’ll see other players’ Muses in your game and be able to create Lookits for them as well, plus you’ll be able to visit their showrooms and see clothing items they’ve shared which you can then collect. The CPU characters are also present in the online mode in addition to the real player Muses. Each Cocoon area has its own gacha machine and two bingo machines. The bingo machines simply give you E-Points as a reward. The gacha machines are different in each Cocoon. They all have their own unique styles of items you can unlock randomly from using your gacha tickets. This will unlock certain styles in the clothing creation menu, so you can recolor them how you like.

There honestly isn’t a lot going on in Fashion Dreamer. The more likes you get, the more popular of an influencer you become, and as you get to higher ranks, you unlock more Cocoons. You also have a brand rank to raise from creating items. You can customize your brand symbol that goes on clothes you create and the more you create, the higher that rank will raise, which will then unlock additional clothing styles you can customize. Oh, and you can take photos, both at a photo booth spot and wherever you’re at in the Cocoon. For the photos at the photo booth, or Photo Egg as the game calls it, you’ll be able to add little decorations to and save.

Like I was saying before, there isn’t a lot going on in Fashion Dreamer. You make a ton of outfits, you travel between the three different areas of each Cocoon, dressing up other people’s characters to fit their preferences, hit like on whatever you like or want to collect for yourself, and you create clothing items over and over again. Also, after collecting a ton of stuff and creating so many outfits, I found some of the options weren’t very vast or unique. Hats for example, there are a lot of beret looking hats. The variety isn’t super vast. Not to mention, there also weren’t any bags, nor any gloves or necklaces that are separate rather than stuck as a part of certain tops. The game is really fun as a short bursts type of game where you get on only for a little bit, as a break from other games with a lot more going on. I thought the music, sounds and overall atmosphere were pleasant too. But, I don’t see it as a good game for sitting down and playing for hours on end. I was really into it the first two days I played, but after a few days, it became something I only checked in on for a little bit at a time. I played for over 15 hours, reached the platinum influencer rank and saw the credits. I believe there may be a diamond rank seeing as I still saw other players at a rank higher than me, but I imagine that would take a very long time to reach in comparison to the lower ranks prior to the game credits.

Ultimately, in the game’s current state, Fashion Dreamer wasn’t bad. I had a ton of fun dressing up my character and collecting different clothing. But, it also didn’t have much of a long gameplay life, I simply wasn’t extremely into it for more than a week. Although, you should know that this isn’t the game’s final complete release. By that I mean, various upcoming free updates have been announced. These are simply my thoughts on the game as is, before any updates have come out. I had fun with Fashion Dreamer for what it is, but it could’ve been a lot better. I don’t think I would pay the full $49.99 price for this. As it is now, I definitely would recommend waiting for a sale if it sounds like something you would enjoy. I might possibly write a follow-up in the future, should the game be substantially different or receive a lot more substance after all of the updates are out.