This is more of a short part 2 to my Style Savvy: Styling Star review.

Because while playing Style Savvy in anticipation for Fashion Dreamer. I pretty quickly realized that none of the stuff that made Style Savvy so special was going to be in Fashion Dreamer. At least judging by the trailers, and now after reaching the credits I can confirm it. They got rid of all the narratives and this world of fashion influencers is strange and creepy and soulless. Which just leaves the dressing up, which is...fine. It's not really implemented well and is oddly restrictive between the body types, but I AM a cute girl, and I DO look good. You can go into some pretty good detail with the colors on individual pieces. Ultimately though, the game just has nothing going for it when stacked up against any of the Style Savvy games.

Which I guess they weren't trying to make a Style Savvy game, they were trying to do something different. But maybe they SHOULD have tried to make a modern Nintendo Switch Style Savvy game, it would have been incredible.

If you are interested in this game and haven't played Styling Star or any of the other three Style Savvy games. Go play Styling Star. You've been putting off hacking your 3DS for long enough. The time is now.

EDIT:
This game is driving me mad. I keep flip flopping between 3 and 2 stars.

So on the one hand I feel like I'm underselling the dressing up of this dress up game. Like the dressing up is good. There is a lot of clothes and hair and face and color options. You can really get lost in the min-maxing of very small details of your overall aesthetic and Fashion Dreamer really excels at this. So I think it is good at BEING a dress up game and that should be worthy of 3 stars.

But on the other hand the very act of existing in this world is torture. The stationary NPCs and their maddening voice acted one liners are atrocious. All the Bingo cards and gacha shit are a plague on my experience. Most of the gameplay is liking clothing on a menu. One by one. It feels like a glorified mobile game. When I first saw the Nintendo Direct featuring this game I thought of how interesting the concept of a "dress up game" was. I did a little bit of research and found Style Savvy: Styling Star and after playing it I thought, "wow, this genre has so much to offer." It was just such a beautiful experience from beginning to end. And then this comes out and there is just zero attempt at an emotional connection. Am I asking too much for a bit more pathos out of what is essentially just Farming Simulator: But Clothes This Time? Perhaps I am.

Ultimately though, I'm left feeling a bit confused, a bit frustrated, and that lands me on a 2 star verdict.

If you are interested in this game this website has all of the content you're looking for in a more digestible format:

https://laingame.net/index.php?site=0#l4

Start from the bottom and work your way up.

It's a fascinating alternative timeline to an already fascinating
anime. Unfortunately some of the vibes are lost consuming it in this way and Lain as an IP is heavy on the vibes but it's better to lower the barrier of entry and actually interact with the media than just forever have it on the list of things to get around to. At least for me.

I'm not big brained enough to understand Lain going in raw. I watched the anime in college a long time ago and kind of hated it but luckily the anime and the game both have a very lovely hand holdy fanbase willing to explain it all to a dumb dumb like me. After a re-watch of the anime and a playthrough of the game, I get the hubbub. It's all very neato.

Pure kinaesthetic bliss. The immaculate aesthetic aside, just the sheer act of rolling stuff up in this game is incredibly satisfying.

First game is good but this game cleans up the mechanics and has a lot more level variety. I personally like the soundtrack more too.

I know Takahashi didn't want to make this game but I'm glad Namco seemed to force him into doing it. There's a weird push/pull balance between him and Namco that worked out really well. Like Takahashi didn't even want there to be a time limit on levels in the first game. Namco kind of set him straight on some of the more accepted video game standards. The first game was probably like 90% Takahashi and 10% rigid business suit boys and this one seems more like 85/15 which I think is juuuust right.

But that's all just a theory. A GAAAAAAME THEORY.

This and Taco Bell are the only good things to come out of Capitilism. If you haven't tried the 2 dollar Fiesta Veggie Burrito you got to get on that. It's incredible. It does have guac in it though so watch out if you're alergic.

As an amatuer Hockey player of over a decade I have been skating a long long time. I've been to speed skating clinics and camps and I've taught children to skate. Ice skating is something that I am intimately aware of both consciously and unconsciously. When I skate I know how to use every muscle in my body to get the maximum amount of speed out of my stride.

Dustforce is the only game I've ever played that has the mechanical depth and varied level design to simulate a level of kinaesthetics comparable to real world motion. Playing a level in Dustforce gives me the same mechanical bliss that ice skating gives me. Ice skating being a thing that I passionately love and have dedicated more than half my life to.

Video games are cool.

After seeing the Fashion Dreamer trailer on that one Nintendo Direct I was pretty intrigued with the concept of the dress up game as a genre. I’m always on the lookout for cool new gameplay loops, the more ridiculous the better. I've got a cousin who I don’t really peg as a gamer and she says she actually plays dress up games on her phone quite a bit. This intrigued me more. A whole new genre I’ve never given a passing thought to and a trusted confidant insuring me that there is fun to be had. How delightful.

So I researched Fashion Dreamer and any research for Fashion Dreamer will inevitably get you here. Style Savvy: Styling Star is essentially made by the same team and has a bit of a cult following. Not in that trendy way that puts Misfits t-shirts in Walmart but in some other, far more menacing way. Just read the comment section for a Fashion Dreamer youtube video. Who are these people? Where did they come from? Their existence alone is proof of one thing. I think I’m gonna have a pretty good time. I put a lot of stock in the invisible passion of anonymous internet faces.

So a little about me. I am but a humble and lowly wife guy. My close friends and I, in a crowd, are pretty basic and standard dudes. We like to party, we like to wrestle, I’ll throw the pig skin around the ol grid iron when the situation permits. Opposed to how I present online, in real life I’m not unmasculine. But there are certain traits of masculinity that I despise for their toxicity (should come up with a phrase for that). For example men aren’t really supposed to be too emotional unless that emotion is anger. I don’t like being angry, but I LOVE crying. I cry at just about everything. Sometimes the boys and I will get together and watch cool scenes from movies and anime on youtube and just try to cry. Have a bit of a cry off. This is not a joke.

So while I am not unmasculine I am also not ununmasculine (should come up with a phrase for that). Online I present very female. I use a women's name, I always play as female characters when I have the option, and dressing up is a huge selling point for me in a game. Men’s aesthetics are alright but Women’s aesthetics are amazing. Not to sound like a FREAK but I love the aesthetic beauty of women. I love their shape, their movement, and their fashion/design. So Style Savvy has a lot to offer me in the roleplaying department. The one thing I know going in is I can be a girl and I can dress up. Everything beyond that is just gravy and boy this shit is smothered in gravy. But before the gravy, does it excel at the core appeal?

Well yeah obviously I gave it 5 stars.

The basic gameplay loop is as follows:
1) you stock your store with clothes
2) people buy clothes from your store
3) you stock your store with more clothes from the profit

As the game progresses you get more and more clothing options and everything you buy for the store you can also dress up your personal character with. When it comes to customizing your personal character just look up and read the little descriptor for the game. “Choose from over 20,000 new and returning fashion items.” This gameplay loop is satisfying and good. There is kind of too much clothes for it not to be. I came up with 30+ little outfits that I have saved in my scrapbook for my character and she looks fabulous. She’s killing it. Beat mug, limp wrists, V.I.P list, wave, wave, blow a kiss, I’m that bitch, sis.

It was great and occupied maybe 5 hours of the initial gameplay. But here’s the thing. This game is not a 5 hour game this game is an 80+ hour game.

So let’s get into the gravy.

The world is wonderful. Once I got through my initial rush of button mashing through dialogue to get more clothes and become the queen of fashion, I started to actually read the dialogue and pay attention to the story and it’s great. All of the characters are very emotive in talking sections and it’s immediately endearing. Every minor customer has their own little narrative going on with a lot of subtle depth to it. You are of course just a humble and lowly queen god of fashion playing only a small role in their lives, selling them a hat or whatever but over time it starts to really illustrate how much of an effect running a fashion store can have on people. One gal came in initially because she had a class reunion coming up and she wanted to spice up her wardrobe before going. Then she comes back and it was a hit so she wants to change her whole style. Then she comes back again and decides that the new style wasn’t really her and she wants to go back to how she used to dress. The minor customers narratives really emphasis the word minor, but they are also very genuine. The sheer quantity of characters and little narratives implies a very large world outside of the store that breathes a lot of life into the game.

There are 3 main gals who become idols that are regular customers and their narratives are the main story of the game. You track their progress, hang out with them, help them and their agency, and listen to their new songs that are fully voiced with lyrics and absolutely shred. The main story is a sweet little ride and encompasses like 50 other side characters that are all very wonderful and charming little balls of optimism and encouragement. When I take a step back and look at the world as a whole I can’t help but realize: Style Savvy: Styling Star has created the ultimate Feminist Utopia. Move over Barbie (2023). All the characters are open about their feelings and pursuing the arts, making music, baking bread, growing flowers. No one's an ass. To me this world is perfect, I want to live in this world and flail my arms around like a freak during dialogue and strike little poses when the clothes fits real good.

I love this world and just existing in it is a real treat but the game goes beyond that. You live in the world but you also radically help shape it and that is where the secret gameplay loop is revealed.

The initial satisfaction of playing the game comes from just dressing your character up. It’s great and fun and there are a lot of options. But after a while it gets a bit boring, there’s too much freedom in it all. I was like a fashion god with no restrictions, everything I did looked good and I had plenty of money to buy whatever I wanted. It was lonely at the top. When it comes to dressing up my character there wasn’t much to it, no real threat of failure.

At this point during my playthrough the customer characters were all starting to make larger requests. At first they just want singular articles of clothing and most of the time I just gave them whatever matched their criteria that I just happened to have in stock. Some of these people left the store looking absolutely tragic. I regularly mocked their request behind the screen. A stripy scarf? Why not get a big red nose as well you fucking clown. Any customer who wanted something from the “April BonBon” brand were laughed out the door (completely satisfied). There was one instance in particular where I gave a women a $400 button up vest. She was wearing a long sleeve hooded sweatshirt, ripped jeans, and a $400 button up vest over it all. She left the store with the widest smile and I could of cried. From that point forward I vowed: Never again.

So the customers are coming in with bigger budgets and larger request, whole outfits sometimes. And this is where I discovered the real core gameplay loop. My hate for certain brands, my past mistakes in customer fashion, my god like status. It was all intentional. They kept coming back because they trusted me as a beacon of fashion, and they were right. The women with the vest returned and I gave her a leather jacket and it completely evolved her. All the other pieces of her aesthetic and wardrobe clicked into place. She actually looked good. A customer would ask for an “April BonBon” outfit and I'd run to the outlets scouring their stocks to create an outfit that not just satisfied them but satisfied me. They presented me with filth and I made them beautiful. THIS IS EXPRESSION BABY.

It’s one thing to have the infinite possibilities of your created character. I made my perfect women with the exact haircut I wanted and the exact brands and clothes and colors and designs. But when all these customers with their bizarre lives and terrible tastes would come in and I sold them an outfit that looked good DESPITE the aspects of them I didn’t perfectly design in a lab that’s when I started having the BIG FUN. The expression of helping others express themselves is beautifully represented in this game. Then you take another step back and realize just how much you helped build this feminist utopia, at least aesthetically, and how much of a difference you can make just by running a little clothes store.

Then I unlocked the hair boutique and gave everyone pixie cuts and I will admit, things got kind of weird after that.

Ufouria 2 is a genre of game that needs its own name. It's a real hollow nothing bullshit kind of game and I don't mean that derogatorily. The game has such a wonderful cast of characters and a beautifully simple aesthetic and all I want is to have a good time with that core appeal. It's what drew me into playing it in the first place. While mechanically the game is shallow, it is very modern philosophically. The different zones are randomly generated on entry which makes them fresh on revisits, which as a metroidvania, happens frequently. Upgrades are dished out at well calculated intervals. It makes me FEEL like I'm progressing. I don't need to master mechanical complexity in every game I play. Sometimes I just want to enjoy an aesthetic, exist in a world, play a role. But doubly, I dont want to be bored by the game. So while these tricks with the progression and level design may seem cheap (and they admittedly are) they serve the ultimate appeal of the game, which is it's charming aesthetic, and they provide the exact amount of satisfaction and engagement (for my monkey brain at least) necessary to make the short run time fulfilling from beginning to end. The newer Yoshi games could learn a lot from this game.

The Yu-Gi-Oh TCG hit its peak for me from 2011 to early 2014 and this game encapsulates one of those formats. The core gameplay of buying packs of cards, building decks, and dueling randoms is simulated effectively and is strong enough on its own to keep me playing basically every Yu-Gi-Oh game.

Where this game differs, and unfortunately marks the end of, is in its story mode. Even with it's crummy 3D models, weird cowboy aesthetic, and bad racing minigame, the simple act of having a story mode completely changes the game feel. Playing as a character and physically moving around in a world contextualizes the deck in a more intimate way. The deck becomes a part of your character instead of a tool to accomplish your goal. It's the difference between playing a role in a role playing game and playing a card game in a digital card simulator. The difference is subtle but it's there.

I hope future games bring back story mode. If this game proves anything it's that they don't even really have to try that hard.

This is pretty funny being on backloggd. I seriously don't see any difference between it and a visual novel, if anything it has MORE interactivity so it feels more justified in being called a video game.

Homestuck is one of my favorite pieces of art ever. I am rereading it currently and all of the magic is still there. I love the world, I love the story, I love the music, the presentation, the art style. It's all very cash money.

Homestuck comes with a lot of baggage for past, present, and future readers. Whenever Homestuck gets brought up now I can't help but see that the discussion of it is never actually about Homestuck. It's about the fans, it's about the kickstarter, it's about Andrew Hussie's financial woes. I really don't spend a lot of time thinking about any of that. I also don't feel embarrassed about liking Homestuck, which I think is a feeling a lot of would be readers and past readers have a hard time coping with.

But Homestuck at it's core is just a rootin tootin good read.

My favorite aspect is the character to character interactions and the exponential nature of the narrative. At the start you really just have John. Then in Act 2 you throw in Rose. Keep reading and now there is Dave and Jade. And all of these characters are wholly unique and lovable, but then there's also the relationships between each set of characters. A Jade + Rose conversation is vastly different to a Dave + John conversation. They are very nuanced and enjoyable characters in themselves, the combination of two individual kids. Their conversations are so believable, they have their own inside jokes, it rules.

Then you hit Act 5 and 12 more characters are introduced and it's absolutely bananas. The characters are also introduced with a meticulous set of cultural differences. The way the narrative expertly juggles all of this is just such a joy.

I'd be writing forever if I tried to go into every little piece of Homestuck that I think makes it special. It rips ass.

There was a point while playing this game that I thought it was the greatest game of all time. The middle section is so strong. It's right when you've figured out the gameplay (which is unnecessarily complicated but very enjoyable) and the story chapters are these absurd one off slice of life little episodes that barely advance the main plot. One of them has your party split up and unknowingly take opposite sides on a kidnap/bodyguard mission. When the game wants to be funny it's genuinely a laugh out loud experience. You've got two melodramatic teens and Vashyron who can't help but take the piss out of them constantly. The line deliveries, choreography, and voice acting are all on point. Just look up some of the cut scenes from this game, they are hilarious. Most of the game is like this and it is oozing with charisma. I think I finished the first 14 chapters in about 2 months, but once the melodramatic characters took the narrative focus for the last couple chapters it became a huge slog. The last 2 or 3 chapters took me about a year to find the motivation to play through. It was such a low note to go out on and the 4 stars feel unjustifiable but while the lows are low the highs were high. I am happy to be done with the game so I can start reflecting on it fondly.

NOTES:

The games got good hang out vibes. It's all in one area, you can buy lots of clothes, the episodic narrative structure, the characters are always saying little one liners in battle. I don't think Zephyr and Leanne needed these grand narrative conclusions or answers. Just give me fifty missions of them turning the city power back on. I liked that mission.

Pikmin 2 is definitely a grower. At first I was seriously considering giving the game 2 stars, I was just so annoyed with it, but pushing through I started see what the hubub was all about.

First the bad.

I despise the narrative framing of this game. I get the whole anti-capitalism shtick it’s going for but I don’t think it is done particularly well. The debt angle opposed to the survival angle makes me feel like a parasite on the planet, taking advantage of the pikmin for my own personal gain, rather than working together. Which like...I get it, that’s what they are going for, but while Olimar’s curiosity in the first game I find infinitely charming, the constant disgust for nature from the rest of the cast in Pikmin 2 was exhausting and annoying. The letters received at the end of the days are so soulless, I derived very little joy from reading them. The ship’s constant bickering was deeply irritating and Louie’s dumb little meme faces just felt gross. I did not find any of it particularly funny or clever or interesting. It felt old and dry as soon as it was introduced and it sacrificed my favorite aspect of the other 3 games: the juxtaposition between the severity of the goal and the intrigue of the world. The debt has no stakes and the character’s intrigue is non-existent.

This game also starts that trend of needing to add a new pikmin type to every game. I think this trend might be bad actually. In the first game there is a really good balance between the three guys. Red fights good, Yellow throws high, and Blue can go into the water. They are very tactile to the environment and core aspects of the gameplay. The Purple pikmin being as strong as 10 pikmin is a pretty good addition but all the ones after that kind of stink. Like they don’t add to the gameplay in any meaningful way they are just little keys. Now instead of a generic wall you have a poison wall, or an electric wall, or an ice wall, or a glass wall. It kind of only makes the game experience worse and more tedious not to mention aesthetically incoherent. The electric walls are so jarring. The worst thing Pikmin 2 does is dedicate digging to the white pikmin. It’s way too important of a task to dedicate to a rare pikmin you only find in tunnels. The amount of time spent just watching 5 white pikmin dig - tedious.

Okay, I’m done pooping in my diaper. Now for the sort of good.

Boy this is like not even Pikmin. But also what even is Pikmin? I thought I knew what Pikmin was. I thought Pikmin was a game about multitasking and delegating tasks in big open areas but I guess not. Pikmin 2 gets rid of all of that and focuses on combat. At first I didn’t like this but the more I played the more interesting it became. Pikmin mechanically is very unique when approached as an action game. The war of attrition going into a tunnel and slowly losing pikmin as you descend is a very tense experience. I would approach tunnels so meticulously and on more than one occasion would reach the end with just enough pikmin to carry the last treasure. It was a wholly unique and deep satisfaction that only a game like Pikmin could provide. Not knowing how many floors the tunnels had made it very easy to get emotionally invested. You’d reach floor 7 with 40ish pikmin and think “surely this next one is the last one, I can’t take much more of this”.

The tunnels themselves work really well overall. While I think they trivialize the overworld, they also really create a threatening and cramped environment that compliments the combat. The large enemy variety was really cool too. Going deeper and deeper and discovering all the different little freaks. The deeper you go the freakier they get.

The procedural floor layouts were also pretty neat. You’d get a bunch of dead ends and empty tunnels but I like that crap. I like it when a game is inconvenient and kind of dumb. Dead ends feel very real. If everything leads to something it just feels like a game with programming and numbers but having the occasional dead end makes the tunnels feel hostile, not designed for life.

I also didn’t mind the cheapness in this game. I think it compliments the narrative framing. Some bullshit would happened and half of me was irritated but the other half felt like I deserved it. Olimar and co. are playing dirty so I don’t see why the planet can’t as well.

These tunnels, while a lot of the times very tedious, are so uniquely "PIKMIN". There is nothing else like Pikmin and more specifically there is nothing else like Pikmin 2.

Overall this game is weird as heck. I think I hate it. Some of that hate is why I love it. Some of the hate is why I hate it. I think it would be neat if Nintendo made a Pikmin 2 rogue-lite.

SIDE NOTE:
NOWITSREYNTIME17, if you decide to comment on this review please @ me so I can get that badge. Thanks.

I gave the game about an hour before I pulled up a map online. That hour was pretty fun, just meandering in the 3D space. The game is an absolute joy to exist in. The platforming is butter smooth and the PS1 aesthetic is perfect for these big open areas and polygonal obstacles that give you the room to operate but also do a good job translating the destination and platforms.

Once I pulled up the map online I had a lot more direction and it only took 2 or 3 more play sessions to beat the game. The aloofness of the world and narrative was all complemented by the soundtrack and environments. It really maximizes the aesthetic benefits of the PS1's limitations while also maintaining all the modern sensibilities in the controls and camera.

I don't really hold 3D platformers in the same regards as 2D platformers. I think 2D platformers have a lot more room to be precise and challenging without feeling cheap due to limitations in camera and that extra dimension, but damn this game is tight tight tight. Really making me eat my words. Looking forward to replaying this one.

"Here I am, stranded on a toxic planet, fighting to survive, and yet I'm intrigued...I must research this fascinating creature!"

The first Pikmin game is so pure in it's design. The man had a vision and they let him cook. It gains so much in its simplicity. The levels are open and beautiful and have so much variety in their challenges utilizing the core three pikmin. The 30 day time limit provides a really comfortable amount of time to accomplish your goals but also creates a very visceral end point and deadline. The arcade feel with the short run time and multiple different leaderboards promotes replays. Even the terrible little pikmin who get caught on the tiniest of corners - what should annoy me only endears me more. I loved reaching my destination only to turn around and realize 5 or 10 of my guys got left behind under some bridge. I'd think "what are they stupid.....oh well yeah I guess they kind of are"

Pikmin is such a one of a kind game. Olimar is just this tiny tiny dude who overcomes fear and isolation with curiosity. The world is equal parts dangerous and beautiful. The man does not know if he is ever going to see his wife and kids again but he can't worry about that cause the blue pikmin just tilted its head to the side a little bit. My dog does the same exact shit.

How Capcom got this game so right so early in the Gameboy's life is beyond me.

Aesthetically it's got beautiful sprites, a perfect horror atmosphere, and a wonderful soundtrack.

Mechanically it adapts very well to the Gameboys limitations by zooming in, slowing down, and adding a lot of verticality.

The story has good pacing, the RPG elements are fun, and the powerups are satisfying.

It's shorts it's sweet and it just executes everything so dang well. I can't get enough of this game.