There are a lot of video games I would place on my list of 'formative' games. On Christmas '98, I got my first PS1 with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Crash Bandicoot, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Spyro the Dragon, and Tekken 3 included. In the next few months, I would add to that collection through 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tomb Raider & Tomb Raider 2, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon Blue on Game Boy Color, while beating 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Mario World on my uncle's NES. That's a solid run of hits right off the bat, and all of those would be contenders for my top ten still today. There are others, later, that also shaped my journey as a gamer. But despite the hours I spent playing them as a kid, dress-up games never cross my mind. Fashion Dreamer is a reminder that they should.
Maybe it was the sensation that they weren't 'real' games, or that it was shameful to participate in them when there were so many much edgier games with bones and bloodshed to explore. But fashion games, particularly Monster High: New Ghoul In School, were crucial to moulding the person that I am as much as the gamer that I am. It's why, despite the sea of huge triple-A hits we need to swim through to reach the shores of 2024, I know I will find myself taking solace on the buoy of Fashion Dreamer while I gather my strength.
I played half an hour of early game Fashion Dreamer at Gamescom, and spoke to the developers for close to an hour. Most of the interview was via a translator, but the director said exactly two sentences in English. The first was "My name is Tetsuro Takita, hello," and the second was "I like your clothes". Praise from Caesar. I had made a conscious effort to look fashionable at the show, knowing it would be awash with plain white tees and gamer merch, and the day I played Fashion Dreamer had even given in to a less-fashionable urge to wear my Eras Tour t-shirt. But playing Fashion Dreamer, and spending an hour at a gaming convention just chatting about clothes, solidified the importance of those games to me, and why I'm so glad Fashion Dreamer is springboarding off Style Savvy into creating something fresh.
The game itself is packed with an endless array of clothing. I was relatively early-game in our preview, and still had a large assortment of options. The game has two different covers, one in Asia and North America and the other in Europe, so I asked if the game inside differed in any way. It does not, and that's because, Takita and producer Keisuke Kamiyama tell me via a translator, the game merges Eastern and Western fashion styles to ensure that wherever you play from, you'll be able to find local styles and more exotic ones too.
The gameplay loop itself seemed straightforward, but rewarding. You create your character (up to four on one save), and then earn or buy clothes for them. As you go through the game, you'll meet NPCs who want specific outfits, and need to use your wardrobe to provide it. Clothes can be won from challenges or through in-game gacha or bingo (using currency generated in game, rather than real money), but most innovative is when playing online, if you see an outfit you like, you give that person a thumbs up and you get their clothes.
Knowing that the game is likely to attract some younger players and a more casual audience, the devs were careful on how online play is implemented. There's no voice chat or even messaging, only the ability to snap photos and leave a thumbs up - it's at this point that Takita demonstrates with a thumbs up for my drip, picking me out of all the other game journalists in the room because, well, have you seen how game journalists dress? They tell me the goal is to "make sure that one person on one side of the globe can connect with another on the opposite side through fashion," which is why the online element plays so heavily.
It's also innovative in allowing you to create your own clothing and even make a logo to affix to all of your designs, which can spread around the world if they're popular enough. I think wandering the world will become more expansive as you venture further into the game, but from what I've seen I think the structure seems perfect for a game of this nature. I already bookmarked a couple of items in my mind that I can use to recreate some of Taylor Swift's best outfits, which will be my side goal throughout the game.
The thing I'm most curious about is the narrative set-up. In almost every fashion game I've played, you are either a stylist or a designer (the roles of which the games often confuse anyway), and start at the bottom before making your way to the runway and the red carpet. In Fashion Dreamer though, there is a modern twist. You're an influencer, trying to gain followers throughout the game. I think it's a more vapid goal than wanting to create fashion itself, but it's definitely more modern and I'm hopeful that a new approach will leave space for new ideas as Fashion Dreamer tries to offer an evolution to the dress-up formula.
Fashion Dreamer launches November 4 on Switch, and feels like the ideal next stilettoed step for dress-up games to make. It's aiming at a very particular audience, but it nails their sensibilities and is unapologetically a celebration of fashion and positivity. All we have to do is pray that the final fitting goes to plan.