Welcome back to Franchise Festival, where we explore and discuss noteworthy video game series from the last four decades. Older entries can be found here.

For this week’s Franchise Festival, prepare yourself for a world where literally everything revolves around boutique clothing shops and high-end fashion shows. It’s an exploration of the surprisingly under-the-radar Nintendo second-party franchise Style Savvy, with special guest writer Demyx! Thanks, SingingBrakeman, for allowing me to take over your feature this week!

I recommend brightening your day and getting into the mood by watching the following video:

Background

The Style Savvy series currently consists of four games, one for the Nintendo DS and the other three for the Nintendo 3DS. Confusingly, the franchise is called Girls Mode in Japan and Style Boutique in Europe. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of information about the development of these games readily available. In fact, part of my motivation for writing this Franchise Festival article was to bring attention to an excellent franchise that is sorely overlooked and has almost no coverage on even niche video game websites.

Style Savvy was developed by Syn Sophia, a Japanese development company founded in 1995, originally named AKI Corporation. Up until the release of the first Style Savvy game, they were best known for wrestling games such as WCW/nWo Revenge for the Nintendo 64.

Why did they decide to switch gears from wrestling games to aggressively cheerful fashion games? This Iwata Asks column provides some insight:

I had always been interested in clothing, so the idea of a game focusing on fashion really attracted me. Even that single sheet made an impact. There had never been a game like that, and since the theme was something I myself liked, I thought we could make something fun….  I’d always been incredibly interested in the fashion world, so I thought it would be awesome if that interest joined together with my other favorite thing, which is video games.

This same article also talks about an interesting early design decision. When the game was in prototype stages, the entire interface was very childish, with pink hearts and paw prints. The developers were concerned that having such a childish presentation would clash with the overarching idea of the game, to make stylish, coordinated outfits out of real-world clothes. The presentation was therefore changed to be more sophisticated, similar to fashion magazines for adults, so the game could be appreciated equally by adults and children.

Fight for Your Style!

While the first Style Savvy has some unusual elements that were dropped later, the core gameplay of all four games remains approximately the same. Since many people are not familiar with these games at all, let’s start by quickly summarizing the basic ideas.

In each game, you begin by designing your player avatar — always female, with a limited amount of customization choices (at first!) At the beginning of the game, your avatar is offered a position assisting in a small fashion boutique, which allows the game to present its tutorial. At the end of the tutorial, the shop is turned over to you.

Customers enter your shop, and make requests for clothing. Sometimes they’ll ask for one particular item, such as a red hat or a blazer for a job interview. Sometimes they’ll ask for an article of clothing that matches what they’re currently wearing, such as a pair of shoes to go with their skirt. Often, they’ll ask for an entire outfit, generally conforming to a particular style, such as a punk outfit for a rock concert or a cute, feminine outfit for a date night. An outfit must include both tops and bottoms (or a dress) and shoes, but there are many categories of accessories that can be added: hats, glasses, earrings, socks, jackets, scarves and more. Accessories improve the outfit but also raise the price, and most customers have a budget in mind.

If you match the customer’s request and avoid clashing colors and styles, you’ll be rewarded with a happy patron who will return to your shop. Fail, and they’ll walk out without buying anything. To stock your store, you’ll visit the Buyers’ Center, where you can buy many different types of clothing wholesale. You can also customize your shop in various ways: for example, by designing a window display with a mannequin, or hiring a particular assistant.

Based on this description, you may assume that this is a shop simulator, and it technically is. However, it’s fairly simple and almost impossible to “lose” in any meaningful sense. The goal is not truly to run an efficient shop, but to create the most appealing or outrageous outfits based on your customers’ requests and what you have on hand.

While running the clothing boutique is the main activity in each of the games, they all feature other activities. New activities, features, clothing brands and more are generally unlocked by successfully fulfilling customer requests.

Style Savvy

The first game in the series, called simply Style Savvy, was released for the Nintendo DS in 2008. It has the unusual distinction that you are meant to hold the DS sideways, like a book. For this reason, it is unlikely that it will ever be ported.

Even the first game features ten thousand separate apparel items. Because creating outfits is the main purpose of the game, significant care is taken to make sure all of the clothing items actually work well with each other, and there is no clipping or awkwardness between any two items. The Iwata Asks column linked above goes into more detail about how long it took them to actually evaluate the interactions between ten thousand clothing items.

The first game introduced the concept of fashion shows. When you enter a fashion show, you are given a certain theme, and are required to put together an outfit that embodies that theme — it must also be color coordinated, of course. At the end of the show you are given a rating based on the quality of your outfit.

The first game also introduced the series’ tastes and brands, which would more or less carry through to the other three games, although there were many name changes and slight tweaks to the brand list. Each brand specializes in a different “taste” of clothes, although there’s generally some overlap. For example, Marzipan Sky is a brand that specializes in “girly” clothes, but they also make some clothes that fit “basic,” “feminine” or “lively” tastes. Many requests and all fashion shows require the player to stick primarily to a single taste.

All of the Style Savvy brands and tastes are based on real-world women’s fashion in Japan. Here are some of the fashion tastes that commonly appear in the series:

• Girly style consists of lots of pink, frills, ribbons, skirts, sundresses and cute accessories.
• Feminine style is Girly’s older cousin: sophisticated clothes you might expect a young woman to wear to the office or to a special occasion.
• Bold style makes a statement. Expect deep colors, chunky gold jewelry, oversized sunglasses, knee-high boots and more.
• Rock is similar to Bold but with more of a punk vibe. This is where you’ll find glitter, ripped jeans, leather jackets and metal spikes.
• Lively or Pop consists of brightly colored, extravagant clothing. It’s the bane of my existence because it’s ugly, gaudy and doesn’t coordinate with anything else.
• Basic style consists of, well, basics. In the later games, it’s very clearly based off of popular Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo.
• Gothic is all about the elaborate gothic lolita style, a Japanese fashion subculture that involves elaborate dresses, bonnets and knee socks.
• Baby Doll is the cute, pink version of the Gothic style.
• Boho-chic references the real world style of the same name, with earth tones, flowing skirts and flower crowns.
• Preppy is exactly what you’d expect: lots of plaid, sweater vests and oxford shoes.
• Eastern consists of traditional Japanese clothes such as kimonos, and more modern clothes influenced by those styles.
• Retro encapsulates the psychedelic looks of the 60s, 70s and 80s.
• Chic is always the most expensive of the tastes, and represents the world of haute couture.

The brands changed over time — Flirty existed for two games and was later dropped, and Sporty was eventually folded into Basic, for example — but most of these are series mainstays that began in the first game.

The first game had mixed reviews, with reviewers citing the lack of difficulty and repetitiveness of the gameplay loop, but it sold well, leading to the second game in the series.

Style Savvy: Trendsetters

Trendsetters was released in 2012 for the Nintendo 3DS, and improved upon the original game in many ways. To begin with, this game features twelve thousand clothing items, including reworks of many of the less popular or interesting items from the first game.

This entry notably introduced mens’ fashion to the series. This feature, which seems like an obvious addition, was ultimately regarded as a misstep by many fans of the series. The clothing options for men were limited, and men were less likely to enter the shop than women, making it unprofitable to use up any of your storeroom space on mens’ clothes. One interesting note about the mens’ clothing in this game is that, because the developers were aware that their primary audience was girls and women, the mens’ clothing included in the game is based around ideals of what women might like to see men wear, rather than clothing that men prefer.

A more successful addition to the series was real world seasons, similar to Animal Crossing. These seasons affect what the Buyers’ Center sells and what customers are willing to buy. In the winter, few customers will be willing to leave the shop if you don’t include a jacket in their outfit, and in the summer, everyone is looking for sleeveless tops and short skirts.

The story is fairly basic: it involves your player character being left in charge of the shop by fashionista Michaela and forming a friendly fashion rivalry with your co-worker Emmylou. NPCs occasionally invite you to little story events in other locations in town. You can also visit the hair salon and makeup studio to change your player character’s hair and makeup.

When designing Trendsetters, the developers consulted with actual stylists, as revealed in this Iwata Asks article. This collaboration inspired them to do a lot of tweaking to what the game considers a good outfit. If you make it too permissive, then there is no reward for putting effort into crafting an outstanding ensemble. On the other hand, if you make it too strict, then it only rewards very obvious combinations and does not allow for the personal touch of an item or two that are slightly unusual.

Trendsetters was more refined and better received than the previous game, and is considered by many to be the best in the series, even though the other two entries introduced many more features.

Style Savvy: Fashion Forward

The third game in the series, Fashion Forward, was released in 2015. This entry features a whopping nineteen thousand clothing items, but is more notable for adding several new modes of gameplay to the series — while cutting the relatively unpopular mens’ clothing.

The main selling point of Fashion Forward is the four new jobs added (in addition to the classic job of running the fashion boutique):

• Hairstyling. Running the hair salon requires the player to fulfill customer requests, much like in the clothing boutique, except they must choose hair styles and colors instead of clothes.
• Makeup. Working as a makeup artist also involves fulfilling customer requests, but with a twist: many of the customers have a picture of another person wearing the makeup they want to emulate, and you must match it as closely as possible.
• Modeling / photography. To take modeling jobs, you must respond to an ad specifying a certain type of outfit, and then participate in a photo shoot where you’re asked to take particular photos. For example, you may be asked to wear a bright, cheerful outfit and go to a carnival to film an ad for a watch brand.
• Designing. This game introduces the perhaps obvious feature of designing your own clothes from a wide variety of options and colors.

Each of these jobs is more or less optional apart from certain story events, so you can play these modes as much or as little as you want.

One unusual feature specific to this game is that you unlock new colors (used for hair dye, makeup and clothing designs) by taking pictures in certain places at certain times of day and presenting them to the incredibly irritating character Rainbow.

The annoying part of this feature is that specific colors can only be had at particular times of day, during particular seasons, or worse, during rarely triggered cutscenes. Apart from hints received by NPCs, there’s no indication when a scene includes a new color, either — you have to guess, and then show each screenshot to Rainbow in the hopes that she’ll recognize a new color. Unfortunately, it’s necessary to put some effort into this unless you want to be stuck with a small handful of default colors.

The opening of Fashion Forward features the Alice-in-Wonderland-esque conceit that you’ve been shrunken down to enter a magical town full of fashion where your grandmother once ran a shop and was beloved by everyone. After the opening, this framing device is rarely mentioned again. There is, however, a dollhouse that you can decorate with miniatures that unlock through performing various tasks. When you decorate the dollhouse with miniatures, the rooms you create then appear as locations in the “real world,” allowing you to take pictures there.

Fashion Forward is a fun game, and one must give the developers credit for introducing many new ideas compared to Trendsetters, which was mostly a refinement of the first game. The problem is that these new features tend to be on the half-baked side and detract a bit from the core gameplay, which is, on the whole, slightly weaker than Trendsetters. For example, there’s a particularly baffling design decision where, once you do a fashion show involving a certain theme, the vast majority of your customers will make requests for that theme and nothing else for several days, which quickly grows tedious. Despite the new clothing options and occupations, Trendsetters may be a better option overall in terms of fashion gameplay.

Which leaves us with one more game…

Style Savvy: Styling Star

The latest entry in the Style Savvy series, Styling Star, was released in 2017. It was digital-only in North America, where we received the European version of the game instead of a dedicated NA English translation, forcing me to relearn all of the brand names and remember that a jumper is a sweater and not a 90s-esque one-piece abomination.

While this entry, of course, adds new clothing items — we’re up past twenty thousand now — it also cuts some of the middling additions of Fashion Forward. Color finding is thankfully gone. There is furniture you can collect to decorate your shop and apartment, but there’s far less of it than the miniatures in Fashion Forward. Hair, makeup and clothing design all return, but they are de-emphasized in favor of the traditional gameplay of running the clothing boutique. The makeup studio does add a minor new addition in the form of nail design, and menswear returns as a side attraction — this time, in the form of a dedicated menswear shop where you can occasionally work if you want a break from womens’ clothes.

What replaces all these lost features? Styling Star has a much greater emphasis on its story and characters. While the previous entries featured very slight stories about your player character building a successful business and rising to the top of the modeling world, in this game, your player character takes a much more behind the scenes role. Your character becomes the personal stylist to three up-and-coming music stars:

• Rosie Mayfield is a sweet, clumsy country girl new to the city who wants to become a cheerful pop singer. She favors the Girly style of clothes, but is also interested in trying out Rock clothing.
• Alina Golding is a big fuckin’ nerd who aspires to be a big star on the game’s equivalent of Youtube. She eventually gets a job promoting her favorite mobile game. She normally wears Pop clothes, but loves dressing up in Gothic clothes for particular music videos.
• Yolanda Artemesia is the wealthy heir to a fancy hotel who would rather be a pop singer than take over her family’s business. She’s pressured into wearing Feminine clothes in her every day life, but she really prefers Bold clothing.

They’re pretty basic archetypes, but sharp writing and a fun supporting cast makes them lovable. Instead of your player becoming a model yourself, story events usually involve designing outfits for these idols’ performances. Later, more characters join in the fun, culminating in a storyline where all three girls, who have up until this point never met, are forced by the agency to form a group and put on a concert together. (In a funny turn of events, they do not immediately become either friends or rivals; instead, they’re mostly baffled by why the agency thinks putting together three clashing styles is a good idea.)

There’s also a lot of silly specialty fashion events, such as having to put together ski outfits when you’re whisked off to a ski chalet by a rich celebrity, or having to put together a maid outfit for Yolanda so she can sneak out of her family’s hotel unseen. Personally, I prefer the story events of Styling Star, which build on the core series gameplay, over the tepid side features of Fashion Forward. There’s even a New Game Plus mode where you can carry over all of your money and clothing unlocks while playing the story over again.

This entry was overall the best reviewed of any of them, but it unfortunately was sent out to die in North America (a download-only game on Christmas Day!) and sales were disappointing. In that light, it remains to be seen if we’ll ever get an entry for the Switch.

Conclusion

Here, we have a Nintendo second-party series that is well-made and generally well-loved by those who play it. Why, then, is this series surprisingly obscure?

An uncharitable answer lies in the franchise’s Japanese name: Girls Mode. Casual games aimed primarily at women are often bypassed by the mainstream gaming press. Even the much larger franchise Animal Crossing took many years to be treated as a “real” game and not a strange novelty.

Another potential answer, however, is that Style Savvy is a lot like another severely underrated Nintendo series: Rhythm Heaven. Its niche gameplay and subject matter may mean that it will never become well-known, instead serving as a treat for those looking to scratch a particular itch.

I hope that this article gives you a bit of background on what makes these games interesting and well worth your time if you’re the kind of person who loves playing dress-up in video games.

Feel free to discuss the series in the comments below — or, in the likely case that you haven’t played any of them — talk about which fashion “taste” you would be into if you were a Style Savvy customer.

Here’s the list of upcoming Franchise Festival articles!

• #85: Sonic the Hedgehog, 1991-1996 – April 3
• #86: Sonic the Hedgehog, 1998-2006 – April 10
• #87: Sonic the Hedgehog, 2008-2017 – April 17
• #88: Sonic the Hedgehog Spinoffs – April 24
• #89: The Witcher – May 1

There’s also a Franchise Festival podcast available here!

That’s all for me! Next week we’ll be back to SingingBrakeman and his apparently extensive overview of the Sonic series.