Style Boutique DS Play Journal: Back To Where It All Began

Recently found a copy of the original Style Boutique game for the Nintendo DS in a local game store and I've been playing a little bit of the game this week. Totally forgot how old this game was! And the graphics! I used to play the game when it first came out but traded my copy in years ago when I was clearing out some stuff once. It's exciting to have the game again and go back to the simple game mechanics. So I thought I would post a play journal on my activities in the game. It will kind of cover the main aspects of the story line as well, but not a detailed walkthrough. Since photos don't save the same way as the later games, I've just taken photos of the screen from my phone, so excuse any low quality pictures.

When you first start the game, you are asked to come into Primavera by Grace who runs the boutique. You need to provide her with some basic information about yourself and she will explain how to serve customers once you start working at boutique. You will serve some customers and Grace tells you how to save at your apartment. Eventually the Exhibition Hall unlocks when Grace requests you to stock up on some trousers. Style Boutique DS has exclusive items at the Exhibition Hall, so I picked up a pair of the exclusive trousers from Terra (the game's version of Soy). Grace tells you that you can change your clothes at home now which I headed off to do changing into a preppy inspired outfit. She wasn't impressed and turns out I was meant to put on the Terra trousers. Oops! I was just too excited to create my own outfit that I totally forgot. Once you have the right pair of trousers on, a customer will ask to buy the exact ones. After this I just kept serving customers until Renee asked for some help. She was having trouble picking out a top for a customer and boy was she doing a bad job. Just look at this lively style top she gave someone who clearly isn't into lively stuff!

I had to pick out a much more appropriate top for the customer which wasn't that hard Renee! It's a bit weird playing a game where the styles/images and brands are slightly different. I've just been going off the brand names for now as I recognise what styles they belong to. I'm sure I'll remember it all once I play the game a bit more. So I gave her this top from Alvarado as it suited her current outfit. And it looked a billion times better!

Renee wasn't too impressed with my skills. Her character is portrayed a bit snarky at the beginning of the game. Her dialogue is quite amusing though, kinda reminds me of Camille a bit from Styling Star with being a bit of a jerk sometimes.

As I mentioned before, the brands and styles are slightly different in the original game. Some of the current brands exist such as AZ-USA, Marble Lily and April Bonbon. The styles have some interesting names such as sassy. You can check which brands are at the Exhibition Hall by checking the calendar icon at the bottom of the right hand screen. I find this handy to check before I head out to the location. The brand representative for Marble Lily is super adorable! I took a picture of hair because I loved how old school her clothing looks.

There's a story point where Grace goes to talk to Godfrey at the mansion and they bring your character up. Godfrey will ask what your character looks like and here you can decide on your appearance. The selection is pretty limited as it would be for the first game in the series. I wasn't too fond of the lip selection, but I thought I did an alright job of my character. Eventually your character and Renee will run into Godfrey at the park and you talk to him about some boutique related stuff.  Then I just kept serving customers really, the story moves at a decent pace and not much needs to be unlocked. I quite liked the first girls lively style outfit and the second girl decided to swap from a cool look to baby-doll and it was tragic.

Dominic finally showed up at the boutique and Renee went mental at his good looks. I remember when the game was out seeing google searches of how to date Dominic in the game. There was an expansion in Japan that allowed something like this I recall, but I just remember western players always going nuts over his character. There's a bunch of talk about opening a second boutique in the city and you are chosen to run in. You can choose from a pre-design selection of boutique layouts however the brands you will attract with each style are limited. I picked the girly/preppy style one as they are my favourite images. You can change the music and there are three mannequins available to dress as well. Like seriously why does the first game have three mannequins yet we still only have one in the later ones!?!?

Renee comes along with you to work at your boutique. I decided to call my boutique Marzipan in honor of the Marzipan Sky brand and my blog title. I couldn't fit the word Sky in the title, so it got left as just Marzipan. Main characters will appear at your boutique such as the owners of the Hair Salon, Beautician and the photographer Libby. I did unlock the Hair Salon and Beautician during my play sessions, so I have those available now. The selection is limited but at least I can buy more eyeshadow colours! The editor of the Nuances magazine will appear at the boutique as well. Nuances is a magazine which you can access early on in the game at the bottom of the right screen. It has details on the hottest looks of the season and information about what's going on in the game style wise.

And that's it for my first play journal of Style Boutique DS! I'm enjoying the game so far, I love how simple and un-involved it is. I don't really have to do much besides serve customers and buy stuff. There are a few things that I'm not fond of such as the extremely small stock space you have at the boutique. I know you can expand but seriously like 20 spaces to buy items is ridiculous. Other than that, I hate playing the game sideways. It was easier back in the day with the original DS and DS Lite models. I have a DS Lite and I still remember struggling with the sideways concept. I'm playing the game currently on my original 3DS XL as I wanted to have it on there so if I'm out it's easy to just swap the cartridge in. I'm interested to see more clothing items in the game and see how much of a difference there is with the newer designs.