Revisiting My Styling Star Demo Review

It has been a year since I posted my review of the New Style Boutique 3: Styling Star Demo and almost a year since the game came out. I went back recently and read through my demo review and boy were my ideas and opinions on the game features and content different from the actual thing. I thought it would be interesting to revisit my review and look back at what I thought the game would be like compared to what it actually is. You can check out my original post of the Demo Review here to read about what I thought about it and it's a good idea to read that post before this one.

First off, the story of Styling Star. Now at first I was interested in the idol themed story line as Avex was advertised as involved in the development in the promotional material. Quite a large number of my J-Pop collection was released through Avex so I had high hopes for the content. The soundtrack wasn't a disappointment and there was a wide range of songs included in the final game. In my original post I talked about an in-depth story line which I felt the game had in the end. Just a bit too restricted. You don't get any of the fun side stories like the old Five Sisters ones from Fashion Forward and once you finish the main story line, nothing happens in the game. Besides Shopdo and doing outfit challenges, I'm pretty bored with the game lately as there is no challenge or story lies to complete. All the NPC's like Hafsa and Molly will not leave me alone! I complete their requests and story lines then they come straight back. I've skipped the game forward years and they are still the only customers I get. That is one of the main reasons I've lost interest in the game because beyond the main story line, the city and boutique isn't that engaging.

Avex delivered the goods soundtrack wise.

The men's fashion aspect of the game turned out a lot better than what I thought it would be. The male customers are limited to their own boutique and don't clog up my boutique like they used to in Trendsetters which drove me nuts. I worked at the Menswear Shop for a little while to earn money but haven't touched it since. The male clothing items are nice though, I wish we could get some of them for the female brands.

Originally I thought you wouldn't be able to change your assistant as that is what the demo stated but turns out you could once you completed the main story line. I'm yet to change mine so not something I've taken advantage of. I often dress my assistant up to match the interior of my boutique. I just wish you could change their appearance, I just really want to dye Sylvia's hair to match her outfits better.

The one time Sylvia's hair matched her outfit.

I talked about using the contact cards to check items that you previously sold to a customer and how I thought that was a great feature. Not gonna lie, I've actually never used it funnily enough. I do check the cards however to see what style the customers like to find the chic style ones. Sometimes I check the hearts but I've maxed out a large number of them so it doesn't really do anything.

Nails are a nice addition and one of the better new features of the game. Most of the time I use the french tip style ones from the basic category as they are the closest to my real life nails and look good with most outfits.

The nail set I wear like 85% of the time in Styling Star.

I'm always a fan of achievements and it was a pain to get some of them as I had no clue what they were. After doing some investigating on Japanese sites, I eventually worked out what I was missing. Yet to get the money ones but I cannot be bothered grinding to get those huge amounts and I do not have the time to do so. It's bad enough trying to get the Animal Crossing New Leaf badges.

Items wise I'm glad you can wear glasses and earrings together. Still a pain with scarfs and necklaces. Mainly because I want to be jerk and sell two items to one customer to earn more money haha. The headphones turned out to be for the Stage Dive brand as I thought plus April Bonbon. But they were quite limited with only a small selection available. The headphones also look quite similar in design and I would've liked to have seen some other styles like thinner or basic coloured ones.

Honestly what is this necklace design?

Recommendations from brand representatives turned out to be a dud. It only selects random items for you and if you keep pressing it, it will eventually select all the items. I thought it would be like limited edition items which the original game had but it wasn't sadly. Seriously Nintendo, why does the original DS game have better features like Limited Edition items and multiple mannequins yet the newer games don't.

In my original post I talked about the amazing online features and how we could visit other players boutiques. I feel like I don't need to talk about this because we all know about the dumb region locking feature. Turns out I cannot visit ALL players but I do enjoy updating my Shopdo though. Plus for that and minus for the complete lack of local multiplayer.

A recent Shopdo outfit which I loved.

When the demo first came out, I was super disappointed in the in-game clock. One year later I'm kinda fine with it actually. You need it because the game limits what you can do in one day. Plus it made collecting all the items much easier. Make-up sets ended up just being unlocked automatically and the unlocking colours concept was removed completely to the excitement of many players. I kinda miss the challenge and fun of trying to find them and talking to Rainbow.

Still not a fan of the layout of the make-up section. Sometimes I really like a colour of eye shadow or lipstick and do you think I can find it again. I only really use the pink and brown tones honestly. I'm pretty unimaginative with my make-up looks. I think there's room to grow with make-up styles with different eyeliner patterns and glitter.

The only times my make-up turned out well

The only times my make-up turned out well

I'm not fussed about the map layout personally, I only really go to NIN10 for the photo studio and my apartment nowadays. I could cut all that out if I could change my outfit whilst taking photos. I do miss the characters showing up as little icons rather than the contact card on the bottom 3DS screen. Playing the game made me realise how much I miss this feature from Fashion Forward.

On the topic of sleep in the game, once I got past the main story line I have to do this a lot in order to get customers to my boutique. I only get less than 10 (sometimes 5) customers to my boutique per day and sleep is needed to progress to the next day. This is more of a problem with customers spanning than the sleep feature though.

The Caprice Chalet feature was removed completely and that makes me sad. I loved designing little rooms and working out what themes worked for certain customers. Decorating the boutique is not the same and I often hit the limit for items you can place down. Also can I move the stupid counter please! It always throws off the symmetry of my designs and I prefer looking at the counter face on. The number of miniatures in the game also was cut drastically and many of my faves were removed. Not entirely sure why the developers did this, was there just not room for them? Who knows.

Farewell Charming Shelves :(

I was also off the mark design item wise as the developers actually removed a large number of the designs. And they just happened to be my favourite designs sadly. Oh how I miss the bear tights. They were like the only design I ever wore or made. I use the design feature occasionally when I have some inspiration but it's a bit limited. I recently created a guide for the designer items and I was surprised at how few patterns there was for each item. Most items only have 4 patterns and one of those is the plain pattern.

#bringbackbeartights

Streetflow wasn't shown in the demo and then didn't show in the full game. So it got the cut. Let's take bets on what brand will get the cut next if they make another game. My money is on Soy as it didn't get too many new items in Styling Star.

Now we'll look at my list of features I wanted to see in Styling Star and if they came true or not (Spoiler - most didn't):

• New hairstyles - We did get a whole bunch of new amazing hairstyles. Long Plaited Half-Updo is my ultimate style in the game. All the hairstyles were Fashion Forward were jumbled up into new categories as Updo Styles was removed as a category. I predicted we would get new Baby-Doll hairstyles but it seemed they were the main ones to be removed.
• DLC - Nope. That's all I'm gonna say about that matter as there's completely nothing to discuss :(
• New train station locations - Well at least we get to see the inside of the train station now. And that's about it as the train station locations were removed but you do visit some during events of the main story line.
• New style or brand - Still nothing new in this department. The new items were amazing though.
• More mannequins - The game actually made it harder to sell outfits from mannequins and you have to use tricks to keep outfits moving.
• More varied requests - I kinda got what I asked for because customers were asking for specific items and that's about it. You rarely got full outfit requests expect from customers from certain styles (i.e. gothic).

Who hasn't got this request? Like a billion times.

The amiibo content is pretty lacklustre in Styling Star and not like the unique clothing items from Fashion Forward. I was disappointed to find that you just scan the amiibo in through a menu rather than having to serve a customer based off the Mii. My friends and I used to find it hilarious to scan in our Mii's and see what the game would generate. I have all the amiibo designs and emblems unlock but I rarely wear them. The Kirby and Animal Crossing ones would be my favourite and the Yoshi emblem is the cutest on the raglan t-shirt designs.

It seems a lot of my predictions for Styling Star were way off and some of the game features were quite surprising to me. I wasn't expecting so much content to be removed from the game, especially key game elements like fashion shows. I've talked about this before but I feel Styling Star is a sequel to Trendsetters rather than Fashion Forward. The game mechanics and features feel closer to the game play of Trendsetters. I've talked about ideas I'd like to see in a possible sequel here if you are interested to read about what I'd like to see in the next game. I'm guessing the next game would possibly come out on the Switch as that's Nintendo's focus console currently. I'm yet to buy a Switch but may purchase one if Animal Crossing Switch is amazing.