A new fashion game was released on the e-shop this month called DIY Fashion Star and I thought why not try it out? I was able to buy it on sale for about $6 which I thought was reasonable. Managed to play a little bit of the game and have some screenshots to share. Now to be honest, this game isn't too amazing or a detailed fashion game but I thought it was be nice to share a short review in case other players are interested in it.
DIY Fashion Star was released on Nintendo Switch (in Australia) on the 1st of March 2024 throught QubicGames. The game is a single player game and can be played on TV Mode or with the joycons. It is rated G which makes sense as the game seems to be catered towards children than adults. I searched for the game on the Google Play store as it just screamed phone app game to me and turns out it was! It had different graphics but the mechanics seems similar. The character selection is pretty basic and there are no customisation options.
On the eShop, you can buy the base game or you can grab the Complete Edition. This version includes the game along with the three DLC sets. I brought the Complete Edition as it wasn't too much and having the DLC gives you more options to choose in the game which I found helped quite a lot. The DLC packs for the game are as follows:- Stylish Outfits - Unlocks more clothing items in the wardrobe
- Glow Up! - Unlocks 2 hairstyles and 10 face-paint options
- Arts & Crafts - Unlocks more clothes and patches in the customisation section
The main focus of DIY Fashion Star is to customise clothing items and create some cool design hacks! You can alter various aspects of clothing and show them off on you character. There are fun selfie competitions to take part in as well along with challenges for designing certain items from requests. Here is a basic idea of how the main part of the game works with this green top being altered into a summer styled top. You choose an item, trim away excess parts, add some designs or patches and viola!
Once you have completed your work, the game has this feed screen where you can post your work and watch a replay of the process. I haven't figured out what use this screen has and the numbers just go up randomly honestly.
Here is the menu screen of the game with all the different options. Your character ranking and profile are displayed on the top left and the feed shown above is in the bottom right. Giant button for the eShop to be annoying even though I already got the DLC. The NPC's shown on the left side are requests you can accept to design certain items. With the buttons on the middle of the menu, the functions are as follows:- Wardrobe - change the clothes your character is currently wearing.
- Hairdresser- Change the hair style, colour and highlights.
- Contest - Enter three types of Selfie challenges.
- Salon - Put on various make-up and face-paint.
- Dress - Customise a dress clothing item.
- Bottoms - Customise a clothing item such as skirts or trousers.
- Tops - Customise a clothing item such as tees or long sleeve tops.
Honestly I thought the selfie contests were kind of silly and fun. Nothing serious and very quick. You basically choose which type of contest you want to enter, take a few photos and the game gives you a random results. Now there is absolutely no sense to this and no mechanics behind it. I've played games from this developer on my switch before and they randomly choose the other challengers and results. I'll mention more of this later but all you need to know is to take a cute photo.
Once you have chosen a winning photo, the game has a little mini game where you pick between two random photos. No idea how these are generated and you can earn more likes by choosing the one that has a higher percentage. Some crazy selfies going on though and the stickers are amusing. It is fun to just spam stickers over everything and wonder if that would increase you chances of winning.
For my first contest, I got second place! Yay! I had no idea what I was doing and next time it was easy to get 1st place. The second screenshot shows the ranking board which means nothing. Another game I've played from this developer had the same thing and it confused me for ages on how it said other people were online but they weren't. So weird and I always feel like the games generate some AI or something.
A quick trip to the salon and I found this part quite fun. There actually is a decent selection of items to choose from and the best part is that you can combine colours! So if you wish to use two tones on the lips, you can! Some of the eyeshadows automatically put various colours on you eyes which is cool. To use the make-up items, you move the cursor over various parts of your face. I accidentally put this face-paint design on my face and couldn't figure out how to remove it. So it ended up staying on my character for a while. The one part I don't like is the heavy mascaras only because I hate clumpy mascara and all of them just look too much for me.
The hair salon is a nice place where you wash and dry your hair before styling. It reminded me of the old flash games I used to play on the Barbie website as a kid. I was crazy about them and I cannot believe I was excited about washing hair whereas now I get annoyed having to wash my own hair. Not a huge range of hairstyles but enough to keep you entertained. I could not figure out the highlights section in the colour part and just left in my horrible streaks.
Took on my first request from an NPC and it turned out great. Nothing amazing looking and no idea who on earth would wear something like this. Honestly some of the clothing in this game is so weird and I never see patterns like this in real life. I couldn't understand how this pattern matched the floral feel of this top so I covered the original design up.
Another contest and this one I maxed out the bonuses you can get. This is the only strategy you can really use for the contests and they are easy to fulfill. Luckily my character was already wearing the required items whatever they were. This time I got first place and some more likes.
Unlocked a new tutorial and can now add drawings to my design. I was really torn about doing it though as I loved this customisation. The skirts was super cute and totally my style. I've always had a thing with scalloped hem skirts in this pattern. Never owned one but I was just really into them back in the pinterest days.
Haven't posted any screenshots of the wardrobe section so here it is! Looks very mobile game and easy to flick through the different items. Some of the DLC items are shown and I personally think it is worth getting these as they give you more items to choose. I always like having more options to choose from in games so it was a good investment to get the Complete Edition.
Encountered my first obstacle in DIY Fashion Star and found a request that I couldn't complete. The game wanted em to use this one top however I could not do it as I do not have enough likes to unlock it. 5000 is a huge amount for this early on in the game. I would have to grind out some contests to get to that number. After seeing this, I gave up on requests for a little while and did something else.
Thought I would design a new dress and I love this item! You cannot chose what way you cut the items and the game decides for you. It was fine by me as I thought it looked great turned into a two piece. For the design, I used the sequin print all over the top and headed out to a contest. No bonus for me and not sure why but I look cute at least.
After going through some random generated player images, I was crowned the winner once more and my rank has moved up to 27. Getting closer to the top and whatever awaits me. Funny how the game just writes YOU even though you Nintendo Switch player name is displayed on the player information screen.
DIY Fashion Star is a fun and basic game for anyone looking for a quick fashion fix. Whilst not as detail as other stylist games, it is fun for a short time frame like 10 or 20 minutes. I enjoyed it as it let me turn my brain off and play some random mini games. You could probably max out the ranking within a few hours of playing and it would take some time to gain a good amount of likes to unlock all the items. I would recommend this game for a younger audience and to purchase when the game is on sale. Surprisingly I purchased it on sale close to the release date and felt like I got my moneys worth. I will be picking it up again to play as I like to play games like this when I only have a small amount of time to play.
Hopefully this review has been helpful to anyone looking to know more about DIY Fashion Star and gives more insight into the fashion elements of the game. I'm always on the lookout for more styling games on the Switch so I try to purchase them all to review on my blog. There are a few on the eShop that I won't be purchasing as they do not look good or too childish. Those I tend to stay away from as I know I will be disappointed.
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