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.

New Style Boutique 3: Styling Star Demo Review

So the demo for New Style Boutique 3: Styling Star was released a few weeks ago and now that I've played it a few times, I thought I'd share my thoughts on the demo. Now I'm just reviewing the content of the demo and not the content of the final game. The actual game won't be out until later this month and the anticipation is killing me waiting for it to be released.

At first I was surprised the demo was available so early! I thought it wouldn't be released until at least November. It's your typical Nintendo demo that only allows you to play it 30 times. I've never actually gone over this amount, but maybe you can re-download the demo if you reach the maximum amount of plays.

New Style Boutique: Styling Star is the fourth installment in the series and this game seems to be a lot more story specific than the previous one. Nintendo seems to be pushing the popstar angle of the game and the careers of the pop stars will be influenced by your activities such as picking their outfits. It's an interesting new concept and it's nice to see Nintendo trying to put an actual in depth story line into the game rather than random events that happened (i.e. the Five Sisters in Style Boutique 2). I haven't seen enough of the story elements to comment on whether I like them yet, but it's great to see Nintendo brought back some male characters into the game. 

And on that topic, men's fashion has also returned! Now to be honest, I didn't like the men's fashion aspect of New Style Boutique because I got bored dressing the male character's up. I prefer designing outfits for females as I have more creativity for that. I also found my boutique would only get male customers after a certain amount of time and that was one of the reasons I stopped playing New Style Boutique. I could never get female customers to appear for months no matter what I tried. I guess a lot of people like the male aspect as a lot of people tell me they wish the game had dating or you have a boyfriend. I guess I'm just too old for that feature to appeal to me haha.

The new items look amazing!

Now on to aspects of the demo that I found interesting and enjoyed in the demo:

• There's a wide range of customisation options for your characters appearance. I always get stumped on the height one for some hilarious reason. Having to pick between medium height and tall height is such a difficult decision for me! 
• Boutique assistants have returned but the demo said you won't be able to change them around like you could in a previous game. Not sure who I will pick in the end as none of the options jumped out to me as amazing. 
• Contact cards have been revamped and thankfully it now tells you items you have sold to the customer before. Thank you Nintendo! This used to annoy me so much with the main characters in Style Boutique 2 as I forgot all the time which items I had given them before.
• The ability to customise your nails! Oh my good, I was wishing this would be in the next game and I can't believe it is! You can only pick from per-designed ones though, but at least that's something. 
• Achievements are an excellent new feature. Now I'm a person who enjoys achievements as I like having something to work towards to. It looks like there will be plenty to obtain judging from all the categories shown in the phone menu.
• You can finally wear glasses and earrings at the same time! Now if only we could wear necklaces and scarfs together. The watches and bracelets look amazing too!
• The headphones look pretty cool, I'm interested to see if they only belong to certain brands (i.e. Stage Dive) or if you can get them in a range of styles.
• Recommendations from brand representatives will be available at the Exhibition Hall. I'm intrigued at what this will entail and whether limited edition items will return from New Style Boutique.
• Amazing online features were mentioned and finally we can visit other player's boutiques!! The last one game had the worst multiplayer ever and I'm glad we can finally be able to share our own designs.

 

Nails have finally been included in the game!