>ask the developer if the game has genderlock or not
>they seem unsure. explain what is genderlock and what is not
>"there's no gender, muse :)"
>find nice shoes
>they're locked

This is more of a short part 2 to my Style Savvy: Styling Star review.

Because while playing Style Savvy in anticipation for Fashion Dreamer. I pretty quickly realized that none of the stuff that made Style Savvy so special was going to be in Fashion Dreamer. At least judging by the trailers, and now after reaching the credits I can confirm it. They got rid of all the narratives and this world of fashion influencers is strange and creepy and soulless. Which just leaves the dressing up, which is...fine. It's not really implemented well and is oddly restrictive between the body types, but I AM a cute girl, and I DO look good. You can go into some pretty good detail with the colors on individual pieces. Ultimately though, the game just has nothing going for it when stacked up against any of the Style Savvy games.

Which I guess they weren't trying to make a Style Savvy game, they were trying to do something different. But maybe they SHOULD have tried to make a modern Nintendo Switch Style Savvy game, it would have been incredible.

If you are interested in this game and haven't played Styling Star or any of the other three Style Savvy games. Go play Styling Star. You've been putting off hacking your 3DS for long enough. The time is now.

EDIT:
This game is driving me mad. I keep flip flopping between 3 and 2 stars.

So on the one hand I feel like I'm underselling the dressing up of this dress up game. Like the dressing up is good. There is a lot of clothes and hair and face and color options. You can really get lost in the min-maxing of very small details of your overall aesthetic and Fashion Dreamer really excels at this. So I think it is good at BEING a dress up game and that should be worthy of 3 stars.

But on the other hand the very act of existing in this world is torture. The stationary NPCs and their maddening voice acted one liners are atrocious. All the Bingo cards and gacha shit are a plague on my experience. Most of the gameplay is liking clothing on a menu. One by one. It feels like a glorified mobile game. When I first saw the Nintendo Direct featuring this game I thought of how interesting the concept of a "dress up game" was. I did a little bit of research and found Style Savvy: Styling Star and after playing it I thought, "wow, this genre has so much to offer." It was just such a beautiful experience from beginning to end. And then this comes out and there is just zero attempt at an emotional connection. Am I asking too much for a bit more pathos out of what is essentially just Farming Simulator: But Clothes This Time? Perhaps I am.

Ultimately though, I'm left feeling a bit confused, a bit frustrated, and that lands me on a 2 star verdict.

Speaking as someone who is not cishet, the male and female soulmates + reproduction premise is more funny or eyeroll-inducing than romantic to me, but I generally enjoyed this game. It was visually and aurally gorgeous from start to finish, with one of the most believable transitions from portraits to CGs I’ve seen in a VN. Often character portraits are intricate and on point anatomy-wise while CGs are less quality, but Olympia Soirée does not cut corners anywhere. And boy, are those character designs fancy.

The romances can be nice and sometimes spicy; the M rating is earned, both for the implied sex scenes and the darker themes present. This is a game you’ll want a certain tolerance level for, and I’ll list content warnings at the very bottom of this review in case you wish to go in blind. Tokisada and Akaza have the most believable romances in my opinion, having a good focus on developing their early feelings, but others have disagreed and that’s fair.

The protagonist has a strong characterization and gets a small portrait to display her expressions throughout the game, which is really nice. It goes a long way toward letting her be her own person, considering she doesn’t have voice acting. The game doesn’t shy away from acknowledging her sexual desires either, refreshing in a niche where the male love interests are usually the only ones who get that.

I also like that this has a canon route instead of a Grand Ending, and one that doesn't try to suddenly fix everyone else's problems in an unnatural way.

My criticisms are:
- How generally weak the gender commentary is (men are Men and women are Women. Basically different species with different places in life. They are soulmates tho❤︎), and lack of acknowledgment of non-cishet attractions in a world where love in general is so often criminalized.
- Bad ends generally rely on getting a certain number of wrong choices instead of a clear single branch, making it tedious to gather more than one ending per character. There is no Skip To Choice option.
- How often certain lines are flashbacked to leads me to believe this game is meant to be played over a year or more. Sometimes the same line is flashbacked to ten lines later. As Douma once said (and was repeated one hundred times), “Uugh…!”
- How skin color is addressed is a little weird.
- The short stories section is good for filling out details that either were not in the game or might have slipped your mind, and generally it’s fine to read them as they are unlocked. However, do not read Kanan’s Memoirs until you’ve completed all routes if you want some reveals to be total surprises. If you don’t mind big hints, go ahead! I’m not your parent.

In conclusion, pretty :)! and sometimes pretty stupid :)!

Content Warnings (if I forgot one, leave a comment!): rape, dubious consent, sexual coercion, drugging, forced impregnation, incest, CSA, kidnapping and confinement, violent misogyny (including murder), suicide, classism-based bigotry, body horror