These androgynous simulacra are rated E for Everyone.Man, this game.
First, out of life-long tomboy forces, I was reluctant to play a game called "Pop Cutie! Street Fashion Simulation." The worrisome words are in bold. But it got good reviews, and seemed to be more sim than paper dolls for the DS.
And it was. But not much more.
Premise: you're a young person (I chose a lady; the other option is a man) who designs fashions and sells them. You get to earn new types of clothing by combining words you overhear in conversations with folks on the street. You'll ask them something like "Do you have a fear of elevators?" and they'll say, "No, I find them a smooth ride." The word in blue becomes some factor that leads to some new type of clothing.
Sharp + duck yields a greaser hairstyle, in case you were curious. Then you choose a color for your design, you put the thing out on the shelves, people buy it, repeat.
Other designers (two) exist and sell clothes, and...they might sell more clothes than you. That is the Challenging Thing in this game. Don't let them out-popular you! It was fun trying to make your particular designs the Mostest Popularest. Once season I tried to get everyone to look like an Edwardian dandy, the next I was going for some like pre-grunge sloppy rock thing, with stripes and things, I guess like Sonic Youth back when they remembered that clothes can have colors. And then, once you had successfully got everyone to buy your clothes, you could win a fashion battle wicked easy.
Fashion battles were a quarterly event wherein you and a rival designer deck out a person in your designs. You can get extra points for things like color combos, but they don't add up to much. The way to rack up mad points is by having sold plenty of the selected designs. Then you win. You win. You will have won. You don't not succeed. Over and over. It's more of a challenge to try and lose the battle.
And that was kind of it. You made some clothes, they got popular, you won. You sold enough, you moved onto the next level, repeat. What little strategy there is becomes mastered rather quickly. Advertise a thing in the quarterly magazine: dozens of people buy that thing. Hire some models to stand on the street, passersby buy the things you had the models wear. Hire a decent person to run the cash register, another to do inventory, you're set.
There isn't a lot to explore in this game. Sometimes, out on the street, your character thinks: I should visit my rivals' stores and see what they're designing. Well, you can't. You can't visit anywhere but this less-than-one-block pedestrian area outside your store. You can also be inside of your store. This just seems a lazy, lazy, lazy way to make a game.
Weird note: there's only two black characters in the game, and one runs a business called "The Spade Agency." uh...
I won the game in about seven hours, but it had run our of pleasure and challenge after four. It's the game equivalent of an airport novel, a simple piffle that entertains over the duration of a short flight. And definitely not worth your dollars.
Oil well.
