Having played for longer now, my general feeling about Fashion Dreamer is that it's fun... when it actually lets me play it. OTL I feel like I'm fighting against the game just to play how I want to. I'm honestly kind of confused about the direction they went for the game design—it feels to me like I'm playing a money-grabby mobile game, but without the microtransactions. I wouldn't mind the mobile game-esque gameplay so much if, since this
isn't a free game, I felt like I was getting the ~premium~ experience... but instead I'm just kind of lost in the multiple layers of unlocking patterns, tons of currencies, and
abysmal gacha rates. ;;
I'm also very disappointed that there apparently aren't enough Creative Keys in the game to unlock all the patterns (by quite a large amount, no less)—I wasn't necessarily planning to 100% the game, but I did expect to be
able to. Had I known I needed to be selective, there's a few patterns I might not have unlocked to begin with, but I can't even sell those back now.
Hoping that the 200 compensation keys will make up for those since my brand level is still low and I don't have access to super expensive patterns yet.
Now that I've had a chance to play the Fantasy Fair event, my feeling is that it's... fine, but I'm not a fan of some of the patterns being limited-use, or even the fact that this event is limited time at all. There's no reason to rely on FOMO when it really doesn't benefit the game company in any way. It also feels
very rushed—like, I've been staring at the Type A and Type B Butterfly Wings, and I
swear it's the exact same item model. The only reason it seems to be typelocked is because it's classed as "Outerwear", which is automatically restricted by type, I guess?? I'm not a fan of so many of the items being restricted to a certain type to begin with, but when it's got the exact same model, there's really no good excuse for it other than just bad/rushed coding.
I hope future updates are more focused on improving QoL and adding actual content to the game, and less on events—I'm trying to be patient/forgiving since the game is getting free updates, but I really expect a higher standard of quality than this from Syn Sophia when it comes to fashion games. Like, booting up Style Savvy: Styling Star and just looking at the dressup/fashion mechanics—it has blush, eyeshadow, eyeliner and mascara all in distinct categories, nail polish, the ability to select bangs separately from your main hairstyle, and separate categories for scarves, necklaces, bags, headphones, bracelets/watches, and gloves, all of which are totally absent from Fashion Dreamer at the time I'm writing this. Some shirts come with a necklace that can't be removed or worn separately, and that's about it.
Also the way that hairstyles are handled in FD just feels so clunky
I'd want to see a main hairstyle tab, tabs for bangs and hair accessories, and maybe a button to flip the style to the left or right. Not... "Soft-Bangs Side-Swept Long L" as a completely separate style from "Soft-Bangs Side-Swept Long R", and "[No Bangs] Side-Swept Long L/R", etc. It just makes the hairstyle section feel overly-inflated.
Especially when I'm unlocking "Half-Up Beaded Pigtails" L and R from completely separate NPCs, and the only difference from the "Half-Up Pigtails" available at the start is the bead hairties ;; I really hope we get more unique hairstyles later hhhhh
Oof I feel like I'm really beating up on this game right now, so I feel like I should clarify that I do enjoy playing it! The graphics are cute, designing clothes is fun, and I like making Look-its for other players and receiving surprise Look-its back! But this game has too much unused potential, and my opinion of Syn Sophia is set too high, for me to not criticize where I feel like it's lacking.