r/stylesavvy

I am a dude. And from what I have seen, I only get to dress women throughout the series. I don't mind finding nice outfits for women on occasion, but as a dude, I am much more interested in men's fashion. I consider myself to be the most fashionable guy in my school. I enjoy wearing suits, leather jackets, jackets of different styles, button up shirts, bowties, ties, scarfs, sweaters, vests, and so on. I really like experimenting with different vibes and think of it as sort of experimenting with different food dishes when cooking or different art styles when drawing. Variety is the spice of life, and I want to live my best life, baby!! I also like dressing my character up in Animal Crossing, so I am so interested in playing a game where I design clothes or outfits.

I feel like it is a little sexist to assume that men wouldn't be interested in fashion. To be fair, I guess I don't know how girls feel about games with a male majority interest. I love Star Fox, but there is only like two girl characters, and one character is definitely there for sex-appeal. lol. I guess it is a little frustrating how this series is solely woman-focused. I digress.

With that said, are there any opportunities to dress men up in any of the games with a robust selection of outfits? If not, would you have any games that you recommend? If by chance you are a dude, tell me about your thoughts on these games.

Okay, I want us to have an honest to God conversation about this. I know I am going to get flamed for even suggesting this question, but I want us to be civil here and carefully consider this so we can have a better understanding of this game in a broader societal context.

I want to make this clear: I don't believe this game series had any malicious intent and if it did make people feel exclusive, I would firmly believe that it was unintentionally done so. However, unintentional or not, I think it's clear that this game series is clearly designed around women specifically, and I want to dissect that.

So, I just made this post mentioning how I am a dude and I want to get into this series but feel limited because it is mostly marketed towards women despite fashion being universal and celebrated by all walks of life. There is nothing wrong with the game focusing on women, but the problem is that it doesn't explore the possibility that men might enjoy fashion just as much as women might. It leaves me feeling excluded from being able to play these games in a way that makes me feel fulfilled as someone who enjoys dressing up irl. I don't think this game is trying to be hateful or harmful by focusing on women, but I do think it is unintentionally sidelining men. Don't get me wrong, I would still like to play this game and experience women's fashion as I generally like fashion even of the opposite sex and think this game can satisfy men, but I still feel limited in expressing myself in ways women wouldn't.

I want to acknowledge the broader societal context. Many video games are catered towards men, while very few games are catered towards women. That is a general fact. It is a shame that games can feel gendered and exclusively biased towards men. I am not defending those games that are catered towards men and think that it is not okay to exclude women from something they can enjoy. I think the more genders a game can appeal to the better as everyone can enjoy it and feel properly represented. The point here is that style savvy could easily appeal to both demographics but seems to only acknowledges women in many cases, and that is just a fact of the matter. Just because a bunch of games exist to cater towards men, doesn't mean that a game that caters towards women isn't exempt from similar criticism. Believe it or not, it is possible for a game to be sexist towards men. Just because it seldom ever happens, doesn't mean that it cannot. Men can feel just as excluded from a game as women do from a different game.

The reason why Style Savvy likely excluded men wasn't out of malice but was probably because of a straightforward business decision rooted in a society that doesn't support men for enjoying fashion, making a male-inclusive fashion game seem unprofitable. But here's the irony: by excluding men, Style Savvy inadvertently reinforces the very idea that fashion is a women-only space, which further stigmatizes men who enjoy it, which makes the next fashion game even less likely to include them. Nobody deliberately created this cycle, but the end result is a game that tells men, however unintentionally, that fashion isn't for them when that is not the case.

Personally speaking, I would love to see a world in which society supports men to get into fashion as much as women as that would allow for men to express themselves more, experiment, and enjoy their lives to the fullest. That is personally why I think it's limiting that Style Savvy doesn't explore this potential. Fashion is universal and everyone in life expresses themselves with how they dress whether they realize it or not. Recognizing all these facets of life in a fashion game would be powerful, nuanced, and offer a lot of new perspective for everyone.

I DON'T want to prove a point or make people believe that this game series is for sure 100% sexist. I know this is a very touchy subject, but I want is for us to come with an honest answer here and figure out if this game actually feels exclusive to men or not. As a man, I know I personally feel like I would be limited by the options for men; however, I don't have the full context. I know that most fans are probably happy with this game as is given it was made for women primarily in mind and I don't want to undermine how important it is for women to have a game like this, but I can't help but wonder if Style Savvy could have made an effort to be more inclusive.

Closing Thoughts:

If I want to be as exact with my thoughts here as possible, I would say that Style Savvy is NOT generally sexist in the traditional more hostile sense as the game doesn't make harmful statements against men to support some harmful ideology. Rather. I would say that it IS implicitly sexist as it conforms to the gender standard that men don't like fashion as much as women and generalizes fashion as something excluding men who do enjoy fashion in the process when fashion is a part of everyone's lived experience. In that sense, this isn't a bad thing, but something that is more innocent and misguided when Style Savvy has the capacity to be more inclusive. When we do get a fifth game in the series, I hope that Nintendo is more progressive and inclusive and sees the broader cultural significance of fashion for all types of people so we can have the best Style Savvy game for everyone!

I’m currently going through and playing all the Style Savvy games. As for my questions, which one is your favorite and/or which one do you think is the best overall?

Going into my opinions: honestly all of them have their own pros and cons. i will be ranking them from favorite (1) to least favorite (4), but just know i adore them all.

(1.) Styling Star. The most polished out of them all. Storyline is a little weird with the whole uncle thing, but they all tend to follow the same path. I will say, this game has many side quests. The ability to work at the salon and beautician is super nice, as well as the men’s store. Helping all the superstars is fun, and i enjoy designing outfits for specific scenes. No competitions but.. i don’t really mind as they weren’t my favorite aspect of the previous games. I don’t reaaally enjoy the store building mechanics for some reason. I prefer the previous stores where they did it all for me, and i could just choose a style. it felt much more lively in a sense? The boutique in this game tends to feel.. empty and small even with a bunch of decorations. My final note: i love being able to skip/fast forward the repetitive conversations. After a while, it’s boring reading the same thing over and over while smashing the buttons to continue.

(2.) Fashion Forward. The most unique one in my opinion. Again, the storyline is weird, at least the beginning intro. I still don’t really understand where they were going with that but nonetheless! I love the map, so maaany locations. And although i hate the store building mechanics in Styling Star, i love visiting the dollhouse in this game and looking at the rooms. I do really like the boutique as well, especially with it having two halves. It made the boutique feel open, lively, and full with all the customers on both sides. I haven’t played it as thoroughly as the others, so i can’t say much about the characters. none of them really stood out. I do absolutely hate that time matches real life. that’s always annoyed me and turns me off from playing the game. The map icons r a little clunky looking too. They’re cute, don’t get me wrong, but definitely not as clean as some of the other games. Another thing i dislike is the beautician. I don’t know if im just terrible, but matching the makeup to the picture is such a pain?? One time their head was tilted down, and i couldn’t even see the makeup!! Their mouth was open too!!! Makes me laugh thinking about it, but safe to say she hated the makeup i gave her.

(3.) Style Savvy. This was a difficult pick, but i will explain why i put Trendsetters last when i get to it. As for the original, yes it looks like butt (lol it’s not thaat bad, just very pixelated. hard on the eyes), but i love it! The clothes are sooo cute and 2000s. It’s the blueprint. The characters are super fun and quirky. I’ll never forget you Rococco. Yes, i will admit it’s missing a lot of mechanics, but it’s the original. I’ll cut them some slack. i absolutely love all the boutique options they give you. I remember staring in awe when i first saw them. The competitions were okay, nothing special, but again I never really liked them. They’re rigged! But i always thought it was cute how they took my picture after each one. Also am i insane? I miss the 50% off sales. Why is that not a mechanism in any of the other games? Or am i dumb and i just haven’t noticed it? Seriously someone let me know. I miss having the sales. Final note: i love holding the 3ds vertically to play.

(4.) Trendsetters. My final pick, and by no means do i hate this game or even remotely dislike it. It was hard to choose, but this game is so similar to the others, you might as well just play them. The map is super similar to the original game. It’s nice and polished, but nothing special. Basically all the clothes in Trendsetters are in Styling Star. The characters are okay, but none of them really stand out in my opinion other than Emmylou. I didn’t really like the storyline. I hated a lot of side comments characters would make about Emmylou being competition. And like all the other ones, this one felt so rushed. The second i stepped in, i was the boutique owner. The side quests were a little weird. My customer would say: “I’m going here later today with so and so.” and then i would just randomly show up and invite myself. It felt silly. Now i was joking about the competitions being rigged earlier, but im serious when i mean it took me forever to beat international. I eventually got it by making the most ugly outfits ever and sticking to one pattern, but hoooly. I had to take a deep breath every time i lost, and it was many… many times. Onto things i actually like about the game, the character models are my favorite out of all the games. I really the boutique customization. I prefer how they combined the men’s clothing, instead of like Styling Star where you have to go to a whole separate shop. I so so miss the luxury and flirty categories :( Getting XP or happiness points, whatever they were called, was so easy. I thought the cut scenes to winning the competitions were so cute and fun. I really enjoyed them.

Those are my thoughts. Like i said, i love all the games. Honestly, i just want an excuse to talk about them more. I’m sure my opinions will change in the future. Give me your opinions. What’s your favorite? Which one do you think is the best?

TLDR: I personally think Styling Star is the best gameplay wise, and as of right now, it’s my favorite.

Ranking: (1) Styling Star (2) Fashion Forward (3) Style Savvy (4) Trendsetters

Maybe I'm too much of a nerd but I want a Cyberpunk/Blade Runner version of Style Savvy.

VA-11 Hall-A comes close. Chill pixelated game where you listen to clients and pour drinks.