Game: SELFY COLLECTION – The Dream Fashion Stylist!
Genre: Simulation
System: Nintendo Switch
Developer|Publisher: GCrest
Age Rating: EU 3+ | US E
Price: UK £14.99 | EU €15,99 | US $19.99
Release Date: September 24th 2020
No review code provided, bought the game myself
The SELFY Avatar
It’s been some years since GCrest created SELFY, and made the Avatar famous with the online platform TinierMe. On there, you could personalise your very own SELFY, and through it, chat with others and play various games on the platform. To me, this is a very Japanese sort of entertainment, I remember how I covered a ” game” before that resembled it too (read my article on LINE Play here).
TinierMe has been closed down for some years now, as the rules on chance play caught up with it because of Gatcha mechanics where you could take a chance to get items for your SELFY with real money. SELFY lived on though, on Facebook, Instagram and other social media. And now GCrest has found a new way to use their SELFY: SELFY COLLECTION – The Dream Fashion Stylist! on the Switch!
Being a fan of Style Boutique, that excellent series of fashion management games from Nintendo, I couldn’t resist trying this one too. Let’s see if I can bring out my inner fashionista!
Meet Style Expert YvoCaro
My little YvoCaro, who would have known? I knew she sometimes was a farmer or a fighter, but now it seems that she is a Style Expert. Well, a budding one, but with a mother who used to be famous throughout the country, I think she will have what it takes. The game opens up with a little background story: YvoCaro finds a job at fashion store 2-way, that was founded by her famous but deceased mother and her best friend. Pretty soon, well, from the start really, YvoCaro is recognised for having a wonderful sense of style.
She gets her first challenge and passes with pride. This is the start of a series of requests that serve the purpose of furthering the story, opening up more stores to buy things and have those stores have more stock.
The tutorial is good, all is explained that you need to know, but it also shows the main complaint I have for the game. The translation is not good. It’s sufficient to get the meaning across, but it makes the game appear unnecessarily childish and clumsy. I have gathered the gist of the storyline, but it reads as if a standard online translation was put in place.
Anyway, the Queen intends to banish all outfits from the land and is closing the borders so no outfits can come in. And it’s up to YvoCaro to remedy this. First, though she must reach a certain level of popularity in combining said outfits and make the people happy.
Getting a Crash Course in Popular Japanese Outfits
In essence, SELFY COLLECTION works in the same way as Style Boutique does. Your client gives you a request and you try to make an outfit that gets the highest score in Charm, Price and depending on the choices of the client, things like Cute, Pink (or another colour) ,Ribbon, Fluffiness or other attributs. Those attributes particularly caused me to need a crash course in Japanese Outfits.
I mean, do you know what to look for if the wish is Lolita? Or Cross? I didn’t. Only by trying different things and watching the meter, I knew when it was the right way to go. Fortunately, my daughter loves her anime and she showed me what Lolita was. Consider me educated, lol.
Another thing that baffled me is how I can use item upon item: a bow can go front, middle or back, and you can use a bow combined with a hat and hair jewelry, all piled on top. A bit of experimenting made the most fantastic creation, of the kind where I wondered if my clients could even move any more. At one point she even had a veritable cloud of presents around her.
Requests to Reach S-Rank and Typos
The more I bought in the shops, the more items were unlocked. And the more requests I did and furthered the story, the more stores opened up. And not just clothes stores, also makeup and hair shops. It’s fun to keep on buying to see the fantastical creations you can make.
The requests keep coming back until you reach S-rank on them. Like the one girl who tends to change her style in outfits when she has a new boyfriend. Until you gain S-rank, she will have to keep changing boyfriends! Every time you finish a request means money coming in, popularity leveling up and me getting rewarded by special outfits for YvoCaro’s own closet.
Ultimately, you have to conquer each of the 6 lands, starting out with your own Rose Land and do all requests to satisfaction. So there is enough gameplay ahead.
It’s a pity there are typos in the game. I’ve seen some original Japanese letters in there on a button and had a request where I was told to get a white outfit, only to be scored on the amount of brown.
Showing Off Your Portfolio Online
Aside from following the storyline, there’s more to do in SELFY COLLECTION. You can create an outfit and put it online in your Portfolio. You can look at the amazing creations your Switch friends have made, but also how other players around the world did. See an outfit you like? Check to see the values (like Cute, Cool etc) and register it for yourself.
In Collection, you can check how many items you’ve unlocked in each store and how far along you are in your requests and what rewards you will get once it’s at 100%.
Of course, YvoCaro herself loves getting dressed too. I was surprised however that I could even send her out in her underwear if I wanted to! Nobody mentioned it, must be pretty normal!
Conclusion
SELFY COLLECTION is a very different game from Style Boutique. The fashion element is what connects them both. In Style Boutique you have to manage the store, balancing what to buy for fear that you won’t be able to sell it and dabble in marketing using your window mannequin. You won’t really find this in SELFY COLLECTION. This game is much more about the fantastical creations, going all out in cuteness and trying out all kinds of crazy combinations.
It’s a pity the game is let down by the translation. It feels like they didn’t pay enough attention to that, giving it a good translation would make the game much more enjoyable. Which brings me to my conclusion: I’m a bit torn. If you like fashion and you are into the anime style, then I’d say this is a good game. Not a great one, for that it needs more spit and polish. If you want your fashion game more along the lines of Style Boutique, then maybe this isn’t the one for you.
Still, SELFY COLLECTION is very much about making combinations with the 5,000 items you can collect and about making your own avatar amazing. Even though I’m more on the Style Boutique side, I like the dress up factor.
Final Conclusion: I Like It
Does this game have a lot of talking before letting you actually play? I really wanted to like the style boutique games, but I tried the first one on 3DS and the game took to long to show me enough systems to keep my interest. I don’t mind a story per say, but I want to be able to get into the meat of the game fairly quickly.
This game looks cute and lighthearted, which would be great for me and my current depression, but not if I have to wade through it first. I just don’t have the patience for it, sadly, but I really need a cute, simple distraction and my normal JRPGs aren’t cutting it.
If you have any other suggestions, I’d be all ears! I have every console except microsoft ones, but I also do not like motion controls (so sadly something like Waku Waku Sweets is out too).
Well, no, it doesn’t have a lot of text to wade through. As I wrote in the review, the text often seems translated as if by google translate and is a bit childish because of that.
The quests to dress the clients is what it’s all about, and it’s fun to choose new clothing and buy them in the stores. But they are pretty fantastical, like in anime cosplay. Not clothes you would actually find in a story like in style boutique. This feels more like a dress up game then an actual fashion management game.
Seems like it might be perfect for my current state of mind then, thanks Yvonne!
I was think cute and light hearted…Yonder the Cloud Catcher Chronicles comes to mind, it’s been out a while. And did you try Farm Together? Spirit Farer is a wonderful game too. In fact, did you check our Wholesome Games list? https://ladiesgamers.com/the-best-wholesome-games-on-switch/
I actually beat Yonder last year, it was a very good time. I’m not looking for something wholesome per say, just something very easy on a very stressed mind. Animal crossing for example, would not be good right now since I’d stress over logging in every week or have weeds grow and other stuff. Little Dragon’s Café goes on for a little too long, I struggled to beat it even when I was doing better.
Giraffe and Anika and Pode seem like good candidates though, and short too. Thanks again, Yvonne.
You’re welcome, and I hope things go better soon. I myself recently got into a couple of visual novels, more like reading then playing. But after a very busy and stressful day it’s nice.
This game reminds me of the game Love Nikki dress-up queen
Hi Alice, well, I don’t know Love Nikki but the game does remind me of an app I used to have on my PDA, I think it was called Kishou dolls. But it’s been a long time ago!
This was a lovely review, I used to play tinier me as a teen and while recently looking up about stuff in cocoppa play (English mobile tinier), I found this game. This review is pretty much spot on to what I’d say about the game so far. It’s more fun for the dress up than the story anyway.
Thank you for reading, and I’m glad you find it spot on! It’s been awhile since I played, but I remember the outfits being pretty outrageous but fun!
This was a lovely review to read and I’m glad I found it.
Honestly, I played TinierMe when it first launched in English in 2009 (did not play the Japanese version), up until its end. And then I played on Facebook, before I got the mobile app, CocoPpa Play, which has been going on for the last ten years. My main issue with Selfy is that everything costs so much money, because they release 50ish items every two days on the mobile app. For 10 items it goes from 10$ to 20$, and to get all the “paid coin only items” in a set it’s 20$ per item, and there are usually 7-8 every two days. But you only get so much “paid coin” versus “free coin” in a purchase, so it costs more than usual.. I could go on for hours about this game’s demand for money. n_n;
My question is: Are there in game purchases? 20$ isn’t bad for a dress up game and I’ve been playing Selfy games since 2009. But, on mobile at least, are nigh impossible to enjoy without throwing away so much money, and I’d be reluctant to even consider purchasing this if there are “options” for paid gachas. I saw that it’s mentioned there are items to collect and wasn’t sure if they add more or it’s all hard coded/no updates/no new items after a time.
Hi Alice, first of all, thanks for reading! It’s been some years since I wrote the review and it’s nice that you got to see it now in 2024!
It’s been ages since I played the game, and tbh, it’s not on my Switch anymore. But I don’t think there were in-app purchases as I loath those, and I surely would have commented on it otherwise.
Hard to say if the game is still supported. I’d say that if you are a fan of the type of game, you will have fun with this one too!