Style Savvy (Hands-On) (Nintendo DS) Preview

It's a bit strange that Style Savvy was shown at Nintendo's post-E3 show. After all, it was completely removed from its core audience by being presented to a manly bunch of journalists, especially when games such as Fossil Fighters, The Legendary Starfy and Glory of Heracles were all absent from the portable line-up (though, to be fair, the event was aimed at retailers as well as journalists). Equally mystifying was the fact that the demo was just two minutes long. It even taunted me to 'now play the E3 demo!' despite this supposedly being the E3 demo. I even played through twice to make sure.

Nonetheless, I traded in my dignity for the chance to run my own clothes shop, no matter how limited the time. That's another non-ambition fulfilled. Players are tasked with helping customers to purchase some darling new threads for various occasions. The set up is very user friendly: girl wanders in, says what sort of thing she's after, and then it's your job to have a quick gander in the stock room to see if you've got anything to help pry the cash from her greedy fashionable hands.

There are several categories of clothing to flick through, and when browsing through you can display the garments on a 3D mannequin to see if they please your sight orbs. Using your own judgement of style (er...) and paying attention to the customer's budget you select something you think they can afford and will like and, if you're feeling confident in your fashion skills, tell them outright that that's what they're after.

If you don't know your hemlines from your halternecks, though, it might be smarter to ask them to 'take a look' at your choice and see how they react to it. You get up to three chances to do this per customer, though there was only a very limited selection of clothes in the demo (and only two customers), which negated any need for the clues. Upon presentation of your final choice, the customer will either accept and empty their pockets of the necessary gold onto your counter or be a bit miffed - yet, strangely, still very jolly - and vow to...come back another time.