I picked this up for a minute, and OMIGOD an hour just passed.
Had you asked me what game I was most interested in amongst those at Rising Star Games' recent 3DS showing for the press, I would never have picked Girls' Fashion Shoot out of the lineup. The publisher was so focused on showcasing Beyblade: Evolution that they seemed surprised when I asked, on a whim, if I could try out the fashion game.
On the face of it, Girls' Fashion Shoot sounds like absolute shovelware. It's a 3DS title that you'd expect to see alongside collections of mini-games associated with Nickelodeon or Disney brands, tossed into a bin months after release to die the landfill death pioneered by so many copies of Atari's ET. You'd think that, but this game has a surprising amount of depth for its simple concept.
Girls' Fashion Shoot's story is a nice piece of fluff where you take on the role of a girl who is both the lead model and editor of a high-end fashion magazine. Money earned for fashion shoots not only allows you to customize your look, but also your apartment, so that your environment gets more personalized the more successful you become. The game's focus is on the prep and fashion shoots: You set the look, the facial expression, the pose, the clothes, the background, and any visual accents you want to add. Based on how successfully you fulfill the assignment of objectives with your photo, the more money you receive.
At this point, Girls' Fashion Shoot sounds about like any other fashion game. Where it differs is the absolutely ridiculous degree of customization. The clothes, the hair, the poses, and the faces are one thing, but it's the layout that's really impressive. Once you've selected the shot for your model, you have the opportunity to change elements of the picture. The number of elements that you can add or change to the picture are simply staggering.
Want a lens flare? How about three? Feel free to change the sizes and colors. Or surround the model with hearts and a background pattern you can change the base color of. The interface for this is like using a stripped-down photo editor to add or subtract effects and background or foreground elements. It's like a toy version of photoshop that simplifies the operation but keeps the variability. It's awesome.
Girls' Fashion Shoot may be simple in concept, but for the fashion game genre it offers an incredible amount of depth for a game that feels this casual. I could honestly see myself spending hours upon hours playing Girls' Fashion Shoot with the different options available for each shoot, coming from never having an interest in these kinds of games before.
