YooStar Fashion Salon

The Good
OK, I've got to start by saying that this is not my kind of game. This is a game whose intended audience is young girls, presumably around twelve years old since that's the PEGI rating the game has been given. That is not who I am, I'm a man and I'm much older than the target age range so I've looked at this game from the parental point of view, i.e. if I'd bought it for my daughter at when she was around twelve would she have liked it and would it have kept her amused.

As a parent I liked the fact that the game loaded and played without any problems. No patches to download, no on-line registration, no difficult controls to be mastered/explained, it just ran first time. Not only that but there's a helpful young lady who explains each step, though I suspect her very 'bright' voice would soon become wearing.

The clients look and move OK and the dressing up part works well, though there's some horrible make-up options that I can't see going with anything, ever, and I remember the psychedelic sixties, the glam rock seventies, and punk.

It's a nice touch having both boy and girl clients and to be able to watch them take their makeover to their big event. I got my first attempt badly wrong and the poor girl ended up in tears while her ex-boyfriend snogged someone better/less dressed, it was classed as a 'fashion disaster'. This is where the replay incentive lies, trying to make everyone happy the next time around.

The Bad
While it didn't upset me I can see some parents being concerned about some of the themes, one of the early clients 'can twist her father round her finger, he thinks I'm going to a beach party but I'm going to a nightclub to meet a boy instead'.
As a story line this and more, happens both in life, in kids TV programs, soap operas and in the kind of stories written for 'young adults' but some may see it as teaching kids bad habits.

I found the characters to be stereotypes and correspondingly the voices grated, you can probably guess what Lady Farringdale Pompus sounds like from the name alone.

While the game played well and I cannot fault the mechanics I did think that the clothes lacked flair, for a fashion salon I'd expect something that looked a bit better than the average chain store offerings. Having said that I didn't play through all the clients and it's possible that more outfits are introduced as the game progresses.

The other issue I have with this game is that, in my opinion, kids in the target age range are too clever for a game like this. Based on my experience as a parent, girls of the target age are more into doing things with their friends than dressing up virtual dolls on their own.
My daughter, when she did get around to playing games, was creating worlds with Populous or raising Pokémon to battle her brother's creatures on a Gameboy, both of which demanded far more intellect than is needed here.

The Bottom Line
This is a decent game. It takes the traditional girls' pastime of dressing up dolls, makes it virtual and gives it plenty of levels with an appropriately teenage twist.
There's nothing wrong with the idea of developing games specifically for girls, I just think my daughter would have played through all the scenarios in an hour or two, just so I wouldn't be disappointed, and would have been gone back to a more meaty or challenging game.