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It’s difficult to review entries in the Fitness Boxing line. It can come down to being about vibes sometimes. You need to spend at least a good two weeks with it, maybe more, and can’t grind like you would in traditional games. Also, unless there’s a set “theme” like Fitness Boxing: Fist of the North Star or Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku, some changes might not be immediately visible. That said, after spending time with Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer, I do think it is as solid an entry in the exercise game series as ever, with a few niceties that make it potentially more attractive than Fitness Boxing 2 or Zero to Dance Hero. 

As with past entries, the main focus in Fitness Boxing 3 is to show up everyday for Daily Workout, in the hopes of also completing the Daily and Weekly Missions for personal satisfaction. You can select your trainer, with Bernardo, Evan, Guy, Lin, Monica, and Stella as options. You determine your focus. You can also visit the Lounge to check your progress and see if you’re keeping up with your goals and continually playing. As this is a boxing-focused endeavor, it is only tracking your arms and fists to play, though naturally there will be some movement as you pivot, duck, and get into the swing of things. It will suggest the stance you should be using for each workout, as well as highlight how you should be moving your feet during the workout even though the application isn’t tracking that data. Also, music is always a major focus in the series, so there are 30 songs to listen to as you “fight.” 

For the most part, this element of Fitness Boxing 3 doesn’t feel all that different from past entries in the exercise game series. You’re still primarily focusing on striking with your left and right arms, with indicators scrolling on two lines on the left and right sides of the screen. Said images are clearly labeled with arrows that are immediately visible via shape and color. Also, the trainer you chose and text appears to ensure you don’t miss any instructions. So everything is clearly telegraphed, the workouts do feel like they make sense and are designed to help, and the UI choices make it fairly easy to keep up. The music is generally fine, though not as memorable as the soundtrack for Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku.

There are some additional elements that make it possible to work out in different ways than the traditional Daily Workout or Free Training that lets you pick a specific exercise and focus on that alone. The one I actually ended up using a bit is Sit Fit Boxing. It’s basically traditional Fitness Boxing 3 sessions, only you do your workout while seated when playing the game. I found it handy when traveling, since I was concerned about possibly making noise for folks on the floor below me or rooms next to me while moving around. (Plus, let’s be honest, the developers probably knew some of us were doing this already with other entries.) It just means some of the more movement-based actions, like drastic ducks, don’t come up. I could also see this option being great for accessibility purposes.

Fitness Boxing 3 also incorporates two other modes that let you change how it works slightly. One is Mitt Drills. This removes the music and timing from the experience. Your chosen trainer will appear in front of you while wearing mitts on each hand. On the left side of the screen, you’ll see two rows with kinds of punches you are expected to throw. You can take your time to put these in at your leisure, for a more gym-like experience. The other option is 2-Player Mode. That’s a local multiplayer mode that involves either each person with one Joy-Con or two folks with two pairs of them. I didn’t get to sample this with an actual extra person, but it seems like a fine enough concept when I “tested” it on my own. 

I do think the Box and Bond element is sort of fun addition, even though I didn’t feel like I really connected with any of the trainer characters in Fitness Boxing 3. The concept is as you exercise alongside them during the game, your relationship grows. Which makes sense, since you actually will likely spend at least 10-15 minutes per day with them. There are five of these for each person, and they’re fine. I didn’t feel the same affection for them as I would characters from other games, so it isn’t like I’d be as excited about talking with them as I was about tea time with my Fire Emblem: Three Houses faves. 

Fitness Boxing 3 is a totally fine exercise experience, and I would recommend it over the first or second mainline game. The exercises in it make sense and feel like they make a difference if you stick with it. There are some interesting options for when you feel like opting for something other than the straightforward Daily Workout. However, I will say people looking for something a little more fun or engaging would be better served going with the Hatsune Miku or Fist of the North Star entries.

Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer is available now for the Nintendo Switch, and a demo is on the eShop.

The post Review: Fitness Boxing 3 Remains a Good Exercise Game appeared first on Siliconera.

XSEED and Syn Sophia announced the new Fashion Dreamer update that increases the wardrobe size, adds a New Year’s Dramatic Fair, and brings in new patterns is now live. Patching the game to 1.3.0 makes it all accessible.

With the Dramatic Fair, the idea is to show off sophisticated fashions. These include patterns for clothing items to create, hairstyles, and accessories for photos. To earn them, you need to complete quests at each tier to unlock them. Those will only be available until February 6, 2024.

As for the new additions, XSEED went over an array of things that are available permanently as a result of the patch. Here’s a list of some of the changes.

• Wardrobe limit increased by 1,000 to 6,000.
• Item creator includes 10 new patterns.
• Can sort wardrobe by 10 different colors.
• Lookit requests “adjusted.”
• Drone Camera tweaked.

Here’s the latest trailer, which shows off some of the new Fashion Dreamer Dramatic Limited Time Fair items and patch features.

As a reminder, in December 2023 a Fantasy Limited Time Fair appeared. That added fairy-themed items to the game.

Fashion Dreamer is available for the Nintendo Switch, and update 1.3.0 is live now. Its Dramatic Limited Time Fair runs until February 6, 2024.

The post Fashion Dreamer Update Increases Wardrobe Size, Adds Dramatic Fair appeared first on Siliconera.

The Fashion Dreamer Fantasy Fair event is finally going to arrive alongside update 1.2.1 on December 19, 2023. This comes after an in-game issue kept it from beginning on December 5, 2023 as originally planned.

The Fashion Dreamer Fantasy Fair is an event that is going to add fairy-themed clothing to the game. To acquire it, people will need to and play the game, completing certain challenges so you can unlock the new clothing and customization items. As a result, the dates for the event also changed. It will now run between December 19, 2023 and January 10, 2024, to give players enough time to collect the items.

In addition to the event finally running, Marvelous also announced an apology gift is going out to people with the game. Every player will get 200 Creative Keys. These are the items you can use to unlock designs in the Item Creator so you can customize new pieces of clothing for you to wear, use on Muses, or place in your showroom. 

There are also patch news for update 1.2.1, which were shared on the official site. Here’s what people need to know about the new features.

The update data includes fixes for the following issues.

• Fix an issue where some rewards in the Limited Time Fantasy Fair could be obtained more than once under certain conditions.
• Fix an issue where a Player Muse that has received a Lookit would reappear wearing the same Lookit.
• Fix an issue where the Affinity level displayed for Character Muses in the Muse Notebook could exceed the upper limit.

Reopening the Limited Time Fantasy Fair
The event period for the Limited Time Fantasy Fair will be changed as follows in conjunction with this update. Furthermore, all player progress and reward status for the Limited Time Fantasy Fair will be reset.
Note: All items acquired prior to the reset can still be used.

Fashion Dreamer is available for the Nintendo Switch, and update 1.2.1 will arrive on December 19, 2023. 

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The Fashion Dreamer first free update will arrive on December 5, 2023, and it will introduce the Online Mode Limited Time Fair feature. This involves completing challenges to collect rewards.

The first one is the Limited Time Fantasy Fair, and there seem to be least 14 “volumes” of content. All of these will feature a “butterfly dream” fairy theme. You get stamps for finishing challenges, and this earns you new avatar customization options, clothing, and Photo Egg elements, as well as things like keys, gacha tickets, and E-points to create items in the Item Creator. Some of these new items will be patterns you can customize in that creator, so you can have them in different colors and designs.

There’s also a trailer that goes over some of the updates and shows what people can expect to see in-game. It does clarify that you need to be in online mode, which doesn’t require Nintendo Switch Online, to take part in the limited time fair. It doesn’t show the Ciao manga magazine series Naisho No Lily or Shining.

The video also brings up some of the new quality of life features being added to the game. One is a Lookbook, where you can save outfits you created for your avatar and can go back to them or share them. Another is a Muse Notebook, which is a similar sort of catalogue for other players’ Muse avatars encountered in Online Mode. 

Fashion Dreamer is available on the Nintendo Switch, and the free update arrives on December 5, 2023. More updates will also be released to add additional content for free in 2024.

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Following a closer look at Fashion Dreamer at Marvelous Game Showcase 2023, the company revealed its release date. As a reminder, this is a fashion simulation for the Switch by syn Sophia, the same developer who made the Style Savvy games. We already knew it'd be out in 2023. Now we know it will appear on November 3, 2023. There's also a new trailer showing it off again.

It's been quite a while since we've seen the Style Savvy-like Fashion Dreamer Switch game. It first appeared during the February 2023 Nintendo Direct. That first trailer showed how you’ll act as an influencer and help dress up other people you meet. There will also be fashion design options, where you change pieces’ themes and color schemes. Then it showed up at the showcase at the end of May 2023, which showed how people can dress up, share looks, and offer opinions on others' styles.

The latest Fashion Dreamer release date trailer is a more extensive look at the outfit options for both men and women. It shows how you can come up with looks for different people as you visit different “Cocoons” around Eve. Each area has its own sorts of styles. There’s also a massive mall with more outfits. You also choose your avatar, which is called a Muse, and fully customize them. The latter half of the video shows what it’s like to design your own clothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI6P9j4ouRw&ab_channel=NintendoofAmerica

The Fashion Dreamer release date is November 3, 2023. People will be able to find it on the Nintendo Switch.

The post Style Savvy Creator’s Fashion Dreamer Heads to Switch in November appeared first on Siliconera.

Syn Sophia, the Style Savvy developer, is looking for recruits with Unity experience. The studio is currently hiring programmers, interface designers, and game designers/directors, and mentions on its recruitment page that Unity experience is preferred.

Syn Sophia began as "AKI Corporation" and was founded to develop wrestling games in the '90s. It would continue to produce them until 2005, when president Shuji Yoshida approached Nintendo with a concept for a game themed around clothing. This resulted in the first Style Savvy on Nintendo DS, and eventually three sequels on the Nintendo 3DS.

Syn Sophia also works on Pretty Rhythm and PriPara games, the latest of which have been released in arcades. The company’s most recent console project was 2017's Style Savvy: Styling Star, following which there's been little news of what the studio is up to—there's been no sign of a Style Savvy Switch game yet.

That said, given that Nintendo is in the process of broadening the Switch's appeal to women with the Switch Lite and ing software like Animal Crossing, it makes sense for another Style Savvy to be in the works. After all, there are ambitions from 2012 that still need to be fulfilled.

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During the Nintendo investor Q&A for the April-December 2009 period, an investor highlighted the decline of software sales in Europe -- primarily that of Nintendo DS software.

Addressing these concerns, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata cited "visibility in society" as a factor that played a role in the decline of European DS software. According to Iwata, while Brain Age and Nintendogs both sold over 1 million units in the continent during the course of 2009, that number was significantly lower than 2008's 3 million units. The proposed solution was to introduce more "social phenomenon" games to the European market, with a higher visibility in society.

Three attempts to achieve this that didn't quite go as planned, according to Iwata, were Professor Layton, Rhythm Heaven and Style Savvy (Girls Mode in Japan).

Style Savvy, a fashion store simulation game, in particular, got off to a rough start in Europe. First-week sales of the game amounted to a mere 5,000 units, and its slow performance caused retailers to decline from placing orders for a restock. Another reason cited for its slow lift-off in Europe was an oversaturation of girl-oriented games on DS, which led to additional skepticism at retail.

According to Enterbrain data, Style Savvy sold 330,079 units in its second year in Japan -- approximately the same amount it sold in the U.S. and Europe in its first year -- where there was no interference from similar games that saturated the market. However, as the holiday season effect provided a dramatic sales boost in the West, and consumer was positive, Iwata believes that a firm base for further growth has been established.

The Professor Layton games, on the other hand, have done immensely well in Europe. Although, not well enough for Nintendo to classify them as a "social phenomenon" on the same level as Brain Age. The first game, The Curious Village, has reached 2 million units in 61 weeks in the European market, while its sequel, The Diabolical Box, has already reached 1.3 million units in just 16 weeks.

However, according to Iwata on Layton, "Its influence on driving hardware sales by driving consumers to purchase hardware to play the software or revitalizing a number of Nintendo DS sleep s has not yet made it a social phenomena about which newspapers write up."

He went on to tell investors: "What is most important is to make what can really become socially recognized phenomena. Of course, it is a fact that piracy activities in the European market including devices like Magic-Coms (R4) are large concerns for us. As I have mentioned before, we will continue to confront it with legal and technological measures."

Food for thought:

1. It's interesting how much the box art for Girls Mode varies from region to region. The Japanese art looks like the cover of a shoujo magazine, while the U.S. version looks like a clothes brand aimed at younger girls. The European box strays farther from the two and comes off more as a high-class brand for adult women, both in art and name. This is a good example of the importance of localizing a product specifically for different regions.

2. The same can be said for Professor Layton games, whose Western boxes place a greater emphasis on the puzzles than the Japanese cover. At a previous investor Q&A, Iwata revealed that this decision stemmed from the European cover of the first Professor Layton game, which they found did a better job of conveying it as the natural "next choice" for fans of Brain Age.

The post Satoru Iwata On The Importance Of Creating Social Phenomena appeared first on Siliconera.

We already knew Square Enix’s V-Jump collaboration, Cross Treasures, is going to have elements from Animal Crossing and Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times that allow players to customize their games' environments, characters and connect with friends. Now, as the December 3, 2009 release date draws near, we've learned more about what drives adventurers to cross into other games. Unfortunately, it's a tale we've heard before.

The story is typical RPG fare. There is a peaceful island kingdom that has suddenly fallen into a perilous situation. A massive dungeon has been discovered, and demons and monsters have been appearing from the depths. The king, of course, dispatched soldiers to investigate and take care of any issues, but the dungeon proved too much for them. Then, the evil lord emerged from the dungeon and stole away the kingdom's princess as his captive.

From there, the player is tasked with saving the princess and restoring peace. There will be quite a bit to do in single player, since there is a storyline to trudge through and a whole island to customize. For example, you get to choose what kind of citizens and shops appear, and can customize the landscape. You can also level up your character's class. Each class (warrior, thief, priest and wizard) is able to advance to one of five more advanced classes. For example, a priest could become a sage or a thief can become an assassin.

Cross Treasures’ main draw is multiplayer. The co-op multiplayer dungeon crawling has been hyped, as well as the ability to explore other players' islands. But there's more than that. If you decide to try your hand at blacksmithing, you can share the weapons you've created with friends.

In case you want a better look, here's the Cross Treasures trailer shown at the Tokyo Game Show:

As you can see from the video, items drawn by V-Jump readers have been faithfully created and entered into the game.

The world customization is a definite plus, and I'm glad to hear about the advanced classes too. Let's hope this sells well in Japan - maybe it'd lead to a worldwide release.

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Square Enix and popular manga mag V-Jump are teaming up to make a DS RPG that sticks to the basics. You begin Cross Treasures as a fighter, thief, mage or priest. Gpara has concept art for the game’s base classes.

Fighters tank. Thieves are fast. Mages cast spells. Priests heal and carry hammers. Boring. The only thing that separates your hero from a Final Fantasy archetype drawn by Mr. Fullswing artist Shinya Suzuki is an occupation. Pick blacksmith, for example, to make weapons and armor.

Character customization is bland because Cross Treasures is more about world design. Players can do whatever they want to their island. You can set up shops, make ports, and plant flowers.

Anyone up for a mix of Animal Crossing and a multiplayer DS dungeon crawler?

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