Monday 15 August 2016

Differences between Style Boutique 1 & Style Boutique 2

There has been a huge amount of changes made to the gameplay in Style Boutique 2 (also Style Savvy 3) and a number of features have been removed or altered from the previous installment. This guide will cover the major changes between the games and if the removed featured has been replaced by something else.

Fashion Quarter – this feature would’ve been the most amazing online component ever allowing us to create our own online boutique for other players to visit. But for some bizarre reason, it was removed even though you’d think a top notch online feature like this would be left in. The whole concept of the Web Shop was also removed and we are unable to purchase outfits designed by other players. These great features have been replaced by the option to enter MiiVerse contests, take photos with a friend who also owns the game over wireless play or download a Caprice Chalet room via a room code. More information on multiplayer here.

Glam image & the brand Miss Ribbon – glam (flirty in Style Savvy) apparently just isn’t in style anymore and the Miss Ribbon brand and glam image was removed from this game. Some of the Miss Ribbon items or similar looking ones can be found in brands such as April Bonbon or AZ-USA.

Money limit – big thank you to the game developers for allowing us to earn as much money as possible in the new game!! In the previous game, once you hit $99,999 the game wouldn’t let you earn anymore money and you would have so much money, you wouldn’t know what to do with it. In the latest installment, there is no limit! Not that I’ve hit and I’m over $460,000 so far.

Special limited items from the Exhibition Hall – in Style Boutique, on certain days you could buy limited edition items from different brands that were only available that day. Customers would run to your boutique demanding these items and you were in bad luck if you didn’t have them in stock. I enjoyed this feature as it added a level of difficulty stock wise and gave you a reason to visit the Exhibition Hall often.

Store assistant – the previous game gave you the option to hire a store assistant (male or female) whose only job is making jokes or talking about how busy business has been. I quite enjoyed dressing them up and experimenting with styles.

Nuances Magazine – this magazine featured information on the latest looks in fashion, hairstyles and who is the best boutique manager (you of course). You were able to buy outfits through the magazine and get an idea of what customers are looking for in regards to the latest fashion trends. A great feature of this was that you could purchase items before they were available from the Exhibition Hall. The magazine is no longer featured in the current installment.

Characters – some major NPC’s are not featured in this installment. MC Mode, the loud announcer from the fashion shows is no longer featured as is the fabulous Rococo.

Beautician and Hair Salon – Only one hairdresser and one make-up artist work at these shops now unlike previous games where a few NPC’s work there. The beautician also features a male character who works in the make-up lab.

Hairstyles – You can now choose a fringe option for your hairstyle and there is a wide range of styles to choose from. In the previous game, you were limited to the options available such as Long Wavvy cut that had the fringe included. The special hairstyles that could be requested in a certain style from the hair salon are no longer available. A detailed hair style guide is available here.

Make-up Brands – There was a few makeup brands available in the previous game and each had their own unique look. These have been done away with in the current installment and you now just chose from your colour palette. You can unlock make-up sets and use these to design your own sets. A detailed guide on unlocking make-up sets is available here.


Customer Requests – the customer requests are extremely repetitive in this installment. Before customers would come in and request an item that features a certain pattern, matches their shoes or they want to try a new style extremely different from their current outfit. In Style Boutique 2, once you complete a fashion show customers will only request outfits matching the fashion show theme so it gets a bit boring making outfits of the same theme for ages until you do another fashion show (which doesn’t take long). The design of your boutique will also influence what kind of image customers are after, but I found it doesn’t influence their opinion as much as it did in previous games.

Fashion Shows – In the previous game, you picked a model, created an outfit for them and did their hair and makeup. Then you completed against a bunch of other designers to see who had the best outfit and achieve a rank such as international. Fashion shows are nothing like that in this installment. You get to be the model yourself! You choose a theme and stage setting, pick an outfit, style your hair and makeup and then walk the runway. You can choose different actions and effects whilst walking the catwalk. Once finished, the game gives you a score out of five according to how well you matched the theme.

Men’s Fashion – Before male customers would visit your boutique to request an outfit and male fashion brands were available at the Exhibition Hall. This has all changed and Men’s Fashion is only available as a unlockable bonus feature and you can longer serve male customers at your boutique. More information on Men’s Fashion here.

Game Cycle – In the previous game, the game had its own time cycle and you went to sleep to wake up to a new day. Certain shops were open at certain hours and the game booted you out of your boutique at the end of the day. Style Boutique 2, like many other Nintendo games, runs off the 3DS clock. This makes is super useful when unlocking colours or locating make-up items.

Exhibition Hall Opening Hours – Before only certain brands were open on certain days and on Sundays, each brand was open and had sales. Now each brand is available to visit all the time and the Exhibition Hall is always open. Sales are no longer a thing sadly.

Brand Names – Some brand names have changed between games and may defer between Style Savvy (NA), Style Boutique (EU/AUS) and Girls Mode 3 (JPN). For example in Style Boutique, Streetflow was previously called Zip Line. A guide on all brands included in Style Boutique 2 is available here.

Stylist Cards – These are now known as your profile which is found by visiting the Caprice Chalet. You can alter certain parts of your profile and you will look at other players profiles when you have downloaded their Caprice Chalet room. You can no longer receive stylist cards via streetpass but players whom rooms you have downloaded will sometimes visit your boutique (they are a green coloured character).

Moonlight – There was a feature in the previous game where you had to collect moonlight from completing various tasks during the day to unlock things. You had to have a full moon to unlock anything and you got different amounts of moonlight from different tasks, i.e. winning a fashion show or serving a customer. This feature has been completely removed and things unlock now in the game just buy talking to NPC’s or completing simple tasks.

Customer stamp cards – A great feature that showed how many times a customer has visited your boutique and brought items. Each time a customer brought some items, a card would pop up with stamps showing how many times they have purchased items and what level they were, i.e. silver. This has been removed and you can check how many times customers have visited your boutique in the profiles list.

Sold Out Stickers – Why was this useful feature removed?? When customer purchased items from you, a screen would pop up showing what they purchased and a sold out sticker would be displayed on items that were the last one. I wish they had kept this feature in or changed it slightly because it would be useful to know when I run out of my staple items or items of a certain image.

Window Display – There is a great lack of customisation options for your boutique window. Before you could change aspects such as the floor, background and other elements such as window stickers. Now you just select a pre-designed one that doesn’t often match the theme you’re going for and you can place down two miniature items.

Decorating your apartment – It was always super fun to change the appearance of your apartment and buy new furniture items. Say goodbye to that idea because there is absolutely no option to alter anything in your apartment now. When visiting your apartment, you have four options relating to changing your appearance and it just shows your character looking in the mirror or strangely eating a crepe.

Furniture Store – This shop has been removed and you can no longer purchase items to customise your apartment. This shop has essentially been replaced by the miniatures shop that allows you to purchase miniature items to use in decorating Caprice Chalet rooms, your boutique and window display.

Wireless Fashion Show – a fun feature that allowed players to complete against each other in a Fashion Show. It utilised the wireless local play and was a great multiplayer feature. Still questioning why the multiplayer is so terrible in this game when features like this were included in previous installments.

Whoa! That’s a lot of changes. Thanks for reading all that everyone! Now here’s a picture of my character as thanks for reading all this text.


9 comments:

  1. Disappointed that they took out the customization for the apartment. I really don't see the point of the chalet room I mean I wish they meshed it up together with the apartment than they might have something there but I'm stuck with the same background forever. Also the lack of shop customization is another downer. I really don't understand it when the developers insist on omitting the good content of a game instead of improving on it.

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  2. I totally agree! I wish they had kept the apartment customisation as it was fun to alter the appearance and reflect your personal style. And yes, it would be great if there was more options for the design of your boutique, it's a bit lackluster.
    The game developers definitely should've kept in a few key features, but it was strange they were removed. I mean, why is the online play so terrible when we live in 2016 and I can't have a fashion walk off with my friends.

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  3. There's so much changes between these games, too bad I found this blog so late after that I've completed the game and such.. One thing tho, I started to play this again and I remember that the new style boutique 1 had this feature that you can go online, see other players outfits and create like 3 of your own and people could bought them.. I think that this second game had this function too but I can't remember how to use that function.. Any helps?

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  4. There's so much changes between these games, too bad I found this blog so late after that I've completed the game and such.. One thing tho, I started to play this again and I remember that the new style boutique 1 had this feature that you can go online, see other players outfits and create like 3 of your own and people could bought them.. I think that this second game had this function too but I can't remember how to use that function.. Any helps?

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    Replies
    1. The web shop feature was removed in this version. It would've been great though because online play is such as important thing with games nowadays.
      Thanks for reading my blog :) Hopefully if you start playing again, you might find something useful on here

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  5. There's another difference in Style Boutique 1 and Style Boutique 2: Back then, everyone had a budget shown when you see them at your boutique even if they're not buying anything. That was quite frustrating for me! In this game, you don't see the budget on customers. Glad they removed it!

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    Replies
    1. I find the budgets rather useful as sometimes I get carried away and try to give the customers stuff way out of their price range. Opps haha.

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    2. That can happen sometimes. Their budget is right under the request thingy (or whatever what they call it) for reference.

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    3. Yeah but sometimes I get carried away making an outfit I like and forget that price matters haha.

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