Pop Cutie! Street Fashion Simulation Hands-On

Originally a PlayStation game in Japan, Pop Cutie! Street Fashion Simulation has been brought over to North America on the Nintendo DS to show off some Tokyo-inspired lines of clothing, complete with costumes. Pop Cutie isn't just about the clothes, however, it's about managing your own fashion boutique and keeping an eye on the latest trends so that you can come out as the top designer. We got a chance to sit down and see what kind of hot new styles we could come up with at Koei's press event in San Francisco.

We started from the beginning where our character wants to start a fashion boutique. With the help of a funny man wearing a rabbit hat, we were given pointers for how to start own business and go about starting the latest trends. We were taken to our storefront in the flea market, which is where the business part of the game occurs. Connected to the store is our studio, which is where we come up with new designs to put in our catalogue. There isn't much in terms of designing: To create a new item we had to go outside and talk to people who then gave us keywords. These keywords were used to create a new item in the studio. The keywords serve as ideas and a way to inspire you to come up with a bucket hat, without having to sew. Once you have your item, you can choose a color or multiple colors for that particular item. Each color will take up an extra slot in your catalogue, so you need to manage carefully because there is a limited amount of space. Color choices are limited at first, but as you're walking around outside, you'll notice that there are different-colored flowers that will show up periodically. By tapping on these flowers with the stylus, you'll add new colors to your studio so that you can make skirts and boots in all the colors of the rainbow.

Once you have your item designed in the studio, you bring it up to the storefront where you have shelves that you need to fill. Early on, we were given an employee and immediately put him in charge of the register. You can assign different tasks to him, and we were told that later on in the game, you can hire other people who will come with a variety of skills. Some employees may be good at managing the cash register, but they can be rude to your customers. Once we started filling the shelves, customers started to come in and try on our clothes.

Slowly but surely, the people that were milling about outside started to show up with our trendy new bucket hat. Part of your job is to also watch the passersby to see what they like. If a person on the street is staring at another person's hat, you will see his or her view cone and the color of the view cone will indicate to whom the item belongs. If it's yellow, it's yours; but if it's blue or red, it belongs to a rival. This is your way of checking out the competition, and when the seasons change, your clothes will have to as well.

There is also the ability to place ads in magazines to help promote your clothing line. You can hire models to wear your clothes in public and hope that they help start a trend. This is all part of retail management, and there are several things to keep in mind as you go along.

We didn't get a chance to see it in action, but there is a fashion battle that comes up where you compete against your rivals. Judges will determine whether your look is going to be the next big thing. This battle is also available via wireless DS multicard play.

Koei is known for its Dynasty Warriors series, so even though it is approaching a different audience with Pop Cutie, we may still find some elements of the popular hack-and-slash game. When we began, we started off with designing hats, glasses, skirts, pants, and so on, but eventually, you can start coming up with full outfits that have different themes. We are told that ninja outfits and Dynasty Warriors' outfits are a definite possibility, so we're curious to see exactly what else we can come up with when Pop Cutie! Street Fashion Simulation is released on September 30.