Topic: Anne's Doll Studio: Tokyo Collection Review

[Kairon]

Are 5,971,968 combinations of two-dimensional haute-couture enough to get you to play with a digital paper doll?

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/29981

Paper dolls are not customizable avatars. They aren't even poseable Barbies. They don't animate, they don't move, and they aren't 3D.

But what they lack in dimensionality, they make up for in a focus on fashion. After all, it's hardly about the character you're dressing; it's about the clothes, the hats, the shoes. You're overlaying one image onto another, and the top layer takes precedence. It's not 3D and it's not animated, so the tiniest details, patterns, accessories, and poses are all so much more important; what you see is all you'll ever get. And with each dress custom made to fit and cover the figure of the character, this is as close to haute couture as most of us poor fashion mortals will ever get.

Now, I'm definitely no devotee of fashion. I'm also probably not in the key demographic of the paper doll community. But once I put my mind to creating a complete outfit and setting in Anne's Doll Studio: Tokyo Collection, I have to admit I did find myself just a little bit obsessed.

You can take a picture to use as a custom wallpaper if you want. See my cat?

Just counting clothes, hairstyle, coats, shoes, accessories, and hair accessories, simple math puts the total possible fashion combinations in Anne's Doll Studio: Tokyo Collection at 5,971,968. Throw in 18 default wallpapers, the chance to take a photo for a custom wallpaper, and 24 different frames, and the possibilities soar. Then, with 60 different stickers and the opportunity for freehand doodling on the resulting tableau, you'd think that you'd have more than enough content to make you happy.

However, I found that making an outfit wasn’t guaranteed to be a successful endeavor even though there could be millions of possible results. Designing an outfit is about one perfect combination for any single unique situation or emotion, and though the game offers enough combinations to whet an appetite to mix-and-match, the individual options for each item aren't varied enough to satiate it.

The game has other faults beyond its limited wardrobe. When placing sticker decorations or drawing freehand, the undo function only erases a single previous action; you need to completely erase your stickers and doodles to correct any deeper mistakes. When taking a picture to serve as a custom background, you can't use any saved images—you have to take a picture on the spot. And unlike the previous game in the series, Anne's Doll Studio: Gothic Selection, there's only a single doll to decorate.

Don't get me wrong, if you want to obsess over dressing a paper doll, Anne's Doll Studio: Tokyo Collection can do the job. In fact, after I finish writing this review, I plan to fool around in the game a bit more. It's quite handy that after you save out your final creation you can open and edit the image just like any other picture. For example, I ended up using Colors 3D! to add a handwritten message to one of my pictures because of that app's greater color selection and brush style functionality.

If the shoe fits...

But what if you're looking for more than a basic paper doll experience? The bottom line is that Anne's Doll Studio: Tokyo Collection just doesn't have enough options to go the distance. Keep in mind: Imelda Marcos is reputed to have owned more than 2700 pairs of shoes. Anne's Doll Studio: Tokyo Collection only has 24 pairs in its closet.