Thank you Teyon for providing us with a review code.

Teyon is a rather well known publisher for Nintendo. They have released some good games and a good amount of bad games. Unfortunately, this falls into the latter.

Doll Fashion Atelier is a game that lets you choose from 5 different styles of dolls to decorate and dress up. The choices are: Pretty, Gothic, Victorian, Princess, and Antique. Each style has dozens of variations to the types of dresses, shoes, and accessories that can be selected. The dolls have no animations to them, and they come off just as lifeless as a real doll would. In fact, there is no animation to be seen anywhere.

Graphically, this game is pretty bland. The clothing and accessories are well drawn and look nice. However, 3D is not used at all and the visuals slightly resemble what the DSi was capable of. Needless to say, it does not look like a modern 3DS title and for that I can't help but feel like this was an older game that got a new lease on life.

After creating a doll, you're brought to another screen to decorate the doll against a background. There are lots of backgrounds to choose from and there is a modest amount of frames that can be applied to add some extra charm. You're also allowed to doodle on the picture to make it even more personal. For what it's worth, the background layouts are drawn well and are all themed appropriately. Pictures are saved to the SD card and are viewable at any point. They can also be uploaded to Miiverse.

At first, there seemed to be a fun game here. I was enjoying customizing my doll for a good ten minutes. Going through the backgrounds was fun and the music that was playing had got me interested in the game. This is when it dawned on me that this was all the game had to offer.

There are no minigames and no way to physically interact with the doll. Once you create a doll and take its picture you're expected to just repeat and enjoy. I can understand this is aimed at younger children, little girls obviously, but having such a minimalist approach leaves a sour taste in my mouth. For 5 dollars I'd expect one minigame at the very least.

There was potential here for a good game. Hundreds of different clothing options to choose from and some actually decent music had me truly invested. This was all disregarded the moment I realized there was nothing to do but look at pictures of the doll I had made. This game is far too barebones to recommend as there are cheaper alternatives in the eShop with more gameplay options.

-Kyuremu