We’re closing out our PAX West 2023 coverage with one last hurray of games we played while at the show. Now it’s time for our legs to rest from all the walking we did.
Fashion Dreamer
As someone who likes to spend hours customizing anything and everything in a game, I thought Fashion Dreamer would be up my alley. Fashion Dreamer puts you in the shoes of a fashion influencer called a Muse. In the world of Eve, players will create outfit styles and customize styles for other Muses to gain a following and earn new style options to become the top fashion influencer. There are 4 areas to explore with distinct backdrops and environments. There are plenty of outfits, color palates, poses that I easily spent a good portion of my demo time just diving into the item creation mode. You can share your curated styles and items online too. There’s even a bit of social sim element, as helping other muses deepens your connection with them so you better farm that engagement and mash that like and subscribe. Fun fact I learned writing this preview, the studio Syn Sophia was originally AKI Corporation and developed WWF No Mercy and Def Jam games back in the day. Somehow it all ties back together to wrestling. Fashion Dreamer releases November 3 for Nintendo Switch.
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name
Kazuma Kiryu just can’t seem to ever catch a break, even after faking his death. Thrown into another dramatic conflict, Kiryu heads to a mysterious shipping container that has a literal castle plopped on it to go knock some heads together. Like a Dragon Gaiden returns back to the action brawler gameplay the series is known for and Kiryu comes with a new set of literal tricks up his sleeve with the new “agent” fighting style. Unlike the yakuza fighting style that focuses on Kiryu’s brawn, the agent style sees Kiryu whipping out a variety of James Bond-esque gadgets to deal some punishment with. There’s a drone you can summon to help you in combat and a grenade that are pretty basic, but it’s the jet boots and spider whip that are the highlights. Kiryu’s fancy new shoes allows him to boost around the arena, knocking down anyone unfortunate enough to get in his way, while the spider whip sees Kiryu put on his best Spider-Man as he ropes together a group of goons then swings them around, smacking everyone around. Yakuza has always been silly, but Like a Dragon Gaiden is definitely ramping up the camp with the game’s new setting and fighting style. As with any Yakuza game, there’s of course a multitude of activities to participate in besides fighting. You’ll be able to go visit the cabaret club, gamble at the casino, dress Kiryu up in the silliest outfits imaginable, race in the pocket circuit and of course perform karaoke. You’ll be able to join Kiryu in his latest adventure when Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name releases this November.
Woodo
Woodo was probably one of the cutest surprises I saw at PAX this year. If cozy games are your thing, then Woodo is very much going to be right up your alley as it’s a puzzle game where you sort of “repaint” a diorama. My demo dropped me in the most cabin-core ass room ever, except everything in the room was grayed out. My goal then was to cycle through my list of objects and drag them to where they are in the diorama to basically reconstruct the set. It’s a lot easier to grasp through video than text I’m sure, so I highly recommend looking up footage of the game. Woodo is definitely the type of game where you cozy up underneath a blanket to play on a chill night. There’s currently no release date for Woodo yet, but you can wishlist it now.
