The return! Why? Who knows!
Project Runway is a Wii fashion game based on the TV show of the same name. Shocking. I don't personally know this show but you can TELL that the people who made this at least watched it, if not liked it. There also seems to be a PC version, which might not be too different but seems to have some changes.
There's a good bit of care for the show, an extras menu and FMV scenes at the start of each story mode section. It does seem to be a game built for the show, rather than just a fashion game with a brand plastered on. The funny looking PNGs of the show's hosts throughout the game, a genre of game asset that really only survived through this era I feel, plus all text being sans serif basic fonts really gives this game the mixed atmosphere of both a Wii AND Flash game at the same time, which is honestly kinda funny to look back on but does look a bit jarring at points, especially in contrast to some of the more well-designed visual elements.
Another plus for the game's love of the show, the whole OST, instead of using stock tracks as a game like this may decide to do in a case of no composer, uses music from the actual TV show! Supposedly this would cost more to work out, I assume, although could have been easier than stock tracks if I'm entirely wrong. While I would love original music, it probably works better to have the show's music in this case, as most of it has been unreleased outside of this game and it's absolutely PERFECT for it. The music is deeply awesome, full of funky synth goodness, and the amazing Music 33 (as named in the I'm Maria upload) is perfection, although I sadly did not hear it in-game during my playtime. Genuinely would recommend a listen to this soundtrack, would be one of my fav game OSTs if it weren't for the fact it's not really a game OST. Also, one of the win screens has a slap bass sample used in the Ridge Racer song Speedster (although I have no footage of this and it doesn't seem to be in the I'm Maria rip, so I'll try to rip the jingle at some point myself).
Now to actually talk about gameplay, it's really good! A fun fashion game with multiple different phases to the design. While I have played a limited number of fashion games, it's honestly one of the best I've played that isn't a SynSophia game. There are multiple modes: Season, Fashion Studio and Quick Play.
The Season mode is basically a story mode with FMV intros to each challenge and a combination of the two modes in each challenge. You go through the Fashion Studio sections: The Workroom, where you create items of clothing, Hair and Makeup, which I probably do not have to explain, and the Dressing Room, where you combine your clothing items and add some extra decorations to make a full outfit. After this you enter one of the three Quick Play minigames, specifically Catwalk every time. Catwalk is a fun little minigame where you walk (if using the Balance Board) and do Wiimote actions to a basic rhythm until you get to the ends of the catwalk, where you do poses by moving your body (once again, on the Balance Board) and with more Wiimote actions. This is a pretty effective gameplay loop, building the outfit to show it off, and you get a rating at the end that determines if you win the challenge (you probably will, to be completely honest. I haven't tried the hard mode but there was not much challenge to this game.). Each challenge in the Season mode unlocks new items, decals and sometimes music that can be used in the Quick Play modes. My main issue with the Season mode is that it just gives you instructions, with mild additions encouraged to improve your score, but not actually full creativity allowed for the outfits. It gives instructions like "X top, Y cut, Z colour" and so on, which just kinda limits a bit of the fun of a fashion game, but I understand as a sort of introduction to making outfits for the Fashion Studio mode. Only other issue I could find was that loading the models you can choose from feels a bit laggy, but the fact that they even had multiple options for models is commendable.
The Fashion Studio modes function the same as the Season mode variants of each but with full freedom over creation (except for specific limits of certain patterns and decals for item types, sadly). Custom items are saved and can later be used to make outfits for Quick Play, although only one full outfit can be saved in the custom slot for Quick Play, which is disappointing. Luckily, you can still save a good number of custom items (I don't know the limit, but after playing Season mode you end up with a good few items and I made a few more in Fashion Studio, so it's got at least that much space) and then just make a new outfit each time - a bit annoying but not too big a deal.
Finally, Quick Play contains 3 minigames: Catwalk (which functions the same as it does in Season mode), Pose-Off (effectively just a quickfire round of the posing sections from Catwalk) and Photo Shoot (a new, entirely original game). Photo Shoot is an idea I LOVE - it's a simple photo game where you rotate the camera around and try to get good shots at both the right angle and zoom. It took me a second to get used to, especially with the kinda odd Wii Balance Board support (which does, admittedly, work pretty well and is understandable as an option since it's also available in Catwalk, but is a bit confusing at first), but once I actually remembered to press the button to take the photos, I loved it! A really great minigame that I think is executed pretty well. Box art is really nicely designed, but the floating heads look a bit funny. Good colour scheme, though, and the silhouettes work well. There seems to be an alternate version (used for the PC version but also possibly some Wii versions) that has less pink, which looks a good bit less nice but is still mostly the same.
Game: 8/10
Music: 9/10
Box: 8/10 Box (Purple only): 7.5/10
looking back on old ratings, god i was so harsh with box design LOL, gotta change that.
