This sequel to Jojo’s Fashion Show may be full of fashion Do’s and Don’ts, but more importantly, the developers at Gamelab really know their casual gaming Do’s and Don’ts, too. There’s a lot of visual variety in the clothing styles, and the fashion theme is once again at the heart of the gameplay. Gamelab didn’t tamper with the parts of the game that already worked well; they also didn’t try to merely rehash the game, but instead added enough cool stuff that it’s just a much better game.

The story is the continuing adventure of Jojo and her daughter Rosalind as they blaze a trail of style across the world of fashion. The designers wisely keep the story to bite-sized scenes that go by quickly, since the real fun is in the fashion shows and the new photo shoots. As before, you have a limited time and a limited selection of outfits with which to dress your models at the fashion shows. The key to success lies in picking the right top, bottom and shoe items to match the style indicated for each model. While the Bollywood style is very different from Conservative and Sockhop styles, the lines are more blurred for some of the others. But don’t worry - you can research each style before playing to learn the keywords for that style. When you send out a model, she will be graded based on which keywords her outfit has, and you get immediate feedback on what you did right and wrong - a great way to reward players and help them learn the game. The only weak point is that while models will often speak comments about the outfits, it’s usually but not always clear if they approve or disapprove of a choice. There were a couple of times when I thought a model was saying “Okay” when in fact the clothing item was just totally wrong for the style.

There are lots of ways to earn extra points - send out multiple models in one go for a model chain bonus, or send out consecutive models with the same style for a style chain bonus. Sometimes accessories will appear that you can use to outfit your models, and later levels introduce a point doubler during the show climax. You also will get power-ups for shuffling the available outfits or instantly dressing a model, which you have to hoard for just the right moments.

Among the new features are the male models and outfits, which aren’t quite as plentiful as the female ones, but they provide a nice bit of variety when you do get male shows. There’s also photo shoots in which you have to pick out already-dressed models at a location and frame shots of them within a time limit. This is where you get a chance to identify the right clothing styles on sight, while also playing at being shutterbug. When two models are right next to each other, you have to be very careful how you place the camera frame, or the game might think you’re trying to take a shot of the wrong model, and will deduct points for not framing the shot properly!

In addition to the 75 levels of gameplay in Runway Mode (including the photo shoots) there’s also a Dress-Up mode in which you can mix and match any Signature Outfits that you managed to collect during the game (which is a mini-game by itself) and take snapshots for your collection. If you loved the outfits in the game, this is another reward for playing more levels of Runway Mode.

The story, as I mentioned before, is presented in the perfect way for this type of game, and it uses likeable and very memorable characters. The visual sense of style also gets top marks, and the sound and music by AudioBrain are all top-notch with the possible exception of some of the model phrases which confused me during the game. So, to use the obvious metaphor, Jojo’s Fashion Show 2: Las Cruces is a stunningly well-outfitted supermodel among casual games, with lots of cool accessories and a fine sense of design that really hits all the high points this season. I urge you to try it on and give it a go!

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Overall Rating:

(10 votes, average: 4.6 out of 5)

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