Why is this better than it should be... the premise is so lame, and having to kowtow to Ken's whims is ridiculous... but the gameplay is surprisingly fun and varied; the Look is immaculate; and the music is instantly nostalgic and beautiful.

Look: 9/10

Why do I like this look so much lol. It's technically tacky... But I love the "town"--just one street with store after store besides Barbie's house. The character sprites, the potential outfits, the store insides, even the convertible you drive--all immediately beloved.

Sound: 9/10 As you can hear above, it starts immediately with a phenomenal track, and on and on the Sound is flawless. Even the driving of the car is perfect to me, giving me that late 70s Atari feel. The voices are great, too. Every track on this soundtrack, I loved. (Fortunately someone made a YT playlist of the soundtrack https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFuAdnBuxxvXgg671MR6zUU2TmnBk2By7 ) It's crazy how perfect this is to me. The Sound could honestly be a 10 to me.

Play: 8/10 I liked the mundanity of this gameplay far too much. You get a call, you respond the same everytime to Ken, you shop. Simple looping, if only there were a set ending. I suppose you could say the reward of the photograph when you successfully, say, put on a swimsuit when invited to the beach (lol, breaking edge puzzles) acts an ending for each scenario. While I love the inanity and absurdity of that summary of the gameplay, I should also mention how I truly enjoyed trying on the different clothes and hairstyles. I've always liked character creation, though when I was young, I dreamed of the more advanced creation abilities of games nowadays (was just watching a former student create a sprite for his Fallout 4 character, gosh was that detailed, I would have killed for that as a kid). Ironically, now, I like being limited in it: it makes for a simplicity and accessibility that is perfect as long as there's some variability. And, conveniently enough, this game has a surprising number of colors to choose from, even for your hair, and clothes to boot. I was impressed by the variety for a single-disc C64 game..

Feel: 8/10 I was never a Barbie guy, never played dress up, but now as an adult, I guess I like dressing up a C64 rendition of Barbie :-p The graphics were great, even Ken was oddly perfect for the overall Feel of the game. I'll have to show this to my friends who were fans of 90s Barbie games. I believe this is the very first Barbie videogame? Surprisingly well-done; the Look and Sound supplement an oddly alluring dress-me-up Play; and builds a Feel to it that I bet garnered intensive nostalgia for those who had access to this when young.

Attachment: 8/10 All that being said, how often will I want to play dress up? Lol now that I tried all the varieties, and know how obvious most the solutions to the what-to-dress-as-for--the-date puzzles are, I will only really return to this to show fans of Barbie; listen to the soundtrack/watch the playthrough for the raw sounds; and think back to how much I enjoyed the first Barbie game, despite my doubts. Counts for something! In many ways that's "returning" to the game, even if I'm not sure I'll ever truly replay it. It's sort of like Face Maker, in this sense, but tbh, this has a world/Feel to it, better Sound, and a tie-in to irl! Hmmm

Completion: Hard to say. Several outfits and 3 successful dates Playtime: ~30 mins