Sally’s Salon Review

Take on the role of an entrepreneur in Sally’s Salon for the Nintendo DS, a game where you grow your business by taking care of your customers and making them look good in a timely manner. A port of the popular PC online game of the same name, the simplistic controls and visuals transfer well over to Nintendo’s handheld.

While Sally’s Salon may appear extremely simple, and it is at the very beginning, you quickly realize that there is more strategy to this game than first meets the eye. The basic gameplay has you using the stylus to move your customers through the gauntlet of hair care machines as quickly as possible. The customers tell you what kind of hairdo they would like, and which hair treatments they would like (such as hair washing and blow drying).

The reason you want to be speedy is that each customer has a certain patience level (represented by hearts), and you can lose customers (and income) if you don’t attend to them quickly. At first, you singlehandedly run the customers through the machines and cash them out at the register, but you quickly realize that you need more machines, and you can purchase these as well. The game also allows you to hire assistants so that you don’t have to handle every single task. Eventually, you are doing more and more tasks as well, such as curlers and even doing their nails. The list of services that you offer your clients starts to grow as your clientele grows, adding to the challenge of keeping them all happy.

As the game grows in complexity, your job will be to manage the equipment, staff, and customers to maximize your income, so you can get larger locales. So even though the game has a very approachable and light theme, there is a real sense of tension as your shop fills up with impatient customers and you work to keep them all happy while offering the services they are asking for. The strategy portion of this game then becomes about managing your income and deciding if want to purchase additional equipment or hire additional staff to help you grow your salon.

The visuals in Sally’s Salon are predictably low key. 2D characters represent both Sally and her characters, drawn similar to characters usually found in Natsume games and from other Japanese publishers. It’s a nice aesthetic, and it fits the simple and lighthearted nature of the game. Even as you deck out your hair salon with new equipment and employees, the action is easy to follow. The upper screen is not really utilized for much other than giving you the target amount of money you need to make for the day.The audio is equally light and airy, and complements the visuals. Overall, the presentation in Sally’s Salon is on par with the PC version and what you would expect from this type of casual game.

Sally’s Salon will be familiar to the many people who have played at least the demo version of the game on PC. I was first exposed to it on PC through my wife, and it has made a faithful transition to the Nintendo DS. Being a casual game about operating a hair salon, it has a very specific target audience, and it does a competent job of providing entertainment that’s both fun and even slightly challenging at times.