The graphics is RealArcade's latest DS offering, Sally's Salon, are bright, cheerful and crisp. Everything in Sally's salon is easy to see, which was one fear I had based on another time management title I played on the DS, Cake Mania. But those fears were definitely unfounded here. Each client is very easily distinguishable from the next, and because your client's tips and patience level depend on what type of person they are (whether they be a patient older person or an impatient teen or everything in between), this is very important.

I loved the art style of Sally's Salon because it had a really fun attitude. The hairstyles were cute and modern and some definitely had some anime leanings. Plus, I really liked that they had fun hair dye colors in addition to the standards. What a flip hairdo in lavender? We can do that! When customers like the punk rockers come in, they always like zany styles, but its also funny to see the elderly guy get bright green hair dye and a crazy cut.

There's not much in the way of sound effects, but what is there works. You'll have little pings and bleeps when certain tasks are finished and you'll hear the cash register ring when you have totalled someone out. Sometimes, when they leave the shop, they'll say "thanks Sally!" or something similar. There are tunes playing in the background that add to the experience and little sound effects like "yeah!" when you complete a hairdo and the customer likes it, but quite frankly, you can also turn the volume all the way down and still play the game just fine in silence.

Sally is a sassy little redhead determined to make it in the wonderful world of hair care. She begins her journey with a little salon in the middle of the mall with aspirations of one day owning a coast to coast chain, and if you play your cards and the game right, you'll work through 10 areas to finally have a shop in the Star Studios of what can only be Hollywood. Each area has 5 levels within it and in each, you have a daily goal to meet, plus an expert goal, if you are good enough. When you first start out, its just you by yourself, but as you make money, you can buy upgrades for your salon, such as a hair washing assistant, a hair drying assistant, more comfortable chairs to increase patience in your customers, plus speed boosts for Sally herself and her assistants.

You'll wash the customer's hair, then select a hair style, plus possibly give them a perm, dye their hair, tweeze their eyebrows, do a manicure or pedicure, give them a spray tan or even shape their mustache! There are so many potential tasks and it can get a little crazy, but it's really fun keeping up with everything. Each customer has 5 possible patience hearts and each customer also has a different attitude and level of patience. You might have the bridezilla who comes in with very little patience, or the business woman, who is short on time but deep in the pockets with her tips. You may want to serve those who will tip well but don't have much patience first, because if they lose all of their patience hearts, they will leave and it will cost you money in the long run.

Your ultimate goal is to meet the financial goal you have each day and sometimes, as things progress, you might need a little help. In addition to the assistants and speed boosts I mentioned earlier, you can purchase soothing candles to increase your customers' patience level or desire to leave big tips, or coffee to keep them placated while they wait. It gets a little crazy managing so many people and having so many tasks to do, but you can click on various people and queue up tasks (up to 9) so that Sally will do them in that order, which helps.

Difficulty in Sally's Salon is absolutely perfect. The challenge level is definitely there, but it ramps up at such a perfect rate and new tasks are gradually added such that you simply flow from one level into another. Now, you may begin your run nailing every level and meeting or even exceeding the Expert goal every time, but as you progress into the really tough levels towards the end that have so many tasks to do, you'll find that you are satisfied just barely making your goal. However, you can always go back and replay those levels where you didn't get the max score to hopefully increase your profit for that day.

As for difficulty in the various tasks, most are really fun. I found that perming the hair could be a bit cumbersome as you were required to swirl the stylus until you got just the right amount of "poof" to your client's hair. If you overshot your goal, you could dial it down, which was nice. Pumping the spray tan on could also be a bit of a pain because if you went too dark, you had to start the process over again, costing you precious time.

Everything is stylus driven in Sally's Salon. Your top screen shows information from time to time, such as the names of hair style choices and hair dye colors, etc. whereas your bottom screen is where the actual action takes place. Your customers will enter the salon and sit in the waiting area. You must drag them to the hair washing station with the stylus and then tap them once to wash their hair, or if they want a haircut and no hair wash first, you'll bring them directly to the hair cutting chair. An icon will appear over their head to indicate where they want to go next and they are color-coded so you can easily tell where they need to go. Once the hair wash is completed (either by you in the early stages, or by your assistant later), you'll drag them to a hair cutting chair and tap them once to go into the haircut menu. There, you can scroll through a number of hair styles and when you see the customer smiling widely, you know that's the right haircut for them. Click too quickly and you might not get the optimal style, resulting in an angry customer who gives lower tips. As you progress, you can buy a chair that makes the customer happier with more than one style, which can save you precious moments when you are scrolling through the possibilities.

Basically, your stylus is your best friend in this game and as long as you can keep your head about you, you'll do well. Queuing up customers in the best order to make the most number of people happy is the key to success here. I do have one complaint, however. As your customers lose patience, they lose hearts. Once you get to where the customer has no hearts, they will leave the shop and losing too many customers can make it so that you can't meet your goal. Wait, I am getting to my complaint. As I am working my way through a level, I have no idea how many customers I've lost, until I have completed the level and my totals are shown. It would have been nice to have a running tally so I could know how I was doing in that regard.

That being said, Sally's Salon is a terrific game with almost no flaws. This is one I will go back to again and again and I highly recommend it if you like time management games. It's a blast!