Fashion Police Squad review

Instead of guns and grenades, Fashion Police Squad will have you wield the gears of fabulousness as you give Trendopolis an extreme makeover.

Sergeant Des is fixated on cleaning up the streets. But unlike most police officers, he’s abnormally apathetic toward conventional crime. Fashion faux pas are Des’ beat, and if a person is wearing drab, formless, or just passé attire, the law will apply some crucial alterations. Built around a creative concept, Fashion Police Squad delivers a few laughs, but gameplay occasionally feels more like settling for Ross or T.J. Maxx, rather than shopping at a high-end retailer.

Fashion Police Squad is intended to mimic the look and feel of Quake and Duke Nukem 3D. Up close, characters, environmental objects, and your tools are all pixelated, resembling first-person shooters of the mid-nineties. But peer into the distance, and the game’s 3D worlds are quite attractive. Best of all, the rendering method allows even mid-range PCs to run the game fluidly. On Steam Deck, players can expect steady 60 fps output.

But instead of using the lethal hardware found in most retro shooters, you have access to a variety of alteration tools. The 2-Dye-4 Elite emits a shotgun-like blast of color, while the Tailormade sewing machine shoots a rapid-fire succession of needles to tailor those sloppy suits. Other fashion-savvy firearms let you extract the garish hues worn by scooter riders. Then, there’s the belt. Held in your left hand, the device can stun opponents, thrash vape-clutching delinquents, and is also used to swing from flagpoles.

Don’t Rock the Crocs with Socks

The good news is that your arsenal handles like traditional FPS weaponry. Variables like firing speed and ammo behavior endow each gun with distinction. You don’t have to worry about ammunition counts, so it’s OK to go trigger-happy in Fashion Police Squad’s metropolitan milieus. But only certain types of guns will affect the somber suits or the game’s fuming Karens decked out in slovenly dresses.

As such, the obvious tactic is to hunt down all members of a specific fashion offense before changing guns and pursuing the next variety. In most shooters, you swap guns to conserve ammo, often using your most powerful projectiles when you face a game’s toughest enemies. But in Fashion Police Squad, you’re changing guns all the time since the wrong tool won’t have any effect on people. You’ll launch gnomes to rectify characters wearing sandals with socks and absorb the extreme color from those flamboyant scooter dudes, which are just some of the ways style can be salvaged.

Sew Many Tools, But Sew Little Variety

Although the gun-switching is mildly fun at first, there’s no deeper strategy. As such, the hook becomes a bit tiresome, as you seek an alcove to safely swap weapons. If Fashion Police Squad tasked players with reading environmental clues to predict upcoming enemy types it might be a bit more interesting, but it’s all too straightforward. As such, boss battles are obvious, as you cycle through your loadout to take out subordinates before switching back for the primary opponent. The game attempts to mix things up with secondary firing types and the intermittent tool that can take out multiple opponent types. But largely, this kind of play isn’t offered enough.

Navigating through the labyrinthine levels and swinging around like a fashionista Spider-Man injects some variety into the proceedings. But using your belt to catapult yourself above toxic areas isn’t without issue. Frequently, Fashion Police Squad’s belt-based navigation leaves little room for error.  As such, it’s possible to miss latching onto a flagpole that’s just out of reach. Developer Mopeful Games seems aware of the issue and doesn’t deduct too much health. But a mistake can break the game’s sense of momentum.

Writing That Will Leave You in Stitches?

While the action can lean toward the tedious, the game routinely dispenses humor. Every time a fashion makeover occurs, the recipient will make a humorous exclamation. Meanwhile, those still in need of stylistic service offer amusing quips, like the boring suits who state, “launch” before tossing their briefcases at you. Karens go from screechy and flatulent to soft-spoken. It’s difficult to not daydream about a machine that could produce this kind of transformation in real life. Similarly, Sergeant Des’ interactions with his colleagues and a mysterious interloper can be comical. But sporadically, they disrupt the pacing of the action.

But comedy isn’t Fashion Police Squad’s only talent. Sure, the game’s scissor collection and ribbon-cutting errands are little more than a riff on Doom’s key gathering. But the game’s stages are superbly substantial and filled with nooks that conceal armor and health boosts if you’re up for some minor platforming. Mercifully, there’s an on-screen indicator that displays your next waypoint, so you won’t get lost in the intermittently homogenous stages.

Conclusion

Fashion Police Squad demonstrates that fixing faux pas can nearly be as engrossing as devastating hordes of demons. The main misstep is requiring particular tools against specific enemy types, which becomes tedious all too quickly. But if you’re able to peer past that, the action is attractive and the writing is thoroughly amusing. The game’s thirteen stages won’t last for long, but fashion always seems so ephemeral.

Fashion Police Squad was played on PC with
review code provided by the publisher.