Fashion Police Squad

Finnish studio Mopeful Games has released one of the surprises of the year. Not the worst or best of 2023 but undoubtedly a surprise. Fashion Police Squad is an FPS game with a 2.5D style inspired by the original Doom and gameplay inspired by Doom (2016). Where it has distanced itself from those games, however, is the violence.

This leads to a fresh experience as you don't kill anyone in the game. Instead, you'll find lots of people committing fashion crimes and dressing them up to look extra fancy. Which they thank you heartily for afterwards. Since all the enemies are wearing different outfits, you need to make sure you use the right type of weapon to make them look good. This makes all the battles like a puzzle as you constantly need to keep track of which weapon to use. It is reminiscent of games like Doom Eternal where each enemy has a weapon or ability that is extra effective against them.

Puzzle battles in Fashion Police Squad are both great fun and hard work. Each encounter will keep you engaged, but at the height of the action you'll be more in the weapon wheel than on the battlefield. In the beginning of the game, it's quite calm with only two or three enemy types at a time, but later on you have to juggle all sorts of fashion criminals in small arenas where you need to move quickly horizontally and vertically. Like the Doom games, it's all about moving fast. By sliding on soap bubbles, bouncing on beach umbrellas and swinging your belt, you can get around pretty quickly. In theory, anyway.

In practice, your movements feel somewhat imprecise. Most of the times I wanted to jump somewhere, I ended up missing and had to try again. But this time with a slower and more methodical approach. In combat it was annoying, the pace would freeze and you would get stuck in a corner because you jumped wrong. But the worst part was all the platforming.

The game varies between all the pacifist violence and getting from A to B by jumping around like Spiderman. Sometimes it goes perfectly and you swing around quickly and smoothly with your belt. But most of the time it just goes wrong and the pace stops, especially when you're sliding on soap bubbles. I don't know why this happens. Maybe the developers didn't think about it enough or maybe it's just the graphics style that makes the depth perception fail.

The graphics are brilliant and all the enemies and weapons are playfully designed. Unfortunately, however, all the environments are highly reused, so it feels like almost every level stinks of "copy and paste". But an FPS game is only as good as its weapons. Out of five weapons, four feel very good. It's a bit comical as a sewing machine automatic rifle has more power behind it than realistic automatic weapons in other games. However, the sock drawers were mostly just annoying as they slowed down the fast pace of the battles and were imprecise to use, despite their funny design.

Fashion Police Squad is charming and filled with humour that dares to make fun of itself. The developers know they made a silly game and ran with it. Throughout the game, the comedy stays fresh and original without getting boring, probably because the game ends before it gets too long. The game becomes slightly repetitive but spices it up with some unexpected moments. Some of them are great while some of them miss. For example, one of the bosses is probably one of the funniest I've ever fought, while another was a boring bullet sponge. The rating is a solid seven out of ten. If you want something light-hearted and original to play through, Fashion Police Squad is for you. But if you're looking for the game of the year, you might want to keep rummaging through your closet for something else that fits better.