Finnish studio Mopeful Games has released one of this year’s surprises. Not the worst or best of 2023, but certainly a surprise. Fashion Police Squad is an FPS game with a 2.5D style inspired by the original Doom and a gameplay inspired by Doom (2016). Where it distances itself from these games, however, is violence.
This makes for a whole new experience because you don’t kill anyone in the game. Instead, you’ll find a lot of people committing fashion crimes and dressing them up to look extra fancy. They thank you from the bottom of their hearts afterwards. Since all the enemies wear different outfits, you’ll need to make sure you’re using the correct type of weapon to make them look good. This makes all combat feel like a puzzle, since you need to keep track of which weapon to use. It’s reminiscent of a game like Doom Eternal, where each enemy has a weapon or ability that’s more effective against them.
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Puzzle battles in Fashion Police Squad are both fun and hard. Each encounter will keep you engaged, but during the height of the action, you’ll be more on the weapons wheel than on the field. At the beginning of the game, it’s pretty peaceful, with only two or three enemy types at a time, but later on you have to juggle various stylish criminals in small arenas where you need to move quickly both horizontally and vertically. Like the Doom games, it’s all about moving fast. By sliding on the soap bubbles, bouncing on the beach umbrella and swinging the belt, you can get around in no time. Anyway, in theory.
In practice, your movements feel a little imprecise. Most of the time I want to jump somewhere and I end up missing it and have to try again. But this time with a slower, more methodical approach. In combat, it’s annoying, with speed freezes and you getting stuck in corners from jumping wrong. But the worst part is all platformers.
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The game varies between all the pacifist violence and jumping around like Spider-Man to get from A to B. Sometimes it fits perfectly and you can swing the belt quickly and smoothly. But most of the time it just goes wrong and the speed stops, especially when you slide on soap bubbles. I do not know why it has to be like this. Maybe the developers didn’t think enough about it, or maybe it’s just the graphics style that fails with depth perception.
The graphics are excellent, and all the enemies and weapons are interestingly designed. Unfortunately, however, all environments are heavily reused, so it feels like almost every level stinks of “copy and paste”. But an FPS game is only as good as its weapons. Of the five weapons, four feel really good. It’s kind of funny, because the sewing machine automatic rifle has more power than realistic automatic weapons in other games. However, sock drawers are mostly just annoying, as they slow down the fast pace of combat and are imprecise to use, despite their fun design.
Fashion Police Squad is charming, full of humor and dares to make fun of itself. The developers know they made a stupid game and run with it. Throughout the game, the comedy remains fresh and original without getting boring, probably because the game ends before it’s too long. The game gets a little repetitive, but it’s spiced up with some unexpected moments. Some of them are great, and some of them are missed. For example, one of the bosses is probably one of the funniest bosses I’ve ever played, while the other is a boring bullet sponge. Rating is 7 out of 10. If you want something light and original to play, Fashion Police Squad is for you. But if you’re looking for Game of the Year, you might want to keep rummaging through your closet for something else that’s a better fit.
