Fashion Police Squad Review

I live in London and that means I am well used to seeing some very bold fashion choices popping up in my neighbourhood. Only last week I saw a man dressed in a mash-up of a Mary Poppins outfit and that of a peacock, before proceeding to be sick in a bin. 

Now, in the game Fashion Police Squad, that kind of outfit would be applauded. But if you were wearing something grey, ill-fitting, and showing off socks with sandals, then the Fashion Police Squad would not think twice about putting you down. It is this that is the very tongue-in-cheek premise of the latest first-person retro-shooter, where the clothing you are wearing will determine your life. Basically put, if you know your Ralph Lauren from your Primark, then this could be for you. 

The story found in Fashion Police Squad is a very fun one. You are part of the titular Fashion Police Squad, an elite bunch of stylish upholders of the fashion law. Your task is to go out into the world and deliver justice to a whole host of fashion criminals. There is a narrative on offer here and that works as a parody of police action games and films with very much a style twist. You are chasing down leads, fighting bosses, and generally keeping up in a world of cool around you. It is very witty and some of the writing made me laugh out loud. But it does tend to get a bit wearing after a while, especially when you are found repeating levels and dying over and over.  

Gameplay puts you in a pixelated city world and plays in the first person. It’s like an old school DOOM where you are strafing around shooting, collecting health and armor. Instead of destroying demons of varying shapes and sizes though, your task is to ensure your enemies have better taste in clothing. 

Instead of shooting bullets from your different guns, you hit your enemies with special powers – turning their drab outfits into something fabulous. For example, a normal grey-suited man needs a certain weapon to shoot him which gives him better clothes. A scooter guy needs you to drain his energy to make him more hip. One enemy needs you to capture him, and then hit him to make his suit better fitting. So many different enemies appear that you’ll need to utilise a whole variety of different weapons and strategies to take them out. It is a lot of fun and a great idea, but switching up the weapons is not as simple as I would have liked. There’s no doubt that the variety of gameplay keeps changing it up and adding new weapons and tactics, though. 

You explore a large number of levels that take you all over the city; overground and underground. There are a couple of sections where you have to use a whip to swing across rooftops, and honestly, this is horrible and a bit unreliable. Yet to keep the DOOM references flowing, you’ll find that Fashion Police Squad utilises stuff like coloured keys and locked doors; just switched out for coloured scissors and ribbons that need cutting. I enjoyed the level design as it has some nice battle arenas and some hidden secrets you’re going to want to hunt down. 

The visual design does well in employing the pixel art style to great effect, with some well worked level designs and a good array of humorous characters. It’s a smooth visual experience as well, something which is always great for an FPS. The little extra details like posters dotted around and the way the characters change from the dull to the fab are always brilliant.

Sound-wise it has an old-school arcade soundtrack and the odd bit of voice over where one word is shouted. This is perfect for the action but sometimes can get a bit repetitive. 

Fashion Police Squad is a fun and humorous take on the FPS genre. It comes with fast fluid gameplay that feeds off some DOOM roots, but manages to still do its own original thing, working loads of great ideas and concepts. After a while, the vibe and theme of the game gets a tad scale and it quickly loses the initial impact it has. But there is a very good game here, one that will provide a ton of fun.

Fashion Police Squad will certainly make you think twice about what you are wearing when you leave the house. 

Fashion Police Squad is on the Xbox Store