izigame.me

If you want an extremely unique entry in the old school fps genre, or if you just need some real solid fashion advice, this is the game for you! And if you’re unsure… give the demo a try! Also, video review at the bottom!
I’ll be the first to admit that I have an awful fashion sense. I can’t properly match colours and my style is basically using the same set of shirts over and over. But you know, I’ve never actually been able to CONFIRM that my fashion sense is awful… until I played Fashion Police Squad. Now, I can safely say I have evidence! Jokes aside, the concept of a shooter that has you helping people become more fashionable (according to societal standards anyway) fascinated me to the point I knew I had to give it a shot - and I’m really glad I did!
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Before we go any further: this review is spoiler-free!
Despite the joke in the first paragraph being sub-par at best, it is based on this game’s biggest strength: it’s theme. Fashion Police Squad is an extremely stylish old school FPS that doesn’t take itself seriously (and is all the better for it). Words are replaced by their more fashionable counterparts (“Get your sass over here right away!”, S.W.A.G team outfit instead of S.W.A.T, etc), a gun called “2DYE-4 Elite”, a title card introducing new enemies and what fashion crime they’re committing (you can see the one for the Tourist in the steam store page pics - I can also safely say I unfortunately have committed some of those crimes myself and am currently deeply ashamed), and enemies even explode in a dance when beaten, forever thankful to you for saving them from their existence as a fashion criminal!
Everything in this game revolves around fashion. The developers had a vision for this game, and it really shows. You might notice that so far, I haven’t really mentioned the story, but there’s a reason: for me, the story here serves as mostly a platform for this thematic and charm to build upon. While it’s serviceable, and your character, Sergeant Des, and the writing in general, can be hilarious, the themes are what stuck with me. And those manifest everywhere: the story, the writing, the gameplay… The game even has tons of gaming and pop culture references and parodies! This is why I mentioned that this game is an extremely unique entry in the old school fps genre.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2853817916
This theme is really well complemented by both the game’s art style and soundtrack. The graphics, UI, everything is carefully crafted to convey the old school feeling, right down to the main character’s face looking left and right on the bottom of the screen, in a direct reference to DOOM. You can clearly see each enemy’s fashion crime reflected in their model, as well as their “fixed and fashionable” versions after you beat them. The soundtrack, while not very varied within each level, makes slapping (literally, thanks to a certain power up) some fashion sense into people an absolute blast.
But I think when a lot of people try to get an old school shooter, the main thing they’re looking for is quality gameplay. Is the game just as good in this area? Well… not quite. The shooting - perhaps the most important part of the gameplay - is alright. The potential issues arise mostly from some of the parts surrounding it. As you play through Fashion Police Squad, you unlock several weapons to aid you in your fight against unfashionable beings. As you play through the game, you also unlock several of said unfashionable beings. The thing is, all fashion crimes only have one (or occasionally two) weapons that are effective against them. For example: the aforementioned tourist needs to be attacked with a gnome that removes his socks. Said gnome, however, deals 0 damage to a Dull Suit - the game’s first enemy type that rocks a gray suit and needs to be colorized.
Effectively what this means is that, when you reach arenas, you’ll have quite a few different enemy types thrown against you, and most of your weapons (save for an end game exception) will only be effective against one or two and deal no damage to the other enemy types. This results in you having to constantly swap your arsenal around so that you can deal damage to whatever you’re facing - and if the wrong enemy type walks in front of your target, tough luck! Better reposition yourself or change weapons because that enemy will now block all damage from the weapon you were using. While this didn’t bother me much, it did become worse when combined with the level design.
Now, I didn’t really have an issue with the level design per say, it was linear but pretty good. The thing is some levels take place completely indoors, sometimes with sections that are very tight corridors. This becomes dangerous and frustrating rather quickly when you factor in the different enemy types. One, for example, throws gas that lingers around an area. If you find that enemy in a corridor just around a corner, you might just end up having to back away and wait for the gas to clear before you can pop back around the corner and keep shooting. The gas also visually clutters the screen a bit. Now imagine yourself in a small arena full of different enemies, some of which gas part of the arena, set fire to another part, and you have to keep jumping around madly and swapping weapons while trying to avoid AOE zones… It seems fun, and it often is, but it can be very frustrating to deal with as you’re simply not left with much room to dodge or maneuver.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2853818201
Due to that, some rooms may feel harder than intended, but overall, playing on the second hardest difficulty, I didn’t have too much trouble - it was just challenging enough, even if some of the said challenge felt a bit frustrating because of what I mentioned above. The game also does a good job offering some sections that shake up the gameplay a bit. The most common are platforming sections that have you flying around using your belt (yep) from pole to pole and another weapon that allows you to artificially speed your character up temporarily. While I did have some problems jumping while under the effect of said weapon, in general, the platforming is pretty fun. There are also other ways the game shakes up the gameplay, but I’ll leave those as a surprise.
In terms of glitches and the more technical side of things, the game is well optimized (or at least ran well at max settings on my system - rtx 2060, i7 8th gen, 16gb ram, nvme ssd), but I did run into a few issues. Most were pretty minor, such as doors being a bit tough to interact with if you’re right in front of them. The only more major issue I ran into was in a late game arena. In an arena, you get locked into a room with a bunch of enemies. However, on this specific occasion, I got locked OUTSIDE of said room. It was an issue because I needed to get through the room to progress, and couldn’t kill the enemies. I ended up using a late game AOE weapon to fashionize my enemies through the door, but I suspect restarting the level would also have worked (I’m lazy though and didn’t want to lose progress).
All in all, I had a blast with Fashion Police Squad. I think anyone can agree that, even if the gameplay is not for them, this game is certainly not lacking in style! If what you read here seems interesting, I also have great news: the game has a demo, so there’s really no excuse to not check it out!
If you want to see a video review of this game, click below! It’s an entirely different text (yes, I’m insane enough to have rewritten this review for the video)!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p5n5RSd3Js