Fashion Police Squad is an indie first-person arena shooter, reminiscent of classics like the early Doom series and Wolfenstein, but instead of splattering demons and ventilating Nazis with plasma cannons and shotguns, you fix fashion faux pas with an arsenal of clothing-fixing weaponry.
Though the game looks the part of the nascent “Boomer Shooter” genre, a revival of 90’s-era FPS games, it actually has quite a lot in common with a much more recent title, Doom Eternal with its emphasis on staying on the move and using the right tools for the right enemies. The game has plenty of secrets and idiosyncrasies that might give you pause in your mission to SLAY those fashion crimes, so here are some things you should know before starting Fashion Police Squad.
7 There’s A Lot Of Platforming
Though the game is primarily a shooter, there’s a significant amount of first-person platforming in the game, especially if you intend to find all the hidden Mocktails and Swag for some health and armor, and the hilarious secret posters hidden away in some out-of-the-way corners.
The platforming is mostly composed of short jaunts, but there’s a good amount of them, and for the most part, they’re a nice change of pace from all the fabulous fashion shooting you have to do. However, the movement is a little slippery for some of the pinpoint jumps you have to make and sometimes requires a few attempts.
A more egregious problem is the platforming sections that use the Belt of Justice, which when it works, is admittedly a high-flying joy, but spotty detection when it comes to grapple points means that those sections can be quite irritating.
6 Weapon Switching Is Important
In a lot of shooters, there is often a bevy of weapons at your disposal, but more often than not, you’ll end up with a favorite that you’ll use in most situations. Granted, there will be times when you’ll use more specialized weaponry - like a sniper rifle for long-range engagements - but chances are, outside of those times, you’ve got an old reliable.
However, this is not possible in Fashion Police Squad, where you’ll be faced with all sorts of fashion crimes that can only be sorted in a few specific ways. Drab suits? Hit ‘em with a splash of color from your 2DYE-4 Elite carbine. Ill-fitting outfits? Pin ‘em into place with your Tailormade sewing machine gun. Later on, you’ll be fighting mixed mobs and you’ll have to switch weapons on the fly to deal with each target if you don’t wanna get KO’d.
5 Prioritize Your Enemies
In addition to making sure you use 100 percent of your arsenal throughout the game, the variety of enemies, each having a unique attack style, means that you’re dodging all sorts of harm coming your way and you’ll have to switch weapons with every different kind of target.
Some of the enemies can be more annoying or dangerous than others and it’s up to you to figure out what order to handle them in. In general, you may want to handle enemies that obscure your vision first, like Tourists or Karens, followed by area-attacking enemies like Flamers or Loose Suits.
4 Always Be Moving
This is not a game where you should be standing still, at least when there are fashion crimes to fight. You should always be on the go, when in combat, since stopping to aim will quickly get you pelted by suitcases, pepper sprayed, run over, etc.
The aim of most of the weapons is pretty generous, especially at the closer engagement ranges that the game puts you in, so it’s not like you need to be super precise.
3 Exploration Is Important
Though it’s for the most part optional, you’ll still want to go off the beaten path when exploring the city of Trendopolis. Not only can you get extra health and armor in this way, but you can also encounter additional enemies, which you’ll need to beat to 100 percent a level.
Of course, even if you didn’t get all those things, it would still be worth it to look around for the secret posters alone, since they’re all pretty funny and almost all of them are a fun little nod to the history of video games, fashion, or both.
2 Don’t Panic
Some of the fights in Fashion Police Squad can get quite frenetic, sometimes boiling down to just trapping you in a small area full of some of the most annoying enemies. With all the decisions you have to make, it can be easy to be overwhelmed, especially in the higher difficulties.
A good way to deal with this is to focus on staying alive, first and foremost. Try to find a way to go that will give you some breathing room instead of immediately blasting, like a place where enemy density isn’t so high, or better yet, look for grapple points so that you can take to the sky and have an optimal view of safer areas. Then proceed to take out your foes, preferably focusing on ones that can be taken out with the same weapon. If you keep a cool head, you can get out of any fashion emergency.
1 Know When To Slap
The most powerful move in the Fashion Police Squad’s arsenal is the Fab Slap, a move that temporarily stuns opponents and makes you invincible, as well as allowing you to zip around the map and one-shot your foes. It’s so powerful that you can only use it when you fill up a gauge by defeating fashion crimes by other means.
Since it’s a finite resource, you’ll naturally want to save it, which is a good instinct. A lot of the time, the story will call on you to deploy the Fab Slap, but not always. Sometimes, you can end up with a full gauge at the end of the level, never having used it at all.