Fashion Police Squad PC Review 8/10 "Chalk Fashion Police Squad Up As a Very Nice Surprise" 💃 @nomorerobotshq #IndieGame #GameDev

We’re now three decades on from Doom and iD Software’s cast iron classic has still got it where it counts.

Its blistering speed, streamlined design, badass occult aesthetics, and iconic collection of monsters endures, and many a gamer who wasn’t even a twinkle in their parent’s eyes in 1993 has realized it’s still a supremely fun experience.

The past few years have seen a renaissance in throwback first-person-shooters attempting to recapture that retro magic, with highlights including Ion Fury, Dusk, and Prodeus. But, for me at least, few have nailed it quite like Fashion Police Squad.

This little darling from Mopeful Games swaps out hellbound demons for men in overly tight speedos, ill-fitting business suits, and tourists wearing socks and sandals, abandons hell for the dayglo streets of Trendopolis, and hands you a sewing machine gun to fix these crimes against fashion.

It’s a supremely goofy premise and Fashion Police Squad embraces every conceivable pun along the way (right even down to its ‘FPS’ title). Actually nailing jokes in a video game is a depressingly rare achievement, but whether it’s just goofy wordplay like “Heel’s Kitchen’, dumb little lines like “all your lace are belong to us” and a Call of Duty jab by asking you to “Press X to press [F] to pay respects had me giggling away.

Highlights for me included the ‘Flasher’ enemy (a man in a dirty mac) quoting the Resident Evil 4 merchant, being beset by pepper-spraying Karens you must blast back into good self-esteem, and an ambitious mid-game boss fight that zaps you into a Wolfenstein 3D level and - be still my Kojima-lovin’ heart - transports you to the game’s take on Metal Gear Solid’s VR missions (there’s even a CODEC chat!).

All the above would be for nothing if the gameplay wasn’t up to scratch, but Fashion Police Squad has a rare grasp on what makes a Doom clone tick. One of the most enduring aspects of Doom is learning which weapon types to use on which enemies: chainsaws to lock pinkies down and save ammo, the chaingun to neutralize cacodemons, rockets for tightly grouped packs, and the shotgun for damn near anything else.

Fashion Police Squad takes that and runs with it, with each enemy type being defeated by a specific weapon tailored (sorry) to that type. For example, a city slicker in a baggy suit will need the sewing machine pins to tighten it up, a dayglo scooter delivery guy will need to be toned down by sucking away his colours, and a Guy Fieri-a-like in a 90s flaming shirt will need to be put out with the water gun. Rapidly cycling between weapons is the key to victory, and as I dashed, leapt and circle-strafed my way around I felt those dusty Doom reflexes deep in my brain flexing once again.

Arguably this match-weapon-to-enemy-type design can get a little too prescriptive, as the ‘wrong’ weapon simply won’t do any damage. In the midst of a late-game firefight with an arena crammed full of different types, things get a bit stressful, though smartly prioritizing which fashion disasters you’re fixing alleviates a bunch of that.

Beyond that, there’s also a decent serving of surprisingly fun platforming action. You can swing, Spider-Man style, on your belt and must leap from flagpole to flagpole around the rooftops to get to your goal. I got a curl of dread the first time I came across a platforming section as so many FPS games stumble here but, incredibly, Fashion Police Squad nails it.

Mopeful also have a well-honed sense of pacing, doling out new weapons and enemy types over its 13 levels (plus optional challenges). You’ll see the credits in about four hours all told, and in this case, brevity works in its favour. There’s never a sense that the game is thinly spreading its content out to pad the playtime and, while I’d probably play more of this given the chance, at least it finished before I got bored with it.