Dog Man: Mission Impawsible (Switch) Review

As the designated “reviews kids’ games” guy on the site, I’d never heard of Dog Man before the code for this one dropped into my inbox. It’s a spin-off of the Captain Underpants series of books, and there’s a movie coming out soon as well. He’s a man with the head of a dog—hence, Dog Man.

Dog Man is a classic 2D platformer that starts off very simple and easy, at least for the first few levels. Eventually, you’ll unlock the Supa Buddies, each with different abilities, such as higher jumps or the ability to squeeze through smaller gaps. You can switch between them on the fly, and you’ll need their skills to complete the game’s 50 levels.

After being unlocked, Dog Man can dig underground to uncover secrets and progress through levels. Li’l Petey can hack items and fit into smaller spaces, while 80-HD can move heavy objects and jump long distances. Despite 80-HD’s longer jump and Dog Man’s digging, most of the characters move with a similar feel. However, the deceleration and pivoting mechanics feel a bit odd and clunky, leading to missed jumps or accidentally landing on enemies.

I’ve played a lot of 2D platformers in my time, and you can just feel when something is off. Plenty of games have this issue, and people still love them, but for me, if there’s even a slight feeling that your timing is off or you can’t manoeuvre easily enough, it breaks the core experience of the game.

The first entire world in the game is a drag, but it does get a little more complex later on, while there are puzzles, most levels just come down to switching to the right character to move to the end of the stage. There’s bones to collect throughout the stages, you’ll get a sheild for collecting all of them and there’s four on each stage. One you’ll get just for finishing the stage. The stages are really quite long too, there are checkpoints, but if you do happen to die it just felt like a slog to go back and do it all again. 

Mission Impawsible’s artwork stays true to the books, featuring a graphic novel style with bright characters and world. The game’s story is delivered through little talking heads and text boxes, which can feel a bit dull. The music isn’t terrible, but it is repetitive and just after a few hours of it on a loop it seems just had enough. Making some more of the more tedious elements in the game stand out even more. 

Dog Man: Mission Impawsible is a game aimed at a younger audience, and while it looks the part, it ultimately feels like a bit of a chore to play through. The content is fairly barebones—there are 50 levels, but aside from a few gadgets and the occasional interesting boss battle, the core gameplay is rather dull and stiff. You’d really need to be a big Dog Man fan to look past its shortcomings.

Rating: 2.5/5