Dog Man: Mission Impawsible Xbox Series X Review 6.5/10 "Full price? You’d be barking mad" 🐶 @MindscapeGames @F84Games #IndieGame #GameDev

I have to admit, I had never heard of the Dog Man franchise, I was very much unaware of Dav Pilkey’s books, graphic novels and the upcoming animated film. As such, I approached Dog Man: Mission Impawsible as a pure platform gaming experience, and as such – found it pretty middling in terms of gameplay, interesting in terms of presentation... but I did balk <bark? - Ed> at the asking price.

Dog Man Mission: Impawsible begins with the titular character getting called back into action, and re-banding his old companions in a bid to save their town, each has their own skill to surpass certain obstacles, as well as their own weaknesses. From that moment, the game reveals itself to be a pretty standard platformer, very accessible, and with a generous learning curve for younger / newer players, but overall very much not deserving the premium price tag that is attached to Dog Man Mission Impawsible.

With it’s jocular, cartoonish visuals, upbeat music and simple level design that has your ever-increasing cast of characters collecting bones and cogs to upgrade certain character abilities, whilst the movement and animations are fine, there’s a retro 2D stiffness and design philosophy here that would have felt more at home in Rugrats Gameland rather than here, as this is a game that I now know that has a rich lore to pull from, and a comedic characterisation that doesn’t seem to come through in the game beyond it’s visual style. I know I’m coming back to this again, but the price tag really does make this lean from ‘fun retro homage ‘ to ‘pisstake’ and that alone makes it a hard recommendation.

SUMMARY
The Dog Man franchise seems a fun and far-reaching thing, but this particular video game entry in its overall franchise feels a tad overpriced, and the basic game play and jaunty music just cannot make up for that fiscal discrepancy. 

Absolutely wait for a sale on this one, if it is a game that you feel you must play.

6.5/10

💧MELTING💧