Dave Pikley fans rejoice and no it’s not ‘Captain Underpants’ this time, it’s ‘Dog Man’ and his on a brand new adventure with ‘Dog Man: Mission Impawsible’. MKAU Gaming was given a copy on the Nintendo Switch to check out, so let’s see how developers, Floor 84 Studio, and publishers, Mindscape, faired with this well-loved adventure.

This game has a nice little storyline where you, as Dogman, are set to receive the key to the city and a group of ‘supa bad’ people have a different idea and steal the key. You and your friends need to set out on an adventure now navigating through the levels and battling the bosses you meet along the way.

You will not be scratching your head finding content in this game, with 50 levels in total, broken down into a couple of different areas that have stayed true to the books. Those areas are broken up into various levels to beat as you platform and collect goodies in the form of bones, and then you get special items you can try and collect to make sure you 100% each level. You can go back and make sure you ultimately complete missions to their fullest with the gadgets and friends you find and craft as you progress, giving some real replayability.

The two friends you meet along the way are some well-known faces from the book series. Our pals, Li’l Petey and 80-HD come with different attributes that are beneficial to the gameplay. Li’l Petey is small and can get into areas the other two can’t and 80-HD is big and can jump higher and break blocks if needed. Each character has a unique gadget that can be crafted which helps keep the gameplay interesting.

I’ll forever love how simplistic the controls are in these styles of games. The main objective is to move to side scroll and jump over and around obstacles whilst avoiding enemies and collecting bones. If you are a little forgetful some on-screen prompts will help you as security. I loved how the developers implemented the need to use all the characters to traverse around the map whether you are jumping or digging or even needing to crawl to fit in somewhere everything was covered.

The developers did not have much choice with the direction of the artwork in Dog Man: Mission Impawsible, with their icon style front and centre. It looks beautiful with its cartoonish, comic book art style just like the books. The developers used bright, child-like, bold colours and shapes that draw your attention in a splash of overstimulation. I was impressed with the look of the maps you traversed around too, which all kept true to the book series.

The little cutscenes built in that were comic book strips added another nice touch but there was no voiced dialogue. it didn’t matter though as it fits in with the comic/book theme it is so well known for. The game looked great in either handheld mode or if you preferred to have the system docked, it didn’t look stretched like some titles on the Switch, so it had been optimised well for the hardware it is working with.

I would have enjoyed this game a little more if the sound effects weren’t so repetitive and it was to the point where it started taking away from the game’s overall experience. A fine example of this is when my partner asked me ‘what I was doing for the repetitiveness in the audio and if I was purposely trying to be annoying?’ I promptly opted to mute the game for the rest of that session. Honestly, though, it was still an enjoyable experience even without audio. Some background music does ease the sounds a little to make them less annoying but does sound like it was the menu music for an arcade game back in the 90s on a loop.

Dog Man: Mission Impawsible is a fantastic little title if you want to sit down on the couch and just immerse yourself into a great little side scroller. I’ve been getting more and more into my handheld gaming and this was a great little title that kept me amused for a good amount of time over the holiday season.

Written by: Hayden Nelson