Game Review: Pupperazzi (Xbox Series X)

Dogs… who doesn’t love them?

Well, after a few hours in the world of Sundae Month’s Pupperazzi, many might have different feelings about our canine companions.

We jest of course. The dogs aren’t to blame for this game’s shortcomings, of which there are many. It’s a shame too as the concept is adorably decent and its relaxed gameplay is appealing. It’s just the execution that leaves much to be desired.

A first-person photography game, Sundae Month’s Pupperazzi is set in a world completely inhabited by our doggie friends. You are a ‘living camera’, something that might startle you when you attempt to take your first selfie. Why do you have such long limbs!?

Your goal is to take pictures. It’s as simple as that. Each area has numerous tasks that require you to take a certain picture in a certain way of a certain dog doing a certain thing. Most are very easy, a few require a little more work. As you complete tasks, you are rewarded with gold bones that can then be spent on the currency used to purchase new film, lenses, and camera upgrades.

An important aspect as some tasks require certain lenses or film to complete.

As well, you can gain followers online by uploading your favourite photos to social media, which in turn, unlock more tasks. The more tasks you complete, the more areas are unlocked.

You, the living camera, will have to explore all corners to find all the pups to fill your doggie encyclopaedia. Helped by gameplay controls that allow you to jump, crouch, interact with the dogs and even pick up and use items for them to play with.

It sounds like a lot of fun and a game that could be very relaxing. Which it is… at first. Then the limitations become all too obvious and the realisation that there is no variety at all, sinks in. What was cute and colourful, quickly becomes bland and humdrum. It’s surface level stuff as the game has the depth of a rain puddle.

In an attempt to keep it at a relaxing canter, Sundae Month have failed to capture the spirit of photography games. Namely, encouraging you to take the best pictures possible and making it seem worthwhile. Pokémon Snap this isn’t.

All the added features feel tacked on. The social media uploading quickly becomes tiresome with regurgitated responses. The limitations on how many pictures you can take per area is just frustrating. There’s no real reason to save your favourite photos to your personal album and the encyclopaedia is far too easy to fill.

However, none of this is what makes this such a disappointing game. What does that is the staggeringly bad frame-rate and awful camera controls. Rarely do we need to go into options to fiddle with the selections but here it was a must.

Even then, it made platforming pretty horrendous. There’s no glossing over just how poor this game plays and while you can get past it through sheer force of will, the rest of the games issues guarantees no-one is going to want to spend too much time in this doggie-themed world.