Pupperazzi is one of those games that I was pretty excited about based on the idea alone. It seemed a cute, fun, casual game to help break up my other gaming experiences. When it came out on Game Pass, I was thrilled… however, the actual experience, while not bad, left a little to be desired.

So the concept of Pupperazzi is fairly simple. You are a camera being, and you are meant to go to various areas and snap pictures of dogs based on objectives. Dogs doing certain actions, in a variety of outfits, or with different camera types. This is cute and fun and really a killer idea. I mean, as far as casual, adorable games go, it’s hard to beat “take pictures of dogs.”

The game, in many ways, lives up to the promise. You have a variety of areas, you even have different times of day. You are given objectives, so you aren’t simply snapping pictures for the fun of it, however, you aren’t punished for the latter either. As you play, you can upgrade your camera so you can do things like pixel shots, different filters, flare shots, etc.

However, the game is limited. More so than I expected. You only have so much film, and you aren’t given very many objectives at all. You will find yourself completing areas rather quickly and aren’t incentivized much to just run around and take shots for the fun of it, other than it’s cute. But while the cuteness is a draw, the bugginess of the game is not. You will crash, lose progress, and not be able to work towards achievements randomly. Even without the bug issues, the game is also a little flat.

The game can also be overly sensitive, so there are achievements for things like getting close-ups of dogs at each different type of day in each area. Great, except be prepared to get 3 or 4 close-ups during each time to maybe register one. Also, prepare to have to restart the game to have things register at all. The crashes are also a massive issue because the game has no real discernible autosave feature. Near as I can tell, the best way to avoid losing progress is to quit each time you leave an area after completing objectives. Which is not great.

All of this is just a lot of annoyances that take you out of just being able to enjoy “this is a really cute and relaxing game.”

The art is cute, there is a variety of dogs doing different things. There is enough difference in the type of objectives, if not the number, that you feel like you are doing something different, even if you are just taking pictures of dogs. You can pet them, give them treats, it’s a game where you just simply enjoy that dogs are great.

It is one of those games that I am torn. The music gets stale and old quickly, there needs to be better instruction beyond the basics, and the general bugginess is a problem. And as mentioned above, it starts to get pretty blah rather quickly. However, the dogs are adorable, which is what you want, there is fun to be had with the objectives, and the whole thing is a nice little break from other games.

Simply put, I don’t know what my bottom line is. It’s free on Game Pass and easily worth a few hours for that. However, I cannot ignore that the limitations and problems bother me, especially if you can’t play it for free. I want to both recommend it and say wait until a patch comes out or a price drop happens. The concept is good, and while it was fun, I really enjoyed it. But a game like this should not come with frustrations, which this one has. I also found myself not being bored with it but getting over the general cuteness more quickly than I would have liked. If you have Game Pass give it a look. If you don’t, I would say probably wait for a price drop. It can be worth the relaxing nature of it and cuteness if you are looking for that kind of palette cleanser.