When it comes to kid-appropriate games, outside of the likes of the typical Nintendo fare there aren’t necessarily a load of great options. Depending on the age and skill level you can certainly find games that are kid-appropriate in terms of their content, but that doesn’t mean that they’re well-matched with lower skill levels. Working from the lower end of the spectrum and focusing primarily on pretty ordinary platforming, a variety of puzzles, and a character-switching element for flavor, Dog Man: Mission Impawsible is working to help fill the space in a little better, though at an admittedly pretty premium price point.

Working with the Dog Man series, which is a book series from Dave Pilkey, who also created the Captain Underpants books as well, the game has a stylized but pretty simple art style consistent with the books. You’ll play as a trio of characters from the book, cycling through Dog Man himself, as well as his Super Buddies, who each have their own crucial skills to bring to the table. As you play, these further expand as they each build gadgets that will further improve their capabilities, and this element helps to keep everything feeling more fresh as you progress through the game’s 50 levels. Throw in a handful of creative and fun bosses, and there’s enough of a challenge present to push newer games a little bit, but it never feels cruel either.

For the most part the gameplay is centered on fundamental platforming, typically not getting terribly precise or taxing to your patience, especially since most of the time the only challenge would come in the form of needing to cycle through each of the Buddies to choose the right one for a given situation. While experienced gamers may quickly tire of the ease of it all, for people with less well-honed skills it may be just right. There will be times when you’ll need to engage your enemies, typically just jumping on them to stun them and let you get past, but for the most part it’s nice that avoiding them entirely is often the preferred way to go, keeping the experience as fundamentally non-violent as it can as well.

While you could argue that perhaps the price is a little high for a game that isn’t intended to really test your skills much, given the lack of choices for games in the same class and as highly approachable, it does at least make some sense. Throw in a fun license that helps to make the game look distinctive, and the generally positive messages and attitude of it all in general and it’s a refreshing change of pace from the typically higher-intensity fare on the system. If you have younger gamers-in-training or are at least a kid at heart, it’s a nice option to have out there in the eShop.