Faceez really freaked me out the first time I played it.

All I really knew about the game going into it was that you use the DSi’s camera to take pictures of yourself and then edit them within the game. I aligned my face to the on-screen, egg-shaped template, which has guidelines for where the subject’s eyes and mouth should be, to take my first Faceez headshot photo. I clicked the R button to take the photo and out of the top screen bursts an egg-shaped avatar of my face waving an over-sized tooth-brush with a ridiculous wig on its head.

I blinked in confusion and mild horror. The avatar brushed my on-screen picture’s teeth. With really good accuracy, too. It reminded me of those goofy coffee mugs that has a person’s face on the side of it, except extremely interactive and a lot more options for grafitti.

If your picture is lined up correctly, Faceez can create some cool effects of your photo and can manipulate your photo’s eyes and mouth to accurately create different emotions. But make sure you’re lined up correctly. It’s not pretty when the guidelines for your mouth ends up on your nose, trust me. I oftentimes had trouble getting all my facial features to line up and animate correctly, but Faceez makes it easy to retake pictures quickly.

Outside of facial manipulations, you can disguise your Faceez with a copious amount of accessories. Within a few minor tweaks, you can have your avatar looking ridiculous with hats, glasses, beaks, elephant trunks, mustaches, beards, and skin effects like red cheeks, bruises, and wrinkles.

After you animate and dress-up your avatar, you can pose it for screenshots either in the default meadow backdrop, or any photo that’s stored on your DS. The screenshot will subsequently be stored as a separate photo on your DS.

The ability to use your own pictures and the extensive options for posing your avatar allow for a lot of creativity, but after you take the screenshot of your avatar, there’s not much you can do with it. (Except look at it, or send it to a friend). I tried importing some of my Faceez screenshots into Flipnotes Hatena to see if I could make an animation, but the color and detail of Faceez’s photos don’t translate well into the black-and-white canvas of Flipnotes. 

If you want a quirky photo editor that’s much more advanced than the standard DSi camera effects, Faceez should be a good purchase for you.