You play as Red, who has been given the full anime treatment to make her a sexy butt-kicking heroine. Of course, if you feel emasculated by playing a girl, then you can choose to play as a boy character, who has nothing to do with the classic Grimm’s Fairytale.
Gameplay is classic old-school arcade shooter, which has a variation on the classic top-down blaster. Hordes of undead and other beasties come down from the top screen (eventually spilling over to the DS’s bottom screen), which Red must mow down with her various weapons. You cannot move anywhere you want, but are stuck in seven spots along the bottom of the screen (similar to Space Invaders). You can move to another spot by clicking on it with the stylus, or by using the D-pad. The D-pad is the better choice, as your stylus hand is almost constantly taking out undead. Honestly, most of the time you need to move from your current spot to avoid being shot or grabbed.
Fortunately you can shoot anywhere on the screen by touching the touchpad: where you touch is where Red will shoot. Since only the bottom screen is touch-sensitive then the only way to take out a ghoul on the top screen is to aim at it using the bottom screen. Much of the time, your right hand obscures the view of the bottom screen, as you are constantly tapping on monsters.
You are equipped with a standard machine gun, and accumulate special guns and ammunition along the way (which have a limited number of shots). Any new guns you collect appear on the right side of the bottom screen, and they are selected by merely clicking on them with your stylus.
As mentioned before, this game takes place in a fairy-tale land. Each level has a particular theme, and you ascend to the next level by beating a special boss at the end of each. You’ll travel through to woods to Grandma’s house, Pinnochio’s toy shop, Sleeping Beauty’s castle, and even take out Santa Claus at the North Pole. The zombies come out of the ground, but I’m not exactly sure how they were able to pop out of cobblestone streets in level 2.
This game is meant to be an arcade shooter, meaning you can easily pick it up and put it down without a lot of intellecutal stimulation. Each level can take a while to complete, and there are no checkpoints or savepoints between levels. If you die (or turn off your DS) then you’ll have to start the level all over again.
