The game consists of six stages worth of platforming and blasting enemies to pieces. The premise is that the (anthropomorphic) piglet Cliffy Belmart has gone playing in the local dark and forbidden castle of doom, tossing toilet paper to and fro, and this has angered some evil entities. They proceed to kidnap him. Robert Belmart, his father, then sets off on a journey through six stages of horror-themed platforming action to rescue his son.
He gets to use a pistol, a shotgun, a whip, and dynamite as his weapons. The pistol is weak but has unlimited ammo; the shotgun fires a strong but short-range burst (a bit strange for being a shotgun) with limited ammo, the whip runs off special weapon ammo (blue hearts), and dynamite is lobbed and has a delayed explosion for a lot of damage but is also limited. Robert also picks up ability cards from stage bosses, which that let him recover HP from blue hearts, spend blue hearts for stronger attacks, run faster, jump higher, or other abilities.
The game is a pretty transparent reference to the Castlevania games, particularly the older ones which were straightforward platformers rather than the more famous and more recent castletroids. In addition, it fully means to lampshade various videogame tropes, and does so quite shamelessly, with famous zany videogame quotes popping up all over the place. And just look at the names of the six levels:
- A Night Walk in the Graveyard
- The Ancient Castle Ruled by Darkness
- The Swamp Full of Disgusting Creepy-Crawlies
- The Volcano BBQ
- The Forest in the Way
- The Castle of Intolerable Pain
This game shows examples of:
- Advancing Boss of Doom: The plant / T-Rex hybrid boss will continuously chase Robert throughout the stage, necessitating him to continue running while shooting back. It does momentarily stop a few times to use it's Bullet Seed attack, at which point it becomes vulnerable for a short while before the chase continues.
- Big Red Devil: The Ruler of the Ancient Castle more or less resembles the classical depictions of Satan, right to his huge horns, hooves for legs, Playing with Fire powers, and himself being red all over.
- Boss Rush: A small one in the last level, where you fight two bosses back-to-back: the hailfire dog and the giant flying eye, which also happened to be the bosses of the other castle level in the game. Fortunately, you now have access to more ability cards.
- Bottomless Magazines: Robert's default pistol never seem to run out of ammunition.
- Elemental Embodiment: The underground levels, besides having lava and fireballs as hazards, also contain living flames which can shoot fireballs at Robert.
- Excuse Plot: The entire premise of the game, which is just for players to kick all sorts of ass as an andromorphic pig.
- Funny Animal: Robert, Cliffy, and the rest of their family.
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Goddamned Bats: The winged eyes, which actualy behave kinda like the dreaded "Castlevania birds". - Hellhound: There's a two-headed Cerberus boss in the game, who, curiously enough, can spit both ice and fire simultaneously, one from each head, as it's main attacks.
- The Grim Reaper: Being inspired directly by the Castlevania series, the reaper himself shows up as a boss near the end. It's worth noting that this incarnation of the reaper doesn't have his usual Sinister Scythe, and instead attacks with a red Laser Sword.
- Lampshade Hanging: Everything. Everything. From Robert's wife asking him to pick up milk along the way, before the first level, to Robert commenting that his son has no taste for dramatic monologues.
- Robert clearly states that he'd rather go on a dangerous mission himself rather than notifying the authorities of his missing son, even though that would be a much safer and more sensible alternative.
- Robert complains that there is a forest in the way between him and the final level. Then the Title Card of the next level shows up, calling it... The Forest in the Way.
- Lethal Lava Land: In the underground caverns, where fireballs spews out from lava streams and Robert must make his way across via jumping on platforms. Landing in the lava and he's roast pork!
- Lost Aesop: Presented as a lampshading. Cliffy learned a lesson from this whole ordeal, a lesson about toilet paper and evil things.
- Man-Eating Plant: The giant green Planimal T. Rexpy with an Audrey-like head full of fangs, who will spend the whole battle trying to chomp on Robert. It can also release Bullet Seed projectiles that rolls from one side of the screen to another.
- Medium Awareness: Demonstrated by Robert before he corrects himself after referring to "the last level".
- Monster Mash: Actually, this game surprisingly averted this trope. With the stock horror and platformer settings you'd think you'd get some classic monsters, but most of the monsters in this game are actually unique to the game.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Ancient Castle Ruled by Darkness.
- Nintendo Hard: Don't let the silliness fool you; the game is hard.
- Oculothorax: Some of the lesser enemies are floating eyeballs with wings. There's also a giant King Mook eyeball monster.
- Papa Wolf: Robert, who goes on a killing spree against the forces of evil for his kid, Cliffy.
- Pig Man: Robert and his family are andromorphic pigs.
- Pumpkin Person: One of the recurring enemy types are pumpkin-headed undead. There's also a variant whose head is an eggplant.
- Recurring Boss: The two-headed Cerberus is fought thrice, in different levels.
- Short-Range Shotgun: Robert's shotgun could barely cover ten meters ahead of him, but it does devastating damage on bosses when it scores a hit.
- Shout-Out: To many games, including Mega Man 2, Super Mario Bros., Zero Wing, and others, mainly in the form of quotes. But most of all, to the Castlevania series:
- "Belmart".
- The "slayer" whip. And more subtly, hearts that power weapons.
- The entrances to both castles.
- Endless zombies in graveyards and buildings. Though the way the graveyards are set up makes them more like Ghosts 'n Goblins's version.
- The epilogue, which speaks of this tale having to repeat itself in about a hundred years. (The Castlevania series canon says that Dracula rises once every century, shortly before the turn of the century.)
- Skull for a Head: The skull demon boss in the graveyard whose head is just a skull. Despite the rest of his body looking organic.
