Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ

"A creative game, but not without its flaws."

Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ is one of those games that's just so gosh darn charming, you can forgive its numerous (and often painful) flaws. Even the name of the game is charming! Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ. How can you NOT want to play that? And really, you should play it. It's a creative, entertaining, fun game. But before you do, there are some things you should know.

The game is a top-down on-rails shooter. You choose to play as either the uncomfortably sexy Little Red or her partner, Momotaro. There's no difference between the two aside from the fact that Momotaro shoots shurukins as his primary weapon and Red fires a machine gun (though they do the same amount of damage and have an identical reload rate). What follows from there is, for lack of a better word, insane.

The plot is unabashedly nonsensical. Zombies seem to have taken over Fairy Tale Land, mutating most or all of its residents. You'll face off against gigantic, zombified versions of all your favorite childhood memories, including Pinocchio and the crazy, dictatorial Three Little Pigs. The setting is sublimely ridiculous and unapologetic for its gore and character perversions.

You'll shoot your way through several worlds, each of which is split into two levels and a boss battle. Here's where feelings get mixed though. The boss battles are wonderful. They're challenging, but not unbeatable. Each one is unique, and they stand out as easily the best part of the game. The levels leading up to them, however, are monotonous. You'll be blasting your way through waves and waves of the same dull zombies for pretty much the entire game. A few levels try and mix things up by throwing minibosses at you, which are great, except that they bring to light another of the game's crippling flaws: its complete and total lack of checkpoints. There is nothing more frustrating than getting through a boring level of zombies, only to get your butt handed to you by a miniboss you were unprepared for. Once you die (and you will... many times), you must start over at the beginning of that level. Some diehard shooter fans may welcome this, but most gamers will be turned off by such a stupid design decision.

The controls are also flawed, sadly, which makes the game even more difficult than intended. The D Pad (or face buttons if you're left handed) moves you left and right along the bottom of the screen if you choose to use it, but most of the time you have to jump from either side of the screen via the stylus to avoid a devastating attack. To duck, you hold the stylus down on your character. To fire, hold down the stylus (releasing it reloads) anywhere on the screen, and double tap to fire a rocket. You also tap the corresponding icons on the screen to change your weapon of which there are four. As you can see, the stylus is relied upon to do too much. Even just making down on the D Pad to duck would have helped, but double tapping the stylus to fire one of your extremely limited amount of rockets is terrible, as it happens accidentally far too often. Since you also use the stylus to jump around the bottom of the screen, shooting something that's next to you (an important part of a few boss battles) is next to impossible without accidentally walking into what you're trying to destroy.

The graphics are above average for a DS title. The menus unfold over a completely three dimensional graveyard, which looks a lot cooler than it sounds. The levels are also three-dimensional, as are the bosses. Most of the enemies though are 2D sprites, along with your character. The music, meanwhile, isn't bad, but you won't miss much if you decide to supply your own soundtrack, aside from the occasional (repeated) voice samples. The replay value is decent, as upon completing the game on hard mode you unlock a Survival mode and a Boss Rush mode, not to mention an even harder difficulty setting.

In the end, you must decide for yourself whether or not the frustration over the game's more difficult and boring bits are worth it. If you can overlook the frustrating controls and difficulty, you'll find one of the most creative and original DS games around. Good luck!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/09/09

Game Release: Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ (US, 11/06/08)