The story occurs in a concave world representing Earth's Moon, inhabited by pseudo-folkloric characters: the first half on the dark side of the Moon, and the second half on the Earthward side. Its premise states that the world's ruler, the Moon Goddess, was overthrown by her subordinate, Little Bear, when the latter seized her 'Black Moonstone' and the magic scissor-set 'Calibrus', and declared himself 'Moon Bear King'. Throughout the game, each of his twelve generals (the animals of the Chinese zodiac) has set part of the moon-world in disorder: each holding a portion of the Goddess' 'White Moonstone.’ The player-character 'Kutaro' is one of many children whose souls were spirited away from Earth in their sleep and changed into animated wooden puppets to be enslaved in the King's mobile fortress, Castle Grizzlestein
Throughout the game, Kutaro obtains various heads to replace his own, each enabling access to certain animations, and referring to the adjacent scenery. If Kutaro is damaged by an enemy or obstacle, he loses his head. Should the player not retrieve the head within a few seconds, it will disappear. Kutaro can hold three heads at a time, and when they are all lost, he restarts from the last checkpoint. The player can earn an extra life by collecting 100 "Moonsparkles" in a given section of the game. Throughout most of the story, Kutaro is armed with a pair of magical scissors, known as 'Calibrus', enabling him to cut through some portions of the scenery, and thus to reach otherwise inaccessible areas. He later acquires the abilities of the Four Champions of the Moon: the Knight's shield to defend against damage and reflect attacks, the Ninja's bombs to attack enemies and break obstacles, the Pirate's hook to grapple and pull enemies and change the scenery, and the Wrestler's mask and strength to body slam enemies and pull and push obstacles. His stated object is to acquire the shards of 'Moonstone' fr
Source: Wikipedia, "Puppeteer (video game)", available under the CC-BY-SA License.