Puppeteer - Playstation 3 (Japan Studio, 2013) - First half hour or so....
1Gameplay from the first half hour or so of Sony Computer Entertainment's Japan Studio developed platformer, Puppeteer (2013)...
"Puppeteer is a side-scrolling platformer in which the player controls the character 'Kutaro': a boy changed into an animated puppet and immediately decapitated. 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' from the game's villains (in the process removing their influence from the scenery) and to free the souls of children like himself, from the malevolent figures containing them, all the while saving a Goddess in distress.
The game is playable by one or two players. If two are playing, the second player controls Kutaro's companion (initially a ghostly cat named 'Ying-Yang'; later the fairylike 'Pikarina'), who can examine the scenery for foreign objects and find interactables, moonsparkles, and new heads for Kutaro. In single-player mode, the two analog sticks on the joypad each control a character.
The game is presented as a puppet show in front of an audience, who can be heard cheering and laughing when impressive actions take place. It is divided into seven "acts", each of which comprise three "curtains". Each curtain has a set number of heads to collect, a set number of souls to rescue, and a hidden area to discover. For 100% completion, the player must revisit old curtains with new heads to complete it."