An esoteric game with a number of issues, both good and bad.
The game puts the player in the role of the title character, a strange, chubby winged cherub who flies around a town dodging barking dogs, owls and strange bear-like creatures, all the whole eating floating candy to maintain his energy and delivering gifts to children. Like most early NES games, gameplay is straightforward - dodge, collect, fly around. The execution, however, is a mixed bag, carrying high points for technical merits at the expense of others. Controls are sluggish and unresponsive - I've found myself mashing down on the directional pad to get the little fat cherub to move. Since the crux of this game is to get your character to move quickly to collect candy and dodge enemies, the game suffers tremendously here. The game also suffers from balance issues; dogs are everywhere, are more nimble than your character and their barks, manifested in the game as squares with the letter "B," are very hard to dodge and have far longer reach than the heart-shaped projectiles your character fires. Therefore, the game is very difficult, especially given its slow, sluggish pacing. The lack of any other gameplay other than to collect items and shoot dogs also makes for a tedious experience. Some items blend into background buildings almost perfectly and are very easy to miss. Mid-way through a level, the player must collect all items on screen in order to collect the gift to be given to the child at the end of the level, and this issue along with the control responsiveness issue really bogs down the game and sours the experience. Graphics and sound wise, the game is very sharp and may have been the most technically impressive NES game available upon its release. Sprites, backgrounds and colors are crisp, and there's even a sense of passing time as the sky changes color to reflect the change of day. Sounds and sound effects are equally crisp and impressive, even if the background midi score is repetitive and annoying. Overall, a technically impressive game for its time, at the expense of gameplay and control responsiveness.