Jack Frost, Atlus’ unofficial mascot, and his Halloween counterpart Pyro Jack star in a new game that belongs to a slightly surprising genre. The smiley demon is the lead in Shin Megami Tensei Synchronicity Prologue, a free downloadable PC game that pulls from classic action sidescrollers like Metroid and Castlevania.

Shin Megami Tensei Synchronicity Prologue has players take Jack Frost and Pyro Jack through the paces of a nonlinear setting inspired by Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, the upcoming Nintendo 3DS remake of Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey. They’ll take on other demons with their ice and fire attacks, run into some mysterious new characters and navigate an expansive set of maps and levels.

A trailer for the 3DS game last week first showed of the action game, declaring it fake; turns out, the goof is very real, at least for a while. Atlus will make Synchronicity Prologue available for free through its website until Dec. 24.

It’s only for Windows (and in Japanese), to the disappointment of this Mac user, but the cute game seems like a worthwhile time-waster for fans of the Shin Megami Tensei series, the Metroidvania genre or both.