Totally Rad is an action-adventure game in which you play Jake, a magician wannabe being trained by the Master Magician Zebediah. One day, during his training, Jake is attacked by surprise by unknown foes who kidnap Allison, his girlfriend. Then, Jake has to save her and discover what lies behind that attack.

This game is a side-scrolling one, with the basic controls common to many of those games that fall in the same category: moving, jumping and shooting. Your basic weapon is something like an energy ball that can be charged by holding the button for a few seconds until its maximum power. Although Jake is supposed to still be learning his magic from Zebediah, from the very beginning you can use all his magical powers. You can select which magic you want to use from a list, displayed when you press the start button. The magical powers available include healing, time stopping, invincibility, the power of the elements (fire, watter, wind and earth) and 3 different metamorphosis. You can morph into a flying guy who throws something like a boomerang (that doesn't come back), a fish-like guy, who throws something like ninja stars and can swim, and a feline-like guy, who releases electrical shocks from his hands and becomes invincible while jumping. You do not evolve during the game, as your health and magic bar doesn't grow.

Totally Rad, as the name points out, is a game full of slang, with the constant use of words like totally, gnarly, dude, excellent, decent, righteous, etc.