Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge

"Jack is back and armed to the bone."

Yes, it's the moment we have all been waiting for: a sequel to Tim Burton's stop-animation holiday film, The Nightmare Before Christmas, which happens to be in the form of a video game. However, does this sequel match up to its predecessor?

As the story goes, Jack Skellington is once again not happy with how he's handling Halloween. He goes to see Doctor Finklestein, who gives him a slimy green blob of a weapon called the Soul Robber. Jack then leaves town in search of some new ideas for Halloween. When he returns, he finds Halloween Town has been taken over by his nemesis Oogie Boogie and overrun with Oogie's skeletal minions. Armed with the Soul Robber, Jack must help the residents of Halloween Town and not only save Halloween, but the other holidays as well. Overall, the story is decent but reviving Oogie Boogie is very unoriginal. Ultimately, though, the story doesn't matter much compared to game play.

You play Jack Skellington throughout the entire game. Using the Soul Robber, you must defeat hoards of Oogie's minions pretty much everywhere you go. All normal enemies are made up of skeletons and ghosts, and all you need to do is whack them with the Soul Robber several times to defeat them (although they get more powerful and fast when they become "Oogiefied"). They drop souls that you can collect to buy items and upgrades at the Witches' Shop. Bosses must be approached a little differently. You attack them like any regular enemy, making coloured music notes appear. Collect enough of them and a dance sequence will begin, in which you must press the correct buttons when they scroll into the center of the screen. Miss too many notes and the dancing will end before it should, dealing less damage than if you completed the sequence.

A nice twist to the game play is the inclusion of two other forms of Jack, the Pumpkin King and Santa Jack. Once you acquire the forms after completing certain chapters, you can utilize them at any time and in any chapter. Pumpkin King can breathe fire and create a quick blast of fire around him to quickly take care of any enemy unfortunate enough to be in range (which makes this move perfect for defeating large groups of enemies). Santa Jack, although he can't attack, has three different types of presents that can either shock, stun or freeze enemies. Like the Soul Robber, Pumpkin King and Santa Jack can be upgraded at the Witches' shop.

The game's story is made up of chapters. There are twenty-four chapters that make up the story and two bonus chapters you can find along the way. At the end of a chapter, you are given a rank of either D, C, B, A or S each for time, max combo, hits of damage received and exclamation marks (which appear when you surprise an enemy). You are then given an overall chapter rank and a soul bonus. In addition, if all four ranks are A or S, you will receive that chapter's figurine which you can view in Jack's House. Also in Jack's House, you can watch cut scenes, play songs and change your outfit using the wardrobe, although you can only access it after completing the game.

Now, Oogie's Revenge is no stop-animation holiday classic like the movie, but the graphics quality is impressive none the less. The character models are very detailed and identical to the puppets used in the movie. What impressed me the most, however, was the incredible detail of the various locations throughout the game. This helped give Halloween Town a lot of depth and really made you feel like you were part of the world. The music, which is essential to this game, was decent but did leave some to be desired. The background themes were pretty good for the most part. The boss songs were alright, but they could've been better. In fact, the most decent songs were the three alterations of Oogie's Song from the movie.

This game has a lot of replay-ability. Every chapter can be played as many times as you like, plus you go to chapter select immediately after completing a chapter. You cannot, however, enter chapter select in the middle of a chapter. This provides an excellent opportunity to better your ranks and collect figures you've missed along the way. This game does not have a two-player mode but the reply-ability makes up for it.

Overall, the game is well done. It's not as good as the movie but it could have been a lot worse. If you're used to and like playing other Capcom games (such as Devil May Cry), then you may like this game as well, since the style is similar. I highly recommend you rent it first, however, in case you find yourself disappointed.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/11/07, Updated 06/01/07