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

"Gamblin' Boogie Man"

Vivox's Review of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge

The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge is a action-adventure game reminiscent of the Devil May Cry games (both are made by Capcom and this game actually uses the Devil May Cry engine). Nightmare Before Christmas (as it will be called for the remainder of this review so I don't have to keep typing the games very long name) is a sequel of sorts to Tim Burton's masterpiece 1993 musical film. In the game, you will seek out secrets, solve some side quests, fight bosses, and try to rack up some big combos. And all to the tunes from the movie that the fans love. Oh, and you play as a very lanky skeleton and battle a Gamblin' Boogie Man. What is not to like?

Story: Jack Skellington wants to make Halloween more scarier, more frightening, so he pays a visit to Dr. Finklestein. The good Doctor gives Jack the Soul Robber, a green, slimy whip that will help Jack on his quest. Jack sets out on his adventure to make Halloween more scary. Meanwhile, Lock, Shock and Barrel resurrect Oogie Boogie, who is a Gamblin' Boogie Man, and who met his demise at the hands of Jack. Oogie, in Jack's absence, takes over Halloween Town. Jack returns, and it is now his job to set things right. The Story for the game is actually pretty good, and has some twists to it. The Story gets a 9 out of 10.

Gameplay: This game mainly has you exploring places, finding secret areas (which are scattered every where), completing various objectives (like fining a tool to stop a rampaging unicycle), speaking to the Halloween townsfolk (like Corpse Kid), and fighting monsters with the Soul Robber. With all this stuff put together so well, the game is just a lot of fun to play. Of course, what would Nightmare Before Christmas be without some singing and dancing? There is a feature in the game that has you collecting musical notes during a boss fight. Collect enough musical notes and you can try and unleash a devastating combo on the boss (which requires you to press buttons as they pass through a small box in the middle of screen). It is tricky but adds some depth to the boss fights that you don't get with the regular fighting. But that is not to say that the regular monster fighting is bad. Its actually quite fun. You can rack up some pretty big combos on the enemies, especially after you upgrade the Soul Robber. Also, you can upgrade a couple of different things like Jack's health bar with the Golden Pumpkins (think Zelda's heart containers) or gather coins and upgrade Jacks special abilities with his other two costumes (The Pumpkin King, which looks really cool, or Santa Jack which throws presents that have various effects on the monsters). You can also upgrade the Soul Robber to make it more powerful. The game also ranks you as you go Chapter to Chapter, which makes you always try and do your best so you can get the best scores in the different areas and unlock some of the extra stuff (of which there is a pretty good amount). There is just a lot of good stuff crammed into this game. I didn't care about having to back track at all, because you always seem to find new stuff every time. The Gameplay gets a 10 out of 10.

Graphics: The Graphics for the game were well done. It looks as much like the movie as I think a video game can get. They could have been better, but over all were fairly decent. The town looks like it should and the characters all look really good. Some things, however, look kind of bland, but I suppose since the game does take place in a place called Halloween Town, that is to be expected One of my favorite places in the game was the pumpkin patch which I just thought was really cool looking. The Graphics get a 9 out of 10.

Music\Sound: The word for the Sound\Music is excellent. All the songs from the film have been remixed into the game to fit with the new story and they all sound great. The Music\ Sound get a 10 out of 10.

Replayability: Now that I have beaten the game I'm gonna replay some of the chapters to get a better overall score to unlock some of the different things. This game has a lot of stuff for you to find and a lot of stuff to unlock, so the Replayability is quite high. The Replayability gets a 9 out of 10.

Buy, or Rent?: This depends on f your a fan of the movie or not. Fans of the movie (like me) will get a lot more mileage with this game than a person who does not like the film. Fans should buy, but people just looking for a game to play over the weekend, its worthy of a rental.

Like I stated earlier, fans of the movie will get a lot more mileage with this game than other people. But the game is solidly put together and just a overall great game. Oh, and as a side note, the game is not as short as some people may expect. It took me over ten hours to play through it (over twelve, in fact), and I had fun the whole time.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/17/05