The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge | |
---|---|
![]() North American cover art for the PlayStation 2 | |
Developer(s) | Tose |
Publisher(s) | |
Producer(s) | Tatsuya Minami Hironobu Takeshita Naoto Tominaga |
Composer(s) | Kengo Hagiwara Masaya Tsunemoto |
Platform(s) | PlayStation 2 Xbox |
Release | PlayStation 2
|
Genre(s) | Action-adventure, hack and slash |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge [lower-alpha 1] is a 2004 action-adventure video game developed by Tose for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. The game was published by Capcom in Japan and Europe, and by Buena Vista Games in North America. Based on the 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas and set one year after the film, the game follows Jack Skellington as he attempts to defeat a resurrected Oogie Boogie and reclaim Halloween Town from him.
Oogie's Revenge was released at the same time in North America as The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King for Game Boy Advance, which serves as a prequel to the film.
Gameplay in the game is similar to the Devil May Cry series, but easier for younger and less experienced players. Both titles were developed by Capcom. Jack can transform into Santa Jack and the Pumpkin King later in the game. Santa Jack can lay down three types of presents to thwart his enemies, while the Pumpkin King form can set them aflame or lay down a bomb. The game consists of 24 chapters (and two secret chapters). Players must fight numerous enemies, perform platforming tasks, and occasionally solve puzzles to progress through the story. The player's performance in each mission is given a letter grade of A, B, C, or D, with an additional top grade of S. Grades are based on the time taken to complete the mission, the longest combo performed, the damage done to Jack, and the number of enemies surprised.
The doors of the various holiday worlds are obtained when a certain level is completed, though they are simply plot items and do not grant the player access to other holiday-themed towns. Later chapters, however, allow the player to enter Christmas Town. Each of Jack's costumes have different abilities. Santa Jack (which is obtained once Doctor Finkelstein is defeated) can throw out presents to stun enemies or freeze enemies in ice, and the Pumpkin King (obtained after saving Sally from a large spider) can burn enemies and open doors by burning them. There are several unlockable costumes, though they do not grant any additional abilities.
A year after the film, Jack Skellington once again feels Halloween has become dull and repetitive. He talks with Dr. Finkelstein about improving the next Halloween with new scares and discoveries. The doctor gives Jack the "Soul Robber", a green, whip-like weapon. He then leaves town to look for new frights, leaving the doctor in charge, and the equally bored Lock, Shock, and Barrel take advantage of Jack's absence to revive Oogie Boogie, who immediately begins plotting his revenge. On December 23, Sally, a prisoner in Dr. Finkelstein's laboratory, manages to send a magical paper airplane to find Jack to warn him of what has happened.
Jack returns to Halloween Town in the afternoon on Christmas Eve and is immediately attacked by monsters. After fending them off with the Soul Robber, Jack learns of Oogie's revival and that Dr. Finkelstein had caused the citizens to boobytrap the entire town. In the town hall, Jack finds and confronts Oogie's shadow. After defeating the shadow, he finds the Halloween Holiday Door.
After making the town square safe, Jack learns that Oogie's monsters had kidnapped Sally and taken her to the cemetery. Jack fights through Oogie's monsters as he tries to find where they've taken him, despite Lock's best attempts to fend him off. He finds Sally in a crypt where a giant spider clings her to the ceiling and attacks Jack. Jack defeats the spider, saves Sally, and finds the Valentine's Day Holiday Door. When Jack and Sally walk out of the crypt, she gives Jack the key to Dr. Finkelstein's laboratory and gives him the idea to use his Pumpkin King powers to defeat Oogie's monsters.
Despite Shock's attempts to stop Jack, he makes it to the doctor's lair at the top of his tower, and finds that all of his evil actions were because Oogie had replaced his brain. Fending off the doctor's deadly machines, Jack returns him to normal by switching his brain back, claiming the St. Patrick's Day Holiday Door in the process. With the doctor and Sally's help, Jack gains his Santa Claus outfit to use booby-trapped presents, which he uses to scare Oogie's monsters out of possessing the pumpkins in the pumpkin patch. Barrel tries to stop Jack by forcing him to navigate the maze he had created in the pumpkin patch, but Jack makes it through and defeats Barrel and his monsters, claiming the Thanksgiving Holiday Door and the key to the residential district.
After freeing the vampire brothers from Oogie's curse, they tell him of Oogie's plan: he had kidnapped the other Holiday Leaders and stolen the Holiday Doors so that they couldn't return home (which Lock, Shock, and Barrel hid in different areas of the town), and planned to become the Seven Holidays King by taking over the other six holidays as well as Halloween. Jack then rescues the mayor from a cage and confronts Lock, Shock, and Barrel on his roof; after defeating them one last time, claiming the Independence Day Holiday Door, they trigger a trap that sends him into the Oogie Corridor, a subterranean labyrinth filled with lava and booby traps. Jack navigates the corridor and finds a jail where five of the holiday leaders are imprisoned, but Santa is conspicuously absent. At the end of the maze, Jack finds Oogie on a giant roulette wheel, where he says that he plans to take revenge on Santa personally. Jack defeats Oogie, but discovers that it was only his shadow again and that the Holiday Door he was guarding was the Easter door, not the Christmas door.
Jack instructs the mayor to free the other Holiday Leaders, then heads to the Hinterlands, having a heartfelt moment with Sally before navigating the mystic forest to replace the Holiday Doors on their trees. Halfway through the process, Jack fights Oogie's two strongest monsters and claims the Christmas Door from them, using it to leave for Christmas Town as soon as he finishes.
Jack undoes Oogie's damage to the town and foils his attempt to kill Santa, and Oogie flies off in Santa's sleigh, but Sally arrives with the skeleton reindeer and coffin sleigh to give Santa the resources to make his deliveries. Oogie is scared out of the sky by a booby-trapped present that an elf had snuck into the sleigh before takeoff, and he falls into the seven holidays' junkyard. In a fit of rage, he absorbs the waste and insects in the environment and becomes a giant version of himself to beat Jack. The Pumpkin King defeats Oogie, leaving only an empty patchwork sack as his bugs spill out, and Santa thanks Jack for saving his life and his holiday.
Afterward, Jack realizes that his home and loved ones are something more important than new discoveries. Like the film, the game ends with Jack and Sally embracing on top of Spiral Hill.
Aggregator | Score |
---|---|
GameRankings | (Xbox) 66.46% [5] (PS2) 64.95% [6] |
Metacritic | (Xbox) 65/100 [7] (PS2) 65/100 [8] |
Publication | Score |
---|---|
1Up.com | C [9] |
Eurogamer | 5/10 [10] |
Famitsu | 29/40 [11] |
Game Informer | 5/10 [12] |
GameSpot | 6.4/10 [13] |
GameSpy | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
GameTrailers | 6.2/10 [15] |
GameZone | 7.6/10 [16] |
IGN | 6/10 [17] |
Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Official Xbox Magazine (US) | 7.1/10 [19] |
The Times | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Reception to the game was mostly mixed. GameRankings gave the game a score of 66.46% for Xbox [5] and 64.95% for PlayStation 2, [6] while Metacritic gave it a score of 65 out of 100 for both console versions. [7] [8] IGN reviewed the game, saying, "Unpolished gameplay and poor pacing won't ever make for an outstanding product regardless of however endearing the source material may be" and gave the game a 6/10 rating overall. [17] Gametrailers.com criticized the game for its camera and story, which they believed copied too much from the movie instead of coming up with something truly original. [21] However, The Times gave it all five stars and said: "This adventure looks great, its landscape dominated by crooked buildings and brooding grey skies; navigating Jack is simple and the characters are all well realised. A perfect children’s game". [20]
Christopher Sarandon is an American actor. He is well known for playing a variety of iconic characters, including Jerry Dandrige in Fright Night (1985), Prince Humperdinck in The Princess Bride (1987), Detective Mike Norris in Child's Play (1988), and Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Leon Shermer in Dog Day Afternoon (1975).
The Nightmare Before Christmas is a 1993 American stop-motion animated musical fantasy film directed by Henry Selick in his feature directorial debut and produced and conceived by Tim Burton. It tells the story of Jack Skellington, the King of "Halloween Town", who stumbles upon "Christmas Town" and schemes to take over the holiday. Danny Elfman wrote the songs and score and provided the singing voice of Jack. The principal voice cast includes Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara, William Hickey, Ken Page, Paul Reubens, Glenn Shadix, and Ed Ivory.
Jack Skellington is a character and the protagonist of the 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas. He is a tall, sentient skeleton who is the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, a fantasy world based solely on the Halloween holiday. Jack is voiced by Chris Sarandon. Danny Elfman provided Jack's singing voice in the original film and soundtrack album, with Sarandon providing Jack's speaking and singing voice in subsequent productions.
William Glenn Shadix was an American actor and comedian. He was known for his role as Otho in Tim Burton's horror comedy film Beetlejuice and as the voice of the Mayor of Halloween Town in The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Scary Godmother is a series of children's books and comic books created by artist Jill Thompson and published by Sirius Entertainment beginning in 1997.
Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King is a 2005 platform game developed by Tose for the Game Boy Advance. The game was published by D3 Publisher in Japan, and by Buena Vista Games internationally. A prequel to the 1993 stop motion animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas, it tells the story of Jack Skellington's first encounter with Oogie Boogie, and how he claimed the title of "The Pumpkin King".
Caroline Thompson is an American novelist, screenwriter, film director, and producer. She wrote the screenplays for the Tim Burton-directed films Edward Scissorhands and Corpse Bride and the Burton-produced The Nightmare Before Christmas. She co-wrote the story for Edward Scissorhands and co-adapted a new stage version of the film with director and choreographer Matthew Bourne. Thompson also adapted the screenplay for the film version of Wicked Lovely, a bestselling fantasy series, in 2011, but the production was put into turnaround. She directed Black Beauty (1994); Buddy (1997), which she also wrote; and the television film Snow White: The Fairest of Them All (2001), also as producer and co-writer.
Haunted Mansion Holiday is a seasonal overlay of The Haunted Mansion attraction at Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland that blends the settings and characters of the original Haunted Mansion with those of the 1993 film The Nightmare Before Christmas. Taking inspiration from "The Night Before Christmas", the attraction retells the story of Jack Skellington visiting the Haunted Mansion on Christmas Eve, leaving holiday chaos in his wake.
Ken Page is an American actor and singer. Page created the role of "Ken" in the original Broadway production of Ain't Misbehavin', and played the role of "Old Deuteronomy" in both the original Broadway and filmed stage productions of Cats. Page is also known as the voice of Oogie Boogie in The Nightmare Before Christmas franchise. He also was in the original Broadway production of The Wiz as The Lion and the first Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls as Nicely-Nicely Johnson.
Motion pictures featuring Santa Claus constitute their own subgenre of the Christmas film genre. Early films of Santa revolve around similar simple plots of Santa's Christmas Eve visit to children. In 1897, in a short film called Santa Claus Filling Stockings, Santa Claus is simply filling stockings from his pack of toys. Another film called Santa Claus and the Children was made in 1898. A year later, a film directed by George Albert Smith titled Santa Claus was created. In this picture, Santa Claus enters the room from the fireplace and proceeds to trim the tree. He then fills the stockings that were previously hung on the mantle by the children. After walking backward and surveying his work, he suddenly darts at the fireplace and disappears up the chimney.
HalloWishes was a fireworks show that took place during "Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party" at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom theme park from 2005 to 2018. It was loosely based on the popular Haunted Mansion attraction and includes vocal appearances by Disney Villains. It was replaced by Disney's Not So Spooky Spectacular!.
Mickey's Halloween Party is an annual Halloween-themed separate admission at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. An earlier event with the original name had been held in 1995 and 1996 at the Disneyland Park, but was not revived until 2005 at Disney California Adventure. Mickey's Halloween Party was considered to be a more family-friendly response to the scare-centered events Halloween Horror Nights, Knott's Scary Farm, and Six Flags Fright Fest. The event ran at Disney California Adventure through 2009, and returned to the Disneyland park starting in 2010. In 2019, the Party was moved back to Disney California Adventure and retitled Oogie Boogie Bash. Its new features included a water show at Pixar Pier called "Villainous".
The Nightmare Before Christmas is the fifteenth soundtrack album by American composer Danny Elfman. It was released on October 12, 1993, by Walt Disney Records to promote the 1993 American stop-motion animated musical dark fantasy film The Nightmare Before Christmas. Composed by Danny Elfman, the soundtrack was nominated for the 1993 Golden Globe for Best Original Score. The album peaked at #64 on the US Billboard 200.
The Nightmare Before Christmas is a 1993 film produced by Tim Burton.
Nightmare Revisited is a cover album of songs and score from the 1993 Disney animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas. It was released on September 30, 2008 by Walt Disney Records to commemorate the film's 15th anniversary of its theatrical release. In addition to the album's eighteen covers are two re-recordings by original composer Danny Elfman, of the "Opening" and "Closing" tracks. One song featured on the album, Marilyn Manson's "This Is Halloween", was previously released nearly two years earlier, on the 2006 reissue of the film's original soundtrack which, featuring five covers of songs from the film, acted as a precursor to Nightmare Revisited. Enhanced content on the disc features the trailer of The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Halloween Screams: A Villainous Surprise in the Skies is a Halloween-themed fireworks show that is presented at Disneyland during the seasonal Mickey's Halloween Party event. Based on the similarly-themed, former fireworks show HalloWishes at Magic Kingdom, Halloween Screams is hosted by Jack Skellington and features appearances from Disney Villains and music from Disney animated features.