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A Nightmare for all the wrong reasons.

So let me just get this out of the way: This game is pretty.  It looks exactly like the movies, which for PS2 days is a bit impressive at how detailed everything is.  If this was remastered today in the same vein as Okami was for the PS3 and PS4, it'd still at the very least look phenomenal and, unlike Kingdom Hearts which it always felt a bit out of place (given, you know, the nature of the game), it'd actually feel like you were in the movie.






I'll also give credit in the gameplay department.  How exactly do you make something like the Nightmare before Christmas an actual playable title?  Well, thankfully for how it plays on both the PS2 and Xbox, and for how the handheld title (aka Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King) plays, I think they're about the best results that you'll get.  For the version I'm reviewing, think Devil May Cry meets Castlevania: it's a hack and slash type of battle style that very much mimicks Devil May Cry...but it's for kids.  So rather than guns and swords to slice and dice, you're given something called a Soul Robber (think a snot-whip that alters form whenever you upgrade it), and you have costumes you can unlock (Santa Jack and Pumpkin King) that have their own unique abilities and attacks.  The other costumes aren't as powerful as your main weapon, naturally, so you'll be mainly attacking with your Soul Robber.  You can also get a better score by getting big combos, and you're judged at the end of each chapter based on damage dealt, time taken, damage taken, and given a grade based on the total (another DmC staple).

What sets the gameplay a bit apart is the musical numbers.  During specific boss fights, it'll start out like a normal battle.  But with every hit, the boss will drop musical notes.  Fill up the gauge enough, and you'll go into a dance section where you have to time the notes correctly.  Do this well and you can do massive damage against the bosses.  This was actually a welcome addition to the game, as I couldn't imagine tNbC without the musical aspect, so I think it was a really clever way to incorporate it.

Now...since I've gotten the good out of the way, let's move on to the rest.

First of all, the story was incredibly basic.  Jack Skellington decides to leave Halloweentown for reasons, and naturally Oogie Boogie decides to use this to his advantage to take it over.  He kidnaps many of the citizens and declares himself as the ruler of Halloween.  But of course, this isn't enough and he decides to kidnap all of the 7 holiday kings (minus Jack) and become the King of 7 Holidays.  He does just this and steals all the holiday doors (for...again, reasons), minus again Jack (though he does steal the Halloween door) as well as "Sandy Claws."  Jack, of course, comes back to town to find it taken over, and he must stop Oogie Boogie's plan from succeeding.

Again, incredibly basic to almost cliche sounding at this point.  Your goal is to basically go through Halloween Town, fight bosses, collect doors, and eventually make it to Christmas Town to save Sandy Claws, eventually making it to the final area, which is basically a Dump area for all holidays to fight a more intimidating Oogie Boogie.

Aaaand, that's where my disappointment started.  Your goal is to save the other 6 holiday kings, why wasn't visiting the other 5 holiday doors an option?  We already know what the Easter Bunny looked like due to his accidental capture in the movie, why couldn't we have visited the Easter world, or St. Patrick world, or Valentines world?  Out of the game's 24 chapters, 21 of them are in Halloween Town, 1 lets you actually explore Christmas Town somewhat, and the other 2 are a rescue chapter and final boss.  To me, that's basically wasted potential that could have been worked out better.
 Rather than the chapter format, it could have been opened up a bit more, and part of the game could have involved hopping into the different holiday doors and saving (or barely miss saving) the different holiday kings from Oogie and/or his henchmen, leading up to a big rescue of Sandy Claws before the final battle.

Hell, let me take a whack at rewriting it:

Pengu's Rewrite of Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge

*Chapter 1 involves Halloween Town.  Your main goal is to save Sally, only coming across different characters on the way and saving them either as part of the main goal, or as a side thing (much like the "secret" missions).  You save her, fight Lock Shock and Barrel on the way, fight Oogie at the end.
 Oogie naturally gets away,  (or hell, it's another Shadow like at the beginning), making a run for the holiday doors (hell, let's even say Christmas, where he removes the door like he did the others, and we don't know what he does with it).  The scene cuts back to you making it to the Hinterlands right at the hill where you regret just missing him, a holiday door appears before you since Oogie left it unguarded.

*Chapters 2-6 would involve going to each of the different holidays (each one opening at the end of the previous chapter when you're given a door).  You make it through the areas, fight different monsters and henchmen (or characters brainwashed, like the Doctor) that Oogie sent out to wreak havoc.  Through this Jack learns about the other holidays and what they entail (because why should he only care about Christmas? Especially if the game is going to involve the other holiday leaders already), and wonders what Oogie Boogie is up to, since at this point...maybe Oogie hasn't exactly revealed his plan.  For all that Jack knows, this could have all been a distraction to get him out of Halloween Town for good so he could take it over.  You'd get to meet the holiday king of this area, and he'd give you the door that the monster/henchman was guarding, possibly even a costume for the holiday that would grant a new ability when equipped.  After clearing the 5th holiday area (in which...let's say the boss would be the Doctor via the Chapter 8 battle in the actual game), your reward would be the Christmas Town door.

*Chapter 7 would have Jack making it to Christmas Town to find it in shambles.  You have to explore both the town and the workshop, helping the residents and learning that Oogie Boogie found Sandy Claws, captured him and took him back to his lair.  But he also left Jack the present of...once again, Lock, Shock and Barrel, only this time they're improved because of a monster, or whatever.  You fight them, and are granted with the Halloween door, which you're surprised to see was removed.

*Chapter 8 would see you making it back to Halloween Town to see it once again under siege by Oogie Boogie's monsters.  You discover that Oogie Boogie has a secret secondary lair where he's taken Sandy Claws.  You arrive, it may/may not have been a trap, either way you end up fighting Oogie Boogie and learning that at this point that he went back and captured the other holiday kings.  He reveals his plan of wanting to be the King of Seven Holidays, which has more meaning outside of him just ruling the holidays.  Maybe there's a power that each of the kings have that they don't know about, or a special magic that gives the holidays their...well...magic.  Either way, Jack and the other kings are rendered powerless, Oogie Boogie gains that power, and supposedly wins because he now rules the 7 holidays.

*Chapter 9 would involve you reclaiming that power, facing Oogie Boogie one last time with the help of the other holiday kings.  Perhaps you even have to traverse a twisted version of all of the holiday worlds melded together, or doing it Kingdom Hearts style where you go through portions of places you visited when you went to the different Holidays.  Maybe the kings give you that literal cliche power in each area, maybe they just give you items that center around their holiday that end up actually helping (maybe it centers around the costumes they gave you when you first helped them).  Regardless, you get your power back, and are given a new costume: the Pumpkin King.   You overthrow Oogie Boogie once and for all, reclaiming the power for all of the true holiday kings.  The holiday kings thank you for rescuing them and saving the holidays, they go back to their own holiday villages/towns, you share a moment with Sally and are thankful that everything is back to normal, and prepare for a truly memorable Halloween once more.

Credits roll, and then cut to black, where all you hear is Oogie Boogie's laughter to let the player know that he's not out for the count just yet.

THERE.  I FIXED YOUR GAME FOR YOU.

Seriously, is it really that difficult to extend the plot?  If I can pull something that has even more cliches out of thin air that still sounds like a lot more fun...why couldn't the writers and designers done the same?

Because this was a game about showing off that they could do Nightmare Before Christmas in a video game form, nothing more, nothing less.  It's not about going on an actual epic and memorable adventure as Jack, it's just about being tied to the movie by having it be basically a terrible knock-off sequel that at least looks like it'd be great to adventure through.

And nowhere is it apparent that this is a knock-off sequel than in the songs.

Okay, sure, there are some songs that are timeless.  This is Halloween is a wonderful song, and hearing it play upon the game's title was lovely.

BUT COME ON.

Hearing Oogie Boogie's same song TWICE with different lyrics was forgettable.  Hearing Sally's Song with different lyrics was forgettable.  Jack's terrible re-renditions of "What's This?" were awful.  Turning "Making Christmas" into some kind of fighting-back song was a poor choice.

The ONLY song that was alright was the Doctor's Song when you fight him in Chapter 8.  And let me tell you something completely unheard of: the reason this song was actually fairly okay was because it...dare I say, was original.  That's right, this song had absolutely no previous rendition from the movie, this was purely its own thing.  Now it wasn't the best song, but it was actually one of the better songs of the game for this reason.

Outside of Oogie's songs (when Jack wasn't singing), the re-written ones weren't even given the best treatment.  Play the original songs (especially "This is Halloween") and listen to the new ones, and you'll see what I mean.  Not only are they re-renditions with new lyrics, but they just felt watered down compared to the originals.  Sally's song in the original had a lot of emotion to it because it's such a pivotal point for her character.  She's debating her feelings for Jack, and feels torn about how to talk to him.  You're following her around and feeling the emotion with her, and you really want to root for this poor girl.  In this game, it's played during a boss fight.  They're singing to each other, but the focus is completely on you fighting the boss.  It's basically Tom and Jerry and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: you can hear the music that you remember so fondly from the original (which even then still sounds off), but the focus is completely on the slapstick with the music being a secondary background noise.

The voice acting outside of Jack and Oogie Boogie can also get grating, but that's just a cherry on this cake of mediocrity.

Overall, it's not really the most highly recommended game.  Visually it looks very nice, and sure...gameplay wise when it comes to the mechanics, it can be pretty enjoyable (including the unique musical battle bits).  However, the story is mediocre, the music goes from "ok" to forgettable to watered down and sometimes disgraceful renditions of existing songs, and overall it's just a bland title.

It's a beautifully bland title that had some great ideas muddied by terrible story and overall poor treatment of the source material.

I've never played this game, but I would guess they did it the way they did it to save time or money...having most of the game take place in Halloween Town means they could recycle more graphics and not have to spend time developing different styles for each of the other areas. It's also possible that they were on a deadline, seeing as according to Wikipedia the game was originally released in Japan right before Halloween. Not really a defense for why the game is why it is, but those practices have always been common in the game industry, especially for games tied into movies...going back to ET.