Yay, my first review! <3
My purchase of this game, while mostly out of fangirlism, was also to help answer a long-standing question in my mind: While plenty of movies made about video games suck, can a video game made about a movie be any good?
Okay, so all of you more seasoned viewers can sit back and try to keep your lunch down/pretend to care as the forum's newest...well, newbie reviews:
- The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge -
- Introduction -
If you haven't seen the whimsically dark movie that inspired this game, then expect a mutated, blood-sucking Barbie doll in your stocking this holiday season. To give you all some background information, as well as blab as I like to do when I think I know everything, here's the synopsis of the movie in a nutshell...or, more fittingly, a skull.
The story revolves around Jack Skellington, the leader (because the mayor can't do his job for beans) of Halloweentown, an alternate world where vampires, mummies, and various other creepy types spend their lives planning on how to best scare the children of Earth come Halloween. Jack gets bored of his repetitive lifestyle, so he runs off to Christmastown and tries to get a change of pace by taking over 'Sandy Claws' job. Obviously, once you throw in possessed Christmas presents and the boogieman, things go really bad really fast. However, there's a heart-wrenchingly romantic and happy ending, so the movie isn't as dark as the animation would suggest.
I'd have to say it's something of a cult classic. While the movie has been gaining popularity through 3-D re-releases (which were AMAZING), cameos in the Kingdom Hearts series, and plenty of Hot Topic merchandise (which I shamelessly emptied my wallet to procure), not a lot of people seem to have seen or head of it or its virtual spin-offs. Heck, even I was surprised to find that one of my favorite cinematic productions had not one, but TWO video games made after it: a prequel to the story, and a sequel to the story. Unfortunately, I could only find one of them in the bargain bin at my local EA Games.
Oogie's Revenge was released on the PS2 and the XBOX. I wonder what it would've been like for the Gamecube, but I digress.
- The Story -
[img_inline caption="Part of me wonders why Sally didn't just let her limbs fall apart to get out of there..." height="200" width="220" align="left"]http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2004/screen0/919005_20040512_screen006.jpg[/img_inline]
Yay, my favorite part of anything! <3
If the title isn't obvious enough, the game's storyline deals with the return of Jack's arch-nemesis, Oogie Boogie: the boogieman with a penchant for gambling, death traps, and turning people into snake-and-spider stew. Oogie met his demise at the hands of Jack (and the foot of Santa) at the end of the movie, but thankfully, he has a trio of mischief-making henchkids to put him back together again. With plenty of cockroaches and sewing needles, Lock, Shock, and Barrel stitch up Oogie's burlap butt, and they go to get their revenge on the people of Halloweentown.
To do so, they wait until Jack leaves the town for an inspirational walk-about (a very LONG walk-about), before imprisoning the residents and forcing them to fill the streets with death-traps and monsters. They also kidnap the other holiday leaders (Saint Patrick, Cupid, Uncle Sam, etc.) so Oogie can rule over all of the holidays. Jack, using an ectoplasmic whip called the Soul Robber, has to defeat Oogie's army of minions and save the world.
- The Gameplay: Fighting -
[img_inline caption="When problems come along, you must whip it~" height="200" width="220" align="left"]http://www.armchairempire.com/images/previews/ps2/nightmare-before-christmas-oogies-revenge/nightmare-before-christmas-oogies-revenge-1.jpg[/img_inline]
Okay, I'll get to the core element of this game instead of rambling on about voices and graphics for five billion more paragraphs.
The controls are pretty basic; you press square to attack, circle to dodge, x to talk to people, and start to open up your menu. I will admit though, it's a little weird that you have to press circle three times to jump (as well as rather hard to control; I don't know how many times I jumped right into the lava while trying to get a life upgrade at one point), and the right analog stick doesn't do anything, which causes LOTS of problems from the fixed camera angle. Those are the only major issues I can think of, though.
Your main weapon is the Soul Robber, and you can attack in different ways with it. You can just smack guys in the face repetitively, grab them (which allows you to either slam them into dust against the ground, or throw them at other enemies), uppercut them, or spin it around to hit everyone in your range. The Soul Robber can also deflect projectiles and be used to scale buildings or pull large objects, if you press the corresponding button when the thing you're aiming at glows. With enough crushed skulls under your belt, the Soul Robber will power up, letting you kill enemies more easily and perform special attacks.
Speaking of enemies, bosses aside, your opponents pretty much just consist of spiders, ghosts, and skeletons. There are different kinds of each enemy, though, like melee skeletons, boomerang-throwing skeletons, ghosts with a special ramming attack, and so on. For extra points and money, you can taunt enemies with a crack of the Soul Robber, and make them go into 'Oogie Mode'. And on the subject of difficulty, the game's pretty easy, and even a new-timer could get the hang of it without much trouble.
However, there's also a special part of the gameplay that I think deserves its own section, so here we go.
- The Gameplay: Boss Fights -
[img_inline caption="Oshi-" height="200" width="220" align="left"]http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2005/138/919005_20050519_screen026.jpg[/img_inline]
In a boss fight, hitting the big baddie in question not only depletes their health bar, but gives you 'Soul Notes', little musical notes that fill up Jack's power meter. Once the Soul Notes are full, there's a small countdown, and Jack initiates a musical showdown. It's pretty simple; you press the button when it passes into the middle of the screen. The more buttons you press, the stronger Jack's following attack will be. The more you miss, the attack ends prematurely and Jack pretty much tickles them.
I don't know if it's NECESSARY to use the music notes to beat a boss, but it's sort of unavoidable- the little drops fly over to you like Jack's magnetized to music or something. There are a few fights where you DO have to do it, though, so I'm probably wrong anyway.
Different boss fights might have different criteria or tricks to beating them. For instance, in one fight, you don't have to beat the guy up, but you have to give him his original brain so that he doesn't kill you. In another fight, you have to hit the big spider and make it fall apart into tiny spiders, which you must then squash to render the boss helpless. Finally, in the second half of the final boss fight, it consists solely of dancing, which means correct timing = successful attack, and a miss means you take damage. Again, pretty straightforward.
- The Gameplay: Other -
You get access to two alternate costumes in the game, thanks to the storyline: Pumpkin Jack and Santa Jack, which you power up by purchasing upgrades at the game's store. Pumpkin Jack can burn up enemies and obstacles, and Santa Jack uses presents to scare enemies out of hiding or reduce their difficulty levels. The costumes aren't hard to use, because the controls are accessible from the start screen.
You also have an inventory screen for storing items. However, you won't really use most of them, aside from three of them (although one level does contain a puzzle sequence with the holiday doors). One of those said items are keys, which are a one-time use to open doors. The other two items, which you'll be accessing a lot more frequently, are Crystal Bottles and Blue Souls. The Crystal Bottles hold special water, which Jack can use to restore his life. You refill Crystal Bottles at the town fountain, and you can get more by collecting Crystal Skulls, or by buying them at the shop. The Blue Souls provide a power upgrade to your Soul Robber for a short amount of time. Jack's life bar can be lengthened by collecting Golden Pumpkins, but those can also be bought at the store.
At the end of each level, you get graded (which is a sort of thinly-veiled ripoff of Devil May Cry; my apologies, game, but it's true). The grade varies depending on your time, amount of damage taken, highest combo rate, and exclamation points gathered (which come as a result of taunting enemies). A good grade gets you collectible figurines, and if you have all of a certain grade, like A's or S's, at the end of the game, you're rewarded with costumes for Jack to wear.
- The Sound -
Just like in the movie, the music is masterfully done. The background song of each different area plays when you're in the stage (an instrumental version of 'This is Halloween' when in the town square, Jack and Sally's love duet on Spiral Hill), and changes to alert you when enemies appear. And boss fights usually have you dancing to a re-written song from the movie; Lock, Shock, and Barrel go from 'Kidnap the Sandy Claws' to 'Hail Mr. Oogie', for instance, or Jack and Sally turn 'Sally's Song' into a duet while he fights off a giant spider. Even the new scores rock, especially the creepy atmosphere that's provided by Oogie laughing in the background while you navigate his underground death gauntlet.
Most of the voice actors stayed the same, and the few changes weren't anything to complain about. In contrast to the movie, Jack only has one voice actor (he had a separate one for singing), but the man who once played only Jack's common dialog isn't that bad of a singer, either. But Sally's new voice is a little on the whiny side...
- The Graphics -
The game takes you throughout Halloweentown and beyond, and it does a very nice job of it. It even fills in the blanks left by the movie by showing you the residential areas and sewers of the city. It fits the environments shown in the movie to a T. However, the quality of the visuals isn't an exact ten, and Christmastown was a little small, but it was probably to accomodate the last few fights. But all of the enemies fit the Mardi Gras theme of Oogie's casino, and even go neon like in his special number, and I'm enough of a fangirl that I can't complain about that.
- Gameplay: The Bad and the Ugly -
Okay, so nothing's perfect. The movie has a special place in my heart, so of course I'm biased towards the game, but even I have to admit it has its flaws.
The biggest flaw is the fixed camera. It makes backtracking tough, and it can be a MURDERER in difficult environments or when the enemies manage to surround you. I'm trying my hardest not to sound like Yahtzee, because I know that would destroy my credibility on this site before I even finished this review, but it does bring to mind his comment that the right analog stick should control the camera, nothing else. There was one level where I thought I simply had to swing across a pond...but the camera neglected to show the giant fish coming up to nom me before it was too late.
Another, minor annoyance is that Jack yells out "Soul Robber" whenever you use the triangle button, whether it be in battle or to climb things. Needless to say, it can grate on your nerves after a while, especially in levels where you do a lot of climbing or if you like to use the grab and slam buttons (which is one of your hardest-hitting and quickest attacks, so...grab some earplugs).
The replay value of the game is questionable, aside from getting better grades to unlock all of the Easter eggs (for instance, I think that getting all the collectibles gets you infinite ammo for Pumpkin Jack's fire attacks, but I haven't been able to test it myself).
On some levels, getting a good grade is downright HARD. There's one level where you have to get past a group of enemies within a time limit (which basically means run, because the enemies- two minibosses named Trick and Treat- respawn about twice with increased difficulty once you kill them). The second half of said level contains no enemies, as you have to reach the top of a tower while avoiding incoming cannonballs. It's hard to get exclamation points here, because you don't have the time to scare enemies at first, and you only get one point at the end for sneaking up on Shock while she arms the cannon. During the death gauntlet course, the only way to hit any enemies is by entering the hidden cave and finishing its challenge.
Then comes the matter of the two secret levels. You have to initiate them from within other levels (or use the level select option you get after beating the game), and one is just a large scavenger hunt, which makes timing a pressing issue. In the second secret level, which pits you against a third spider boss, the arena is so tiny that it takes a miracle to get through without taking at least (but not over) 9,000 hits.
Finally, the difficulty curve. For most of the game, things are kind of humiliatingly easy. Sure, the enemies get harder, but because the player can usually adapt to challenges thrown at them, you become used to it. And things become EVEN easier because you can power Jack up with the snap of a finger; souls and money are dispensed more than generously. In fact, whenever I needed cash, all I had to do was run around the Mayor's front yard and stand behind the big skeleton enemies, scaring them into Oogie Mode and then mercilessly flogging their weak spot for a payout.
Whenever the game does get difficult, it's horribly sporadic and bad enough to make you want to dip the game in Oogie's homemade stew. Time limits, huge mobs of enemies, an overabundance of negative obstacles, or a flurry of hard-to-hit dance moves that can knock down Jack's life bar before you say "YOU'RE JOKIN'!" - all of these had me gritting my teeth and waiting for the end of the level so I could see Jack and Sally reunite atop Spiral Hill.
On that note, while there aren't too many cutscenes, and none of them are too long, you can't skip the dialog that Mr. Hyde (the resident who saves your game) gives you before you can update your file. Given that the dialog changes and at times becomes longer, this can get a little tiresome, especially when you really need to save.
- Conclusion -
Buy it...if you're a TNBC fan. I don't agree with the harsh reviews given by websites about the game, but it is easier to look over the flaws in the game if you bought it just to enhance your understanding of the world of Halloweentown. Otherwise, I'd suggest you just rent it. The game's more of a little novelty for fans, like the coffin-box sneakers or the Skellington wristwatch...by the way, I need to find mine. Ta~! <3
My purchase of this game, while mostly out of fangirlism, was also to help answer a long-standing question in my mind: While plenty of movies made about video games suck, can a video game made about a movie be any good?
Okay, so all of you more seasoned viewers can sit back and try to keep your lunch down/pretend to care as the forum's newest...well, newbie reviews:
- The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge -
- Introduction -
If you haven't seen the whimsically dark movie that inspired this game, then expect a mutated, blood-sucking Barbie doll in your stocking this holiday season. To give you all some background information, as well as blab as I like to do when I think I know everything, here's the synopsis of the movie in a nutshell...or, more fittingly, a skull.
The story revolves around Jack Skellington, the leader (because the mayor can't do his job for beans) of Halloweentown, an alternate world where vampires, mummies, and various other creepy types spend their lives planning on how to best scare the children of Earth come Halloween. Jack gets bored of his repetitive lifestyle, so he runs off to Christmastown and tries to get a change of pace by taking over 'Sandy Claws' job. Obviously, once you throw in possessed Christmas presents and the boogieman, things go really bad really fast. However, there's a heart-wrenchingly romantic and happy ending, so the movie isn't as dark as the animation would suggest.
I'd have to say it's something of a cult classic. While the movie has been gaining popularity through 3-D re-releases (which were AMAZING), cameos in the Kingdom Hearts series, and plenty of Hot Topic merchandise (which I shamelessly emptied my wallet to procure), not a lot of people seem to have seen or head of it or its virtual spin-offs. Heck, even I was surprised to find that one of my favorite cinematic productions had not one, but TWO video games made after it: a prequel to the story, and a sequel to the story. Unfortunately, I could only find one of them in the bargain bin at my local EA Games.
Oogie's Revenge was released on the PS2 and the XBOX. I wonder what it would've been like for the Gamecube, but I digress.
- The Story -
[img_inline caption="Part of me wonders why Sally didn't just let her limbs fall apart to get out of there..." height="200" width="220" align="left"]http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2004/screen0/919005_20040512_screen006.jpg[/img_inline]
Yay, my favorite part of anything! <3
If the title isn't obvious enough, the game's storyline deals with the return of Jack's arch-nemesis, Oogie Boogie: the boogieman with a penchant for gambling, death traps, and turning people into snake-and-spider stew. Oogie met his demise at the hands of Jack (and the foot of Santa) at the end of the movie, but thankfully, he has a trio of mischief-making henchkids to put him back together again. With plenty of cockroaches and sewing needles, Lock, Shock, and Barrel stitch up Oogie's burlap butt, and they go to get their revenge on the people of Halloweentown.
To do so, they wait until Jack leaves the town for an inspirational walk-about (a very LONG walk-about), before imprisoning the residents and forcing them to fill the streets with death-traps and monsters. They also kidnap the other holiday leaders (Saint Patrick, Cupid, Uncle Sam, etc.) so Oogie can rule over all of the holidays. Jack, using an ectoplasmic whip called the Soul Robber, has to defeat Oogie's army of minions and save the world.
- The Gameplay: Fighting -
[img_inline caption="When problems come along, you must whip it~" height="200" width="220" align="left"]http://www.armchairempire.com/images/previews/ps2/nightmare-before-christmas-oogies-revenge/nightmare-before-christmas-oogies-revenge-1.jpg[/img_inline]
Okay, I'll get to the core element of this game instead of rambling on about voices and graphics for five billion more paragraphs.
The controls are pretty basic; you press square to attack, circle to dodge, x to talk to people, and start to open up your menu. I will admit though, it's a little weird that you have to press circle three times to jump (as well as rather hard to control; I don't know how many times I jumped right into the lava while trying to get a life upgrade at one point), and the right analog stick doesn't do anything, which causes LOTS of problems from the fixed camera angle. Those are the only major issues I can think of, though.
Your main weapon is the Soul Robber, and you can attack in different ways with it. You can just smack guys in the face repetitively, grab them (which allows you to either slam them into dust against the ground, or throw them at other enemies), uppercut them, or spin it around to hit everyone in your range. The Soul Robber can also deflect projectiles and be used to scale buildings or pull large objects, if you press the corresponding button when the thing you're aiming at glows. With enough crushed skulls under your belt, the Soul Robber will power up, letting you kill enemies more easily and perform special attacks.
Speaking of enemies, bosses aside, your opponents pretty much just consist of spiders, ghosts, and skeletons. There are different kinds of each enemy, though, like melee skeletons, boomerang-throwing skeletons, ghosts with a special ramming attack, and so on. For extra points and money, you can taunt enemies with a crack of the Soul Robber, and make them go into 'Oogie Mode'. And on the subject of difficulty, the game's pretty easy, and even a new-timer could get the hang of it without much trouble.
However, there's also a special part of the gameplay that I think deserves its own section, so here we go.
- The Gameplay: Boss Fights -
[img_inline caption="Oshi-" height="200" width="220" align="left"]http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2005/138/919005_20050519_screen026.jpg[/img_inline]
In a boss fight, hitting the big baddie in question not only depletes their health bar, but gives you 'Soul Notes', little musical notes that fill up Jack's power meter. Once the Soul Notes are full, there's a small countdown, and Jack initiates a musical showdown. It's pretty simple; you press the button when it passes into the middle of the screen. The more buttons you press, the stronger Jack's following attack will be. The more you miss, the attack ends prematurely and Jack pretty much tickles them.
I don't know if it's NECESSARY to use the music notes to beat a boss, but it's sort of unavoidable- the little drops fly over to you like Jack's magnetized to music or something. There are a few fights where you DO have to do it, though, so I'm probably wrong anyway.
Different boss fights might have different criteria or tricks to beating them. For instance, in one fight, you don't have to beat the guy up, but you have to give him his original brain so that he doesn't kill you. In another fight, you have to hit the big spider and make it fall apart into tiny spiders, which you must then squash to render the boss helpless. Finally, in the second half of the final boss fight, it consists solely of dancing, which means correct timing = successful attack, and a miss means you take damage. Again, pretty straightforward.
- The Gameplay: Other -
You get access to two alternate costumes in the game, thanks to the storyline: Pumpkin Jack and Santa Jack, which you power up by purchasing upgrades at the game's store. Pumpkin Jack can burn up enemies and obstacles, and Santa Jack uses presents to scare enemies out of hiding or reduce their difficulty levels. The costumes aren't hard to use, because the controls are accessible from the start screen.
You also have an inventory screen for storing items. However, you won't really use most of them, aside from three of them (although one level does contain a puzzle sequence with the holiday doors). One of those said items are keys, which are a one-time use to open doors. The other two items, which you'll be accessing a lot more frequently, are Crystal Bottles and Blue Souls. The Crystal Bottles hold special water, which Jack can use to restore his life. You refill Crystal Bottles at the town fountain, and you can get more by collecting Crystal Skulls, or by buying them at the shop. The Blue Souls provide a power upgrade to your Soul Robber for a short amount of time. Jack's life bar can be lengthened by collecting Golden Pumpkins, but those can also be bought at the store.
At the end of each level, you get graded (which is a sort of thinly-veiled ripoff of Devil May Cry; my apologies, game, but it's true). The grade varies depending on your time, amount of damage taken, highest combo rate, and exclamation points gathered (which come as a result of taunting enemies). A good grade gets you collectible figurines, and if you have all of a certain grade, like A's or S's, at the end of the game, you're rewarded with costumes for Jack to wear.
- The Sound -
Just like in the movie, the music is masterfully done. The background song of each different area plays when you're in the stage (an instrumental version of 'This is Halloween' when in the town square, Jack and Sally's love duet on Spiral Hill), and changes to alert you when enemies appear. And boss fights usually have you dancing to a re-written song from the movie; Lock, Shock, and Barrel go from 'Kidnap the Sandy Claws' to 'Hail Mr. Oogie', for instance, or Jack and Sally turn 'Sally's Song' into a duet while he fights off a giant spider. Even the new scores rock, especially the creepy atmosphere that's provided by Oogie laughing in the background while you navigate his underground death gauntlet.
Most of the voice actors stayed the same, and the few changes weren't anything to complain about. In contrast to the movie, Jack only has one voice actor (he had a separate one for singing), but the man who once played only Jack's common dialog isn't that bad of a singer, either. But Sally's new voice is a little on the whiny side...
- The Graphics -
The game takes you throughout Halloweentown and beyond, and it does a very nice job of it. It even fills in the blanks left by the movie by showing you the residential areas and sewers of the city. It fits the environments shown in the movie to a T. However, the quality of the visuals isn't an exact ten, and Christmastown was a little small, but it was probably to accomodate the last few fights. But all of the enemies fit the Mardi Gras theme of Oogie's casino, and even go neon like in his special number, and I'm enough of a fangirl that I can't complain about that.
- Gameplay: The Bad and the Ugly -
Okay, so nothing's perfect. The movie has a special place in my heart, so of course I'm biased towards the game, but even I have to admit it has its flaws.
The biggest flaw is the fixed camera. It makes backtracking tough, and it can be a MURDERER in difficult environments or when the enemies manage to surround you. I'm trying my hardest not to sound like Yahtzee, because I know that would destroy my credibility on this site before I even finished this review, but it does bring to mind his comment that the right analog stick should control the camera, nothing else. There was one level where I thought I simply had to swing across a pond...but the camera neglected to show the giant fish coming up to nom me before it was too late.
Another, minor annoyance is that Jack yells out "Soul Robber" whenever you use the triangle button, whether it be in battle or to climb things. Needless to say, it can grate on your nerves after a while, especially in levels where you do a lot of climbing or if you like to use the grab and slam buttons (which is one of your hardest-hitting and quickest attacks, so...grab some earplugs).
The replay value of the game is questionable, aside from getting better grades to unlock all of the Easter eggs (for instance, I think that getting all the collectibles gets you infinite ammo for Pumpkin Jack's fire attacks, but I haven't been able to test it myself).
On some levels, getting a good grade is downright HARD. There's one level where you have to get past a group of enemies within a time limit (which basically means run, because the enemies- two minibosses named Trick and Treat- respawn about twice with increased difficulty once you kill them). The second half of said level contains no enemies, as you have to reach the top of a tower while avoiding incoming cannonballs. It's hard to get exclamation points here, because you don't have the time to scare enemies at first, and you only get one point at the end for sneaking up on Shock while she arms the cannon. During the death gauntlet course, the only way to hit any enemies is by entering the hidden cave and finishing its challenge.
Then comes the matter of the two secret levels. You have to initiate them from within other levels (or use the level select option you get after beating the game), and one is just a large scavenger hunt, which makes timing a pressing issue. In the second secret level, which pits you against a third spider boss, the arena is so tiny that it takes a miracle to get through without taking at least (but not over) 9,000 hits.
Finally, the difficulty curve. For most of the game, things are kind of humiliatingly easy. Sure, the enemies get harder, but because the player can usually adapt to challenges thrown at them, you become used to it. And things become EVEN easier because you can power Jack up with the snap of a finger; souls and money are dispensed more than generously. In fact, whenever I needed cash, all I had to do was run around the Mayor's front yard and stand behind the big skeleton enemies, scaring them into Oogie Mode and then mercilessly flogging their weak spot for a payout.
Whenever the game does get difficult, it's horribly sporadic and bad enough to make you want to dip the game in Oogie's homemade stew. Time limits, huge mobs of enemies, an overabundance of negative obstacles, or a flurry of hard-to-hit dance moves that can knock down Jack's life bar before you say "YOU'RE JOKIN'!" - all of these had me gritting my teeth and waiting for the end of the level so I could see Jack and Sally reunite atop Spiral Hill.
On that note, while there aren't too many cutscenes, and none of them are too long, you can't skip the dialog that Mr. Hyde (the resident who saves your game) gives you before you can update your file. Given that the dialog changes and at times becomes longer, this can get a little tiresome, especially when you really need to save.
- Conclusion -
Buy it...if you're a TNBC fan. I don't agree with the harsh reviews given by websites about the game, but it is easier to look over the flaws in the game if you bought it just to enhance your understanding of the world of Halloweentown. Otherwise, I'd suggest you just rent it. The game's more of a little novelty for fans, like the coffin-box sneakers or the Skellington wristwatch...by the way, I need to find mine. Ta~! <3
