The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge

The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge is as good as you can expect a Disney film-based game can be, which is not much to be fair. It's a very charming experience to play as Jack Skellington, visit Halloween town in a more detailed way than portrayed in the original movie, the designs overall are pretty spot on, the whole essence is here.

Not gonna focus too much on bad graphics, clunky mechanics and a really annoying camera control because it's an old game, and it's far from being unplayable or stupidly broken. The combat is just very okay, I think the problem is the constant enemies battles that you are forced to finish to progress, it gets really repetitive. Albeit the game is short (4-5 hours to finish), 1 hour in and you'll see everything this has to offer gameplay-wise, and the story is probably the only thing not making you want to quit.

It's evident they tried to make the combat a bit more complex with new weapons (costumes in game) and weapons upgrades, but they are plain useless, and I find the battles even more tedious when you need to chase annoying ghost or change to Santa costume just to pop some pumpkins otherwise you'll get hit. In the end, you'll just smash the soul whip thing, or charge your triangle and spin til everything dies. Boogie's Boys "bosses" are especially annoying because they'll just spawn a bunch of ranged enemies while running around, it's just a patience test really.

Speaking of bosses, the main boss battles are fairly fun, they all are musical segments, not that difficult, and alternate between attack/dodging and a rhythm button pressing minigame. It was a clever way to include the musical aspect of the original film, and they all play a bit different even if following the same pattern. The songs are good, but most of them are new (or not so new) versions of already known songs from the movie, so there's that.

The plot is just completely generic: Oogie is back and is doing ruckus, kidnaps Santa and other figures from holidays and Jack needs to save them. It's interesting to see more screentime for characters that barely speak in the movie, like the Hanging Tree or the Witches, but from time to time the game will kinda drags, giving random tasks that can take a bit to complete and probably will get you to fight more horde of enemies. In a couple of minutes you can summarize everything that happens plot-wise because it is really full of pointless tasks, fighting and walking.

All in all, would I recommend this game? For fans, absolutely, it is a cute nostalgia ride, even if pretty dated and sometimes annoying. The cutscenes, collectable trophies and voice acting are your high quality fanservice.