Tim Burton's new nightmare takes place about a year after the movie.
Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge starts off with Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King and person in charge of making Halloween scary, for those of you who don't know, deciding that he needs something more (again). When he goes off to explore new possibilities, the terrible threesome, Lock, Shock and Barrel decide to bring back Jack's enemy, Oogie Boogie.
When our hero returns, he finds Halloween Town overrun by bad guys and Oogie claiming rulership. But that's not all, Oogie isn't satisfied with just this holiday. He wants to rule them all. Now our skinny hero must save all the holidays (Christmas, Easter, Valentine's, etc) and put things right.
Not only will you have Jack's new weapon, the Soul Robber, at your disposal, but you will also be able to put on two costumes that will give Jack a whole new set of attacks. These costumes include the Pumpkin King and Santa Jack.
The Soul Robber is a green shape-shifting blob that hangs on Jack's hand. He can use it to kill or taunt enemies, block attacks, and various other moves. This will be your main form of attack. The Pumpkin King suit allows Jack to spit fire and Santa Jack throws various presents that can blast your enemy with an arctic wind or scare them.
I mentioned earlier that boss battles were filled with singing and a rhythm mini-game. Basically, when you get into a boss fight, every blow you land causes musical notes to fly from your opponent(s). Collecting these notes builds up a meter. Fill the bar and you will enter Dance Mode. Here, you need to hit the face buttons at the right time --the more you get right, the more powerful the attack will be.
A few things worth mentioning -- all in all, the game doesn't necessarily offer a wide variety of action. Most of the time, you will work your way through an area beating up skeletons and other baddies, until you face off against a boss like one of Oogie's forms or Lock, Shock and Barrel. Though I can see people complaining about redundant gameplay, I never really got bored with what Oogie's Revenge had to offer.
Another point that caught my eye while playing through this game was the fact that even though you have an unlimited number of continues, each time you do come back to life, you will find that a percentage of your collected souls will have been forfeited. I thought this was a great idea, especially since most games these days give absolutely no penalty for continues. Alas, long gone are the days of one-hit deaths and only three lives.
