The Nightmare Before Christmas Devil May Cry Game

if you walked into a shop in 2005 and saw this starin at you a Nightmare Before Christmas game on ps2 and/or Xbox you probably wonder why that's a thing in that day and age little would you know there's more to it than meets the eye oh what's that Capcom what kind of game is this you turn it over is this some kind of action beat em up by Capcom no no it couldn't be [Music] so for some reason in the mid-2000s capcom got hold of The Nightmare Before Christmas license and decided to make a Devil May Cry style beat em up with an original new story about yogi boogie trying to take over Halloween town that takes place after the movie the madmen we got combos we got spooky scary style counting and we got taunts all wrapped up in a semi open world with mission-based structure and gameplay that awards you with upgrade points based on your performance Nightmare Before Christmas Devil May Cry I've been meaning to play this one for a while and when I finally did I was kind of an amazement not like the game is incredible or anything but is that the dodgy grappling feature from DMC 4 is that the cartwheel dodge from Bayonetta that triggers an altered animation at the end of a few presses to stop it being spammed when did this come out September 2005 that was like years before these two juggernauts did they pilfer from Nightmare Before Christmas the protagonist Jack's main weapon is this grabby hand thing that slams enemies into the ground and grabs them from far away ah geez don't tell me what else is ripping off Nightmare Before Christmas I think it's time for Jack jeez I mean I say pilfer but this is Capcom so there is a lot of the same blood running through here shall we check the credits ah yep yep yep yep yep I see I mean I say 2005 but apparently the game came out in Japan a whole year earlier which means it technically even predates Devil May Cry 3 is this the true Devil May Cry 2 I wonder how that release date conversation went down hey we're launching Nightmare Before Christmas on the 20th of October just before Halloween it's great yo man I don't think we have time to localize it for the West before the 31st we don't even have two weeks shall we just wait until next year although in the original Japanese version from what I can discern there was no running in combat I mean it's hard to verify I found some videos on this fansite oh [ __ ] man I'm gonna need Flash Player 8 to run these bad boys it's very hard to discern what's going on in these but I mean I guess you know it kind of looks like he can't run while fighting I suppose yo guys maybe that made the game a bit too hardcore did they take the concentration meter from DMC for special edition from Nightmare Before Christmas eh I'm just [ __ ] with you now yeah I got to say that while this is definitely a kid's Devil May Cry it's still kind of a tough one with some tricky segments hidden under the bonnet I like how you have to pay to come back after dying with points used for upgrades having the tempting option always at your side to spend resources to revive is a cool little demon on your shoulder however aside from this fiendish idea the rest the mechanics while above average for a kid's tying game or a bit shallow with some interesting ideas thrown in here and there though the combo system is both challenging and limiting in different ways at first I was going to come down hard on it your combo counter will disappear super fast if Jack doesn't keep smacking things and it doesn't slow down for anything not even for charge moves like other beat-em-ups core counters would making these charted attacks antithetical to the scoring system you just can't charge up a special attack in time before the counter resets but then I started implementing torn switch at the cost of infuriating the enemies empowering the mark like they an error again give you a full charge so while taunting it is possible to keep a combo going and charge up your whip thing without dropping hits which was fun to experiment with for a while unfortunately other later moves like the Santa bombs are just a bit too cumbersome to use in this system the counter also doesn't deplete or penalize for using the same move over and over so yeah you can just hit square and get to pumpkin King ranks with not much difficulty the system still leaves a lot to be desired thankfully versatile whip weapons are a good time in most games and here they are - it's satisfying to knock a big weapon out of an enemy's hands and pummel them with it or pick up one foe and throw it at another this made the lock shock and Barrel fights pretty fun just throw-in skeletons a little kids unfortunately while the base attacks are fun Nightmare Before Christmas really fails to build on them as you progress through the game you get a few attacks via transformations into pumpkin Jack and Santa Jack but aside from that all you can really unlock is slightly upgraded strength boosts and we all know that kind of thing was thrown out the window in DM c4 and Bayonetta because it doesn't really affect how well you play the game just gives you a shallow advantage instead of expanding your tactics or the mechanics on offer yeah yeah we've all done this dance before it means the game gets pretty repetitive after a while one of the unfortunate side effects of lifting the DMC formulas that is also a bit of bombing around picking up items and taking them places Devil May Cry is just enough of this stuff to make you feel like you're in a place doing actual things without getting too tedious well yeah maybe except for but you know yeah we understand so for Nightmare goes a bit off the rails though and half the time you'll be collecting items for other characters or backtracking through areas to land hidden knickknacks the combat not progressing much making it more arduous than it should be the game was really sagging at the halfway mark it wasn't until I hit one of the final woodland areas and saw it pretty out of nowhere serene art choice for the area when I got to thinking oh yeah that's that's right isn't it Nightmare Before Christmas is kind of artsy it made me think hey maybe this could have been something a little more maybe if there'd been more creative freedom on the table something a little more having guard and out there could have been made to make this more than a rehash of the film which is basically what most of it is because what is rehash looks pretty cool I would have liked to see something more perhaps the other holiday worlds rendered in an interesting way with a Tim burton-esque flair to it for what it's worth the game does do a good job of making a fun little recreation of the town from the movie even giving you access to a little version of Jack's house where you can check stats and change outfits I love it when games add that little bit of character it even lets you examine objects and hear what Jack has to say about them you know kind of Devil May Cry Silent Hill style which lends itself well to nightmare status as an honorary kids fixed camera angle spook em up action game but as I said previously there was a big missed opportunity here to maybe represent some of the other holiday worlds they get teased so much by having you collect their doors the whole game even the leaders from the other worlds get kidnapped but you don't get to see them because they're in sacks you know you just get Christmas world which is whatever to be expected it's disappointing but understandable I guess I mean if Disney ever wanted to make more Nightmare Before Christmas movies they probably wouldn't want to leave the canon world building to somebody else yeah you know wouldn't want to let those silly video game people come up with any ideas oh my god did I mention there are rhythm based sequences in the boss battles I you know you probably don't care and Who am I kidding I wanted to cover this game for years and you're probably already like huh yeah ok Charlie that was nice what where's the video covering ninja gaiden you hack the music in this game is commendable because it includes most of the classic songs from the movie a lot of songs playing the boss battles to give them a bit of a musical fight kind of vibe you want to guess what the main battle theme is yes this is Halloween but you know I'm just I'm not gonna play it just in case Disney wants to launch the video into oblivion the music does loop which gets a bit annoying but that annoyance doesn't have anything on the voice lines Jack feeling the need to say the same voice clips every time he does commonplace attacks gets a bit much at times but at least he does it in the cutscenes too so you know points for consistency I don't know so can I recommend this game it's hard to say because it really is Devil May Cry but for kids yet have that many kids seen Nightmare Before Christmas nowadays or even back when the game came out now that the audience had shifted well if you're a DMC fan and also happen to be a Nightmare Before Christmas fan or just really starved for action games of this kind I say it might be worth a while but there's only so much juice to be squeezed out of this pumpkin we've come a long way since this game more than has a great game it stands more as an interesting point and 3d beat em up history that I had no idea existed did you know there was also a GBA Metroidvania Nightmare Before Christmas game released around the same time I played that one years ago and again much like today's subject it's just kind of another basic stab at it's John rejoice while having some Nightmare Before Christmas garnish why was Nightmare Before Christmas getting all these games and genres I like suddenly in the mid-2000s whatever the case while it may not blow your socks off if you're beating up fan who loves those old ps2 classics don't instantly dismiss who he's revenge if you see it lying cheap in your used game store guess I should have called this review nightmare after Christmas am i right I bet you're wondering why there was no video uploaded on Christmas like usual and that's because here actually there was just not on this channel on Christmas I uploaded a review of the latest JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime in this video you're watching now you're slipped a tiny bit so please go check that out if you're so inclined the only way to get more banging anime content on that channel is to get more subscribers over there yeah boy Jesus but seriously have a great new year guys see you next time

Channel: undefined

Views: 287,071

Rating: 4.9560041 out of 5

Keywords: Nightmare before Christmas, Nightmare, Christmas, Devil may cry, Jack, Ps2, Xbox, Beat em up, Hack and slash, Gaming brit, Tabs, Review, Capcom, Dante, Oogie's Revenge, game, skellington, thegmaingbrit, thegamingbritshow, character action game

Id: 8lUntztTg5w

Length: 9min 1sec (541 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 04 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/CamBam65]

Oh my gosh I played this when I was a kid. I was a huge fan of the movie so I loved it. I always thought it was cool how in the boss fights the characters would sing as they fought, it was a cool little twist on how to do boss music that I'm surprised no other game (that I know of) has done.

[u/[deleted]]

This game is so odd. I have no idea why Capcom would make this, but I'm surprised how much depth there is for a movie tie in game that's years older newer than the movie

Edit: meant newer not older

[u/LastBestHopeF3]

I heard a while back on the 2 Best Friends podcast (one of the hosts was in/had taken a trip to Japan) that Nightmare Before Christmas is really popular in Japan. This could explain why this game exists, why it was made by Capcom, and why it came out earlier in Japan. I think the fact that Nightmare Before Christmas is repeatedly featured in the Kingdom Hearts series only adds to this explanation.

[u/greg225]

I had almost forgotten about this game. My sister has always been a huge TNBC fan so I watched her play this a lot when it came out. At the time I was only somewhat familiar with DMC (I might have played DMC1 by then, but I'm not certain) so I didn't really make the connection. It's cool that this game existed, we don't see these kind of things often. The closest would probably be some of the licensed games Platinum have done.

[u/TheSupremeAdmiral]

I can't watch the full video but in case he never mentioned it, there was also a GBA tie-in game. The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King was a metroidvania, and like its PS2 counterpart it was a surprisingly decent but not fantastic example of its genre.

[u/Ghaleon32]

You never see this kind of stuff anymore in the videogame industry. I mean a famous development (in this case the Devil May Cry team) that makes a game from a movie/tv show and turn it into something they are known for. A devil may cry kinda game.

Its like if the Zelda team made a videogame of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and nobody would notice it.

[u/Fox_shirt_guy]

An interesting detail that he didn't mention (at least I don't think he did) is the return of several of the original voice actors from the movie, including Jack's speaking actor, Chris Sarandon. Sarandon has also voiced Jack in all of the Kingdom Hearts games.

[u/[deleted]]

Knowing this game is pretty close to a Devil May Cry game, I wish I got it back when it released. Then again, I didn't gain interest in DMC until a few years later.

[u/shallard]

How bizarre. I absolutely love Devil May Cry but I never knew about this game. Not interested in playing it at this poking, but I may have been while waiting for DMC4 back then!