The Nightmare Before Christmas sequel was a musical, watered-down Devil May Cry game
More than a decade after Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas debuted in movie theaters, Street Fighter and Mega Man publisher Capcom pulled off something impressive: It made a direct sequel to the movie, with Burton’s blessing.
The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie’s Revenge, released stateside on PlayStation 2 and the original Xbox in 2005, is set one year after the events of the film. While Jack Skellington is in search of new scares to spice up Halloween, Oogie is revived by Lock, Shock, and Barrel, with aspirations to take over Halloween Town and become the Seven Holidays King.
It’s been 30 Halloweens and 30 Christmasses since The Nightmare Before Christmas hit theaters, and its influence is only growing. Polygon is paying tribute to Henry Selick and Tim Burton’s masterpiece of stop-motion animation with a trick-or-treat bag of stories on the goth kid touchstone. Open the rest of your Nightmare Before Christmas presents here.
Capcom aimed for authenticity with its sequel, bringing back much of the original film’s cast to voice characters, including Chris Sarandon as Jack Skellington and Ken Page as Oogie. The film’s art director also contributed new design work for the game. And the game’s makers even matched the film’s musical numbers, with Jack fighting bosses to re-recorded versions of Danny Elfman’s songs.
Gameplay-wise, Capcom aimed much lower. Oogie’s Revenge plays like a simplified version of the publisher’s Devil May Cry games: Jack wields a glowing green cord called a Soul Robber to whip, grab, and smash rooms full of skeletons and giant bosses. Like the Devil May Cry games, an on-screen combo counter lavishes praise on players as they battle, calling their in-game performance “Spine-tingling”,
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