The Forgotten Prequel and Sequel to The Nightmare Before Christmas

Find it funny how these games came out the same year as Kingdom Hearts 2, especially Oogies Revenge which had Oogie Boogie ressurected and turned into a giant monster

Interesting fact: In a blurb about Pumpkin King in an issue of GamePro they say that Oogie used to have an August holiday all about bugs. Apparently he "ruined" it somehow before arriving in Halloween Town.

I love that part when Jack said “Jackpot” with a final shot to Oogie.

So fun fact: Oogie's revenge and Pumpkin King were so interconnected in their releases that when I got the strategy guide for Oogie's revenge, the last 3rd of the guide is just the strategy guide for the GBA game. Also fun fact: In Oogie's Revenge, its possible to make a sleeping potion and before making it to Finklestein's fight to make the fight easier

Being a GBA game, it's really well animated, doesn't seem like your average licensed shovelware at all. This looks great on the console

My headcanon was always that a "Turkey king" was the ruler of Thanksgiving, a "Leprechaun King" for St Patrick's and Uncle Sam for Independence but your ideas made me laugh more XD

I still think to this day Soul Rubber should've been Jack's default weapon in Kingdom Hearts.

Oogie's Revenge has my favourite portrayal of Finkelstein next to the OG film. He's just so happy talking to Jack about his inventions, and he even complimented Jack's Sandy costume that Sally made. Sally even tells Jack to save the Doctor, showing she actually does care about her creator! The game itself does have some stuff I'm not a fan of, but when it comes to the writing, world-building, and characters, it's top-notch! There IS another "sequel" of Nightmare in the form of a novel called Long Live The Pumpkin Queen. It focuses on Sally, and... it sucks. The author or Disney or whoever had the BRILLIANT idea (sarcasm) of retconning Sally's origins of being Finkelstein's creation/assistant and have her instead be a princess of "Dream Town". They also changed Fink from an ornery but well-meaning and respected member of Halloween Town into a child kidnapper, kidnapping Sally when she was a child and drugging her with a "Forgetting Potion" because he... looks at notes ...wanted a creation/daughter but... he... sucked at making things. 🤦‍♀ The author has a HUGE vendetta against my favourite character and I hate it. 😿 ANYWAY! The reason I bring up this tome of retcons and character assassinations is because they DID try and give new lore for the Holidays worlds, which includes giving Valentine's Town a ruler in the form of a Queen named Ruby, portraying Thankgiving Town as a place where everyone is constantly eating (????????) and Independence Town, where citizens and visitors alike go, I assume, blind and deaf from the constant barrage of fireworks. Also the Queen of England makes an appearance. And all the Holiday Leaders have a meeting about climate change. gdi Disney.

Theres quite a bit of behind the scenes content for the PS2 game available to the public. In Japan there is a special disc for the game that shows Tim Burton meeting up with the Capcom devs and watching them play the game as he comments about it as well as showing him the different designs for Jack. On the disc theres an interview with the director and the artist for the game including a concept art gallery. Inside the two Japanese guide books theres some concept art and hi rez drawings of the characters. I bought these last year and happy to have them. Lastly, a special edition in Japan comes with a soundtrack CD.

The use of the shrunken head as a health item in the first game actually recontextualizes it as a gift in the movie, as the intent behind it becomes oddly wholesome. By giving it as a gift, it becomes a wish of good health to the reciever.

I still have Oogie's Revenge, and I think about it a lot. Other than Kingdom Hearts and Rachet & Clank, this was my favorite game for a long time. And honestly, it still holds up despite its clunk and age

I feel like a cool idea would've been if jack gotten different costumes in different worlds like easter costume with bounching eggs or the independence day with fireworks as projectiles

21:53 depend if you consider it canon or not but in the book Long Live The Pumpkin Queen, Jack and Sally meet the ruler of Valentines Day Town and her name is Ruby Valentino, her citizens are hundreds of baby cupids flying around Also in Independence Day town the book says it’s always night with no stars in the sky and a never ending firework show gonna on 24/7, while in St Patrick’s day Town there’s a miniature village where a bunch of tiny leprechauns live

I forget if it was in the movie or Kingdom Hearts, but I'm fairly sure they implied a particular bug in his burlap body was the real him, since the last one talked in a high-pitch silly voice. I assume each bug he "ate" was in fact forced to help move the burlap body (or maybe they get mindcontrolled by the Oogie bug?). Or maybe the Oogie bug is his "Brain Bug".

The games for two different systems and being in two different genres reminds me of the Monster House games. The Gameboy advance one (the one I owned) was like an old top down zelda game combined with backtracking to access new areas like a metroidvania (I don’t know the particular genre this would fall under) meanwhile the console version of the game (with the same name as the Gameboy advance game) was a survival horror game. Very interesting to see Nightmare Before Christmas games had a similar difference in genres.

I’m so glad someone’s finally talking about these games! I loved them as a kid

I remember owning both games when they first released and enjoying them quite a bit 😊. I liked unlocking Jack’s alternate costumes in Oogie’s revenge. I remember getting so lost during the hinterlands portion(didn’t have a guide and didn’t think to look it up). I also loved how they redid some of the songs from the movie to fit what was happening. One part I was not fan of was that you could only upgrade your abilities in the 2nd level, which meant having to replay it if I wanted to upgrade anything. I would love to see either one get a stream release. Modders could probably have fun with it.

I absolutely adore the original film, and it's probably the thing that made me appreciate claymation as an artform when I was younger. I recently found out about this game a few days before Halloween because one of my pals on discord brought it up outta nowhere and curiosity got the best out of me, and so far? I've been having such a blast playing through it (as of writing this, I just obtained the Pumpkin King ability.) It's funny how I got this video recommended to me a week afterwards. Ngl, I'd love to see a modding scene rise for Oogie's Revenge, There's so much potential to expand the combat, add custom movesets to the game, make visual changes, give some of the mechanics some spit and polish I'd think what I'd like to see out of modding this game the most is fixing my main issue with the game by replacing the regular fight theme with literally anything but "This Is Halloween." (or at least an instrumental) and lowering Jack's voiceline frequency. Because as much as I dont mind it, the last thing I would want is Jack yelling out "Soul Robber!" into my ringing ears like it's that one scene from Akira

I never forgot this game. I remember everytime we would go to Walmart, i would beg my dad to buy this for me, and his excuse was it was demonic, but he finally did lol. I never beat the final boss because it was too hard for me at the time.

thanks for the trip down memory lane; life's been strange lately, & to see some childhood games has been a treat; excellent video !