The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King

The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King

Game Boy Advance - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Tose Publisher Buena Vista Interactive Published 2005-09-08 Platforms Game Boy Advance Genres Action-adventure, Exploration, Licensed, Metroidvania, Platform shooter, Platformer, Shooter Themes Adventure, Cartoon, Horror Series The Nightmare Before Christmas Distribution Commercial

The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King is a platformer Metroidvania developed by Tose and published by Buena Vista Interactive for the Game Boy Advance on 2005-09-08. The game is part of the Nightmare Before Christmas series and serves as a prequel to The Nightmare Before Christmas film.

In the game, Oogie Boogie learns that the citizens of Halloween Town think Jack Skellington is more terrifying than he is, so he infests the entire town with his bugs and enlists the help of Lock, Shock, and Barrel to help him kidnap people and spread havoc. You control Jack and must defeat Oogie Boogie's minions to earn the title, Pumpkin King. The entire game takes place in the various locales of Halloween Town.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes. I found all 10 shrunken heads and all 20 items. I've also beaten the AI in each minigame on easy difficulty.
Finished	2023-03-02.

I came across this game while searching for a new GBA title to play. I was initially drawn in by the very nice animation, and, after a few minutes, I discovered it was a Metroidvania (my favorite genre), so I decided I would play it to completion.

Review

7	5	9	7	6

Best Version: Game Boy Advance

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The graphics are fantastic. The backgrounds look amazing and are very detailed, and the character animations are fluid and very accurate to the film. Some of the best on the platform.
• The music is really good. It's based on the film's soundtrack, but uses variations instead of just repeating the songs.
• The bosses are pretty good. Each has a different set of movements to learn, different weak points, attacks, etc., and they all look great.
• The lock-and-key items are pretty unique (e.g.: Jack stretches his legs, melts, bursts into flame).
• The signs with the arrows that help point you in the right direction are very helpful, but they often direct you away from hidden items, which is a bit annoying.
• As you progress in the game, you unlock a variety of minigames and concept art. Nothing fancy, but just a little extra stuff.
• The game can be played in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and German.

Bad

• Jack's detailed animation ends up slowing down movement and making him harder to control. He's slow to latch onto and climb up ledges and ladders.
• You can shoot up while standing, but not while jumping, and there are frequent times when you would want to.
• The game reuses the same few monsters throughout the entire game. I would have appreciated more variety, especially in the different sections.
• The pumpkin bombs are a poor mechanic. They're hard to aim and most of the time, and using them on the boxes scattered around the map just serve to reload your health and ammo, but you have to grind to do it.
• Once, while looking for hidden items, I walked through a gate raised with a bat-switch not realizing it was a one-way barrier. I then had to re-navigate through a large area of the map to get back to where I was. This was a pain in the butt which really didn't need to exist.
• The items from the citizens of Halloween Town serve no purpose. So, all the backtracking that you have to do to get them is a complete waste of time. The only reason to even attempt to search through the areas is because you sometimes find a shrunken head.
• A lot of the sound effects sound more like the 8-bit era and don't really fit the theme.
• The shrunken head which requires climbing up the spike shaft is extremely obnoxious to get.
• The ending isn't as impressive as I thought it would be.

Ugly

• Jack's shooting animation takes precedence over movement. So, you're running left, but want to shoot right, you have to wait for the turning animation to finish or you'll just keep shooting left. Same with trying to duck, shoot up, etc. This is really annoying.

Media

Box Art

• 

  Japan.

• 

  USA.

Documentation

• 

  Manual - Canada.

• 

  Manual - USA.

• 

  Advertisement - USA.

Videos

Longplay.

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	The female characters are just plot tools.
Bechdel test?	Fail	None of the female characters ever talk to each other.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	Very few characters have race, but those who do, appear to be white.
Queer character?	Fail	There don't appear to be any queer characters.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King
French	L'Etrange Noël de Monsieur Jack: Le Roi des Citrouilles	L'Etrange Noel de Monsieur Jack: Le Roi des Citrouilles	The Strange Christmas of Mr. Jack: King of Pumpkins
Japanese	ナイトメアー・ビフォア・クリスマス パンプキン・キング	Naitomea Bifoa Kurisumasu: Panpukin Kingu	The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King

Links