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Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King (GBA, 2005)

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King (GBA, 2005)

Subgenre: Metroid-like/Igavania-lite (no exp point leveling, upgradeable weapons and HP), A few rail shooter/obstacle course segments where you control the ghost dog, Stealth segment in one area (flying enemy that periodically scans the screen and you have to break line of sight with)


Movement Mechanics: Climb certain walls and ceilings (can jump off of walls), Repeated air dash in pumpkin king form (ammo-based)


Other: 3 optional mini-games (outside of the main game, unlocked through normal progression), ​Prequel story, Timed segment in one area (includes a boss fight in the middle of it), Some fetch quests

  • Linear structure (linear progression between areas, linear progression through the last area, can get some collectables and HP upgrades in any order)

  • Some backtracking to previous areas with new abilities to progress

  • Pretty frequent save and healing points (electric chair). One slot per game,  No quick save

  • Pretty good map system (shows your location, the layout and what you've explored; doesn't show room topology, can freeze enemies and use them as platforms with the gun gained very early on, ), No mini-map, The layout of an area is already revealed when entering it (spoils some of the fun of exploring)

  • Some NPC encounters during exploration (at one point you get trapped and have to find a new way out of the area, they some times give directions)

  • Some shortcuts (some are one-way only, the on rails flight segments as the dog are also used as such later on (getting out of your house via the chimney and getting from the pumpkin patch to the graveyard for example))

  • Opened one way locked doors (opened via boomerang switches) don't stay opened when moving to a different room however once you've upgraded your boomerang you can shoot through the doors and hit the switches

Some notable cons:

  • Mostly useless collectables (random items scattered across the world)

  • Some control/interface issues (can't shoot while climbing a ladder, slow ladder climbing, can't look up/down (some leaps of faith, loose downwards vertical scrolling), can't place map markers at points of interest and they aren't marked by the game, have to let go of the shot button for a sec to aim upwards, some movement delay when shooting, etc)

  • Some tedious aspects (the final bosses - long and arbitrary invincibility periods, some boring backtracking (kinda long detours for useless collectables which often also include some of the more challenging platforming segments), etc)

  • Some trial & error (drop down "puzzles" where you have to know a ghost block is on the way down and time your shot exactly right or you have to backtrack a vertical segment over and over (just a collectible reward for it too+it's repeated a couple of times later on), etc)

  • Re-uses earlier enemies in various later areas - makes them feel less unique and overly easy at times

  • Kinda boring mini-bosses/search & destroy objectives in some areas

  • No teleporters (no dash move besides in the limited pumpkin king form)


Playthrough - Mini Review



Influenced by: Probably Igavanias, possibly Metroid series


Influenced: 

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