Forty-eighth GOTW finished for 2023. Not terribly dissimilar to another Christmas themed game I played (Santa Claus Jr.) in that it is actually better than it has any right to be. If there was a story, I didn't follow it, but there's some decent gameplay here and the sleigh levels were an interesting change of pace. Some terrible hitboxes (especially on the bosses), coupled with some other nonsensical story and gameplay characteristics, keep this from being a surprise gem, but there are certainly worse games to play.

Santa's jokerified and you get to kill Scrupulous Fingore. 11/10 ludopoints!

For a holiday season checklist-ticking release, Daze Before Christmas is rather humble, content with being one of the few enjoyable titles solely dedicated to the season. I'm not sure which was Funcom's first game precisely, this or the seemingly abysmal We're Back! tie-in A Dinosaur's Tale, but it seems like Sunsoft saw something of worth in this one. Going from these dinky platformers to big MMORPGs like The Secret World and Age of Conan—let alone anything as acclaimed as The Longest Journey—must have been wild for this Norwegian startup. It's hardly as if they lacked in other options: most Scandinavian developers stuck to popular PCs like the Amiga during the early-1990s, for good reason. Developing games for cartridge is way more expensive, and riskier due to manufacturers' quality auditing, than putting out mail-order floppy software. So let's give credit where it's due and assume even something like this, which outwardly resembles shovelware, took plenty of effort and tender loving care to create too.

| The presents were mutilated beyond recognition |

With all of the kids' presents missing and a bona fide Gang of Four terrorizing the holiday spirits all over the world, it's now your job to guide Fake Tim Allen through 24 levels of comfortably numbing platformer tropes. Everything's introduced via a cute "T'was the Night Before Christmas"-styled lyric, with each stage laid out via an advent calendar. Honestly, the most memorable parts of Daze Before Christmas are the intro artworks preceding levels, particularly those which look deranged or ominous. Lead artists Ole-Petter Rosenlund had come from the Amiga scene, drawing for works like Psionic Systems' Assassin, so it stands to reason a bit of the 'ol European PC weirdness has snuck into an outwardly unassuming family-friendly game. Baddies and obstacles range from wily rats to industrial machinery, plus all sorts of toys now animated to attack poor Saint Nick. The antagonists themselves look real goofy; I love "Mr. Weather" for how much he resembles Fingore, but also The Timekeeper for looking like a lost Clockwork Knight boss. Shout outs to the floating hearts in the Wood Factory level, you saucy fellas.

Moment-to-moment play in Daze Before Christmas follows a neat formula: hop and skip from A to B, collecting and opening presents to rack up score and lives/health, and occasionally pick up a hot cuppa to transform into Anti-Santa. It's very standard stuff, and I wish your alter ego had meaningful new mechanics beyond temporarily hurting a roadblock enemy, but the controls feel just weighty and responsive enough that I can't complain much. Many level designs feel like the best bits of Earthworm Jim and other Western platformers mimicking the more ambitious Eastern examples, for better or worse. Maybe they could have cut down on the number of pace-killing hazards and auto-scrolling sections; those bumpers and magic carpets got old fast. I think kids would have had a challenge in navigating the ice caves and sewers, but the homes and snowy hills are straightforward to navigate, albeit with a smattering of secret goodies to find off the main path(s). There's also the odd flying stage, where you float your sleigh all over to chuck gifts down chimneys like it's a bombing raid. Lack of variety, repetitive props and sequences, and plenty more déjà vu hold this game way back from greatness, but it's the kind of mediocrity I can understand and let flow right by me.

| Oh what Fun it is to Com |

If I'm making this out to be some flavorless adventure, then you'd be partly correct; this Norwegian oddity has some strange vibes I didn't expect to encounter, though. One stage essentially reworks the Boo House concept as a more setpiece-driven gauntlet of boxing cacti, hurtful ghost rats, and an end boss which requires players to repeatedly stun Louse the Mouse with an Eggman-like spike ball. Another couple runs have Santa dropping into gradually flooding sewers to muck around for elves and their stolen handiwork, with bits of platforming that require actual engagement (comparing well to the factory stages with their many bottomless pits and elevation spikes). Coupled with how little of the game occurs during the day, there's a subtle gothic flair to everything one can experience in Daze Before Christmas, reinforced by a groovy set of rearranged tunes and carols within a smooth FM-synthesis palette.

Summing up a game this brief and frankly shallow feels just a bit difficult when looking at its surprisingly rich presentation. Right away, the options menu gives more control to players than so many of its peers, from audio levels to how long the Anti-Santa morph lasts. Difficulty modes don't vary much in practice; I suppose they affect how frequently a red box gives out bombs and other traps, rather than freeing Santa's helpers or health hats. Then there's the aforementioned soundtrack, which properly conforms to strengths of both the SNES and Mega Drive sound chips, using pleasant instrumentation and sometimes taking unexpected turns (ex. the ripping guitar solo during boss fights!). And for all its missed potential, whether due to inexperience or a short turnover time (which I won't know until the History of Sunsoft Vol. 2 book releases), Daze Before Christmas is certainly a competent romp that anyone can bounce in and out of. Playthrough take around an hour or two at most, password saves are available, and the button layout's totally standard for 1994. The package here is well tested to a fault, other than some momentary collision glitching.

Hope everyone's enjoying their Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, Saturnalia, and whatever festivities we seem to obsess over every year at this time. I'll do my part and speak respect for what Funcom did here with Daze Before Christmas, regardless of time, budget, or scope the studio had back then. Its bizzaro Australia-only release on Mega Drive, only expanded to Europe for SNES, meant it had little impact during the 16-to-32-bit transitional period, while later Xmas-themed works like Christmas NiGHTS have rightly shown how much more ambitious game developers can get with holiday theming. Still, I think it's impressive how effortlessly Funcom's title plays compared to many derided Euro-platformers it shares heritage with, to the point that I rarely see any comments making that connection. That's a valuable accomplishment for the period! I'm just sad I can't make a Midsummer pun for this Midplatformer…whoops.