Garfield's Nightmare

Garfield's Nightmare
This game feels more like a dream than a nightmare.
Protagonist(s): Garfield the Cat Genre(s): Platform Platform(s): Nintendo DS Release Date: September 4, 2007 Developer(s): Shin'en Games Publisher(s): The Game Factory Country: Germany Series: Garfield

Garfield's Nightmare (also known in game as Garfield in Garfield's Nightmare on the title screen, or simply in the language selection screen as Garfield) is a 2007 platform game developed by Shin'en Games and published by The Game Factory for the Nintendo DS. It is based on the Garfield comic strips by Jim Davis, and coincidentally named after the now defunct Kennywood Park boat ride of the same name.

Good Qualities

1. Unlike most other Garfield games, this is one of the few games that tries to stay true to the comic strip series by Jim Davis.
   • It goes as far as having Jim Davis himself write exclusive comics for the game, which serves as the game's cutscenes for both the beginning and the end of the game. In fact, even the instructions manual has a few comics related to the subject of this game.
   • Garfield's dialogue within the cutscenes, and the tutorials, really captures his personality, of being a lazy, food loving cat that loves to sleep.
   • Another example includes a few Easter eggs from the comics, including Pooky on the stained windows of the Castle levels.
   • There are several cameos present within the Tap A Pet minigame, from Nermal, Odie, and Arlene.
2. While the concept of Garfield having a nightmare has been done several times, this game's take on the idea is decent.
3. The 2.5D graphics look quite impressive for a third party Nintendo DS game in 2007.
   • In the bonus rooms, the transition to 3D is definitely shown to work in the game's favor.
4. Speaking of bonus rooms, there are different objectives that you have to complete in order to gain more lives, giving it some variety.
   • One of them includes killing spiders to gain lives, one life for every spider killed.
   • Opening up all the trash cans, 2-3 of which have lives, while the rest have bombs in them.
   • All the trashcans have lives in them, except now, you have to avoid the moving spike balls.
5. The level designs are really good, especially since you are free to explore quite far into each of the different levels present in the game. In fact, the level design is good enough you might even find hidden secrets which can grant you extra lives.
6. The controls for this game are excellent, which makes the game easy to pick up and play for everyone, even the youngest demographic. On that note, Garfield also moves in a very fluid manner, and is easy to move around the levels.
7. Excellent physics engine.
8. The bosses are decent, and not too hard to beat. Their names are also a nice parody of the names based off real life celebrities, take for example, actor Warren Beatty, which his name would be parodied as Warren Batty, for the green bat boss at the end of the first world.
9. The minigames, Spider Phobia, Midnight Morsel, and Tap a Pet, are a whole load of fun to play as well, and can be accessible anytime from the menu. Each one is unlocked as you make progress through the game.
10. There is a wide variety of music, that does a good job of setting the tone of the different locations within the game decently. Not to mention that the music itself is really good.
11. If you get a game over, you are given the choice to continue from the beginning of the level you last died in up to 3 times throughout the game. However, once you get another game over after all your continues have been used, it makes you start from the beginning of the world (or the entire game in the case this happens in the first world) that you died in and it gives you another set of 3 continues.

Bad Qualities

1. The overall atmosphere of the game may come across as quite generic at times, whether it be all the asset designs, or the overall gameplay itself.
2. There is a typo present within the game, where Garfield states that he can hold up to 5 pieces of pizza, although the player can only hold 3 at a time before any subsequent pieces is converted to 10 donuts each.
3. The gameplay may feel very slow, repetitive, or even boring in some of the levels.
4. The game is rather short, consisting of only 20 levels, over 4 worlds of 5 levels. Unless you are a kid, this game will feel like a cakewalk.
5. The bonus rooms found in each of these levels do have some problems:
   • Like with Garfield: The Search for Pooky, there is a similar form of poor logic in relation to the bombs found in the trashcans in Jon's house, and backyard. Is that supposed to tell us he's some kind of terrorist in disguise?
   • The rooms themselves feel repetitive after level 1-3 given that they have the exact same objectives.
6. When you beat a level, you aren't able to replay any of the levels at all unless you start over on a new save file.
   • Even when you beat the game, when you try to play it, it plays the credits instead.
7. While they are fun, there are several issues with the minigames:
   • In Midnight Morsel, once you reach a certain point in the minigame, it's almost impossible to increase your score without taking damage due to the stupidly high amount of bombs it spawns, also causing the game to lag.
   • There's nowhere for you to save your high scores.

Trivia

• This is the second of four Garfield games on the Nintendo DS, after Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties(or Garfield 2 in the PAL region) from 2006, and before Garfield's Fun Fest and Garfield Gets Real, both of which released in 2008 and 2009 respectively.
• It is the only Garfield DS game to not be based off a movie adaptation of the Garfield comic strip, rather, this game is a direct adaptation of the comic strip itself.
• An amusement park ride, which coincidentally shared the same name of this game, ran at Kennywood Park from 2004-2020, before being changed back into The Old Mill.
• The European version of the game has more language selections, as opposed to the limited number in the American version.
• This is the last Garfield game published by The Game Factory before they went out of business the following year.

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