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Ho-ho-ho, Santa's gonna kick some ass!

Only days before Christmas Santa slept in his house,
An evil plot was brewing cooked up by awful louse,
The cold and evil snowman scared all the elves away,
Timekeeper stole plans from Santa's House that day.
But for the vicious louse this wasn't bad enough,
— I'm really gonna show them, I'm gonna play rough!
Santa

Daze Before Christmas is a 1994 Platformer Game made by Funcom, a Norwegian company for the Mega Drive and SNES.

Following the template of other arcade-based platformers popular at the time, you're Santa Claus, and you're on a mission to retrieve your presents after an evil mouse and his minions have stolen everything from your workshop, days before Christmas, besides abducting your reindeers and elves. Collecting presents across multiple levels, your Santa does battle against rats, hostile toys, evil snowmen and the like, and kicks ass with an array of spells Santa (apparently) has at his disposal, besides unleashing his superpowered side - a horned demon wearing Santa's robes called Anti-Claus.


This the season to be jolly, falalala...

  • 1-Up: A Golden Santa hat grants Santa an extra life. They usually appear in hidden areas.
  • Animate Inanimate Object: The attic has living clothe-racks wearing Red Boxing Gloves who will attack Santa.
  • Auto-Scrolling Level: Levels where you're on your sled and moving forward through the skies on auto, while avoiding obstacles and collecting gifts along the way before dropping them into chimneys.
  • Bad Santa: By drinking a cup of coffee, Santa would turn into his Superpowered Evil Side, Anti-Claus, who was a blue-suit wearing demonic, horned, devil Santa with Super-Strength.
  • Big Applesauce: One of the levels have you delivering presents in New York on Christmas Eve. The Statue of Liberty prominently appears halfway, taking up most of the background as you fly across.
  • Bigger on the Inside: When executing the "crouch" button, somehow your Santa can hide himself inside his hat.
  • Boss-Arena Idiocy: The giant rodent-man boss is fought in a section with a weighted iron ball on the ceiling. With a nearby switch that drops it when pushed, which can damage the boss. The ceiling will regenerate the weights on a regular basis for good measure.
  • Cactus Cushion: Be wary when jumping around in the attic levels - there are cactuses which drain Santa's health if he lands on one by accident.
  • Checkpoint: In the form of Christmas bells, which rings when touched.
  • Court Jester: One early enemy type appears as clowns in jester suits, who hops around and can damage Santa on contact.
  • Dark Reprise: When assuming the identity of Anti-Claus, the background score ("Jingle All The Way") becomes far more intense as you open a new can of whoop-ass on onscreen enemies.
  • Flying on a Cloud: The game's last boss is a giant flying cloud. You ride a smaller cloud (created by Christmas magic!) chase after it while swapping projectile attacks until the enemy cloud is dispersed.
  • Gotta Rescue Them All: Throughout the game Santa can find imprisoned Christmas Elves stuffed in presents, which he can release for extra points. Completing a stage without dying while having rescued elves will net you a better score at the end. There's also your reindeer you can release in a cavern.
  • Flying Carpet: Hovering carpets serves as platforms in-game for your Santa to jump on and reach higher surfaces.
  • Impossible Item Drop: Santa's enemies includes rats and spiders, who can drop presents for him to collect. The sprite for presents for reference are larger than the spider enemies.
  • Improbable Weapon User: As a melee / close-range attack, Santa will use his sack to bludgeon enemies (!!!). Somehow this doesn't damage the contents.
  • Klatchian Coffee: Exaggerated - drinking coffee turns Santa into a demonic version of himself that curb stomps everything on the wrong side of the screen. Unfortunately these power-ups are quite rare and the effects last for around ten seconds.
  • My Little Panzer: Toy tanks, cars, roller-skates and airplanes are enemies whose attacks can hurt Santa.
  • Password Save: The game's progress is saved by typing in words on it's password screen. There's also a Level Select Cheat Code, "BADLA".
  • Polar Penguins: Penguins are an enemy in the Noth Pole levels, and their attacks can hurt Santa.
  • Pun-Based Title: Days... no, Daze Before Christmas.
  • Rat Men: One of the bosses is a cartoonish-looking rodent-man wielding a baseball bat who attacks Santa in the attic.
  • Rhymes on a Dime: The game's opening scroll.
    Go beat the evil bosses who's lurking in the dark,
    Find his sleigh and reindeer set out to make his mark,
    Find every stolen present that was unjustly craved,
    For every kid on the earth, Christmas must be saved!
  • Saving Christmas: An evil mouse have stolen all of Santa's gifts - as Santa, you must retrieve all the presents before Christmas, battling assorted bosses along the way.
  • Snowlems: A sentient, evil snowman is the boss of the North Pole, who assaults Santa by hurling snowballs larger than Santa.
  • Super Drowning Skills: Whenever Santa falls into a body of water, he lose a life instantaneously.
  • Tube Travel: The stage in a factory have Santa going into a vertical tube to travel upwards to a higher floor. He'll need to locate each entrance to navigate his way across, expectedly.
  • You Dirty Rat!: The game's main villain is a rat who stole all of Santa's gifts before Christmas. There's also lesser rats as enemies.

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