Bart's Nightmare (Sega Genesis)

The popularity of the Simpsons was continuing its meteoric climb by 1993. The show was in the beginning of what many considered the show’s renaissance (Seasons 3-7), and it was still a ratings and merchandising dynamo. And Acclaim still held the console rights to the license. They would release several Simpsons games over the years (Games like Bart Versus The World, Krusty’s Super Fun House, and Escape From Camp Deadly for example), but for the most part the games were often panned for poor gameplay, and annoying challenge.

Bart’s Nightmare would certainly be no different.

Bart’s Nightmare was released in late 1992 on the Super Nintendo, and would see a Genesis release not too long after in 1993 under Acclaim’s Flying Edge banner that released all Acclaim/LJN Sega titles at the time. The game would sell like hotcakes, as expected. But also just as expected, the game received massive criticism for its poor gameplay. Was a lot of this criticism justified, or were a lot of critics just in need of eating their shorts?

The story is as follows: Bart Simpson is busy one night, working on his homework, when he suddenly falls asleep at his desk. As he dozes, a gust of wind blows his papers out the window. Bart awakens in his dream world, and jumps out the window after the papers. Now it’s up to Bart to traverse through this nightmarish world to find his papers, or else he’s going to get one terrible grade.

Bart’s Nightmare is a one player platformer/Mini game compilation. You control Bart Simpson as he has to collect the eight homework papers in order to not get a failing grade when he awakens from his dream. The basic controls for Bart are the D-Pad to move him, The A button to jump, the B button to blow bubble gum, and the C button to shoot watermelon seeds. The six button controller is not needed for this game.

The game is broken into different gameplay elements. One is the overworld where you search for the papers on a never ending street that’s filled with enemies.  The other is the action game found within the world. Once you find one of the missing papers, jumping on it will take you inside an area where you can go into one of two doors. Each door will lead you into the game you must play to get one of the papers.

We’ll talk about the overworld first before getting into the games. This area is a never ending road that is filled with enemies galore. There are school buses on the road, spinning Jebediah Springfield heads, Lisa dressed as a fairy, floating saxophones, bouncing basketballs, and more. For the most part, enemies can be defeated with a jump, or watermelon seeds. You can get seeds or bubblegum by jumping over mailboxes that cross the street.

You have a health bar on the top represented by Zss in a box. Once you run out of Zs, the world will go white, and one more hit will equal game over. There are two ways to gain more Zs for the bar. First off is catching floating blue Zs with bubble gum (Red Zs will pop your bubble), and the other is using the skateboard. If you can successfully jump over the basketball, it becomes a skateboard. Riding it for a long period of time, while avoiding manholes, cracked streets, or enemies will raise up your Z meter to the highest it can. You can also find items like pillows from jumping over 3 eyed fishes which can act as a somewhat continue, and soda cans that can eliminate all enemies on screen.

There are several hazards that won’t do damage to you, but can cause hassle. First off, the Lisa fairies will turn you into a frog. The only way to get restored is with a kiss from an old lady. There are these moving dirt piles that if touched will slow you down.  If you run into Principal Skinner, he’ll make you wear a suit, that while it makes you invulnerable to damage, you can’t use your items.  Music notes from floating saxophones will invert your D-Pad controls for a brief amount of time. Also, if you run into Jimbo and his gang, you’ll be stuck following them until Lisa turns them into rats.

Finding papers can get extremely annoying. At first they start off easy to find, but by the end it can take a long time to find one, and with how many hazards can come on the screen by then, it can be almost impossible. Still, there are certain ways to get one to pop up. For example, destroying walking TV sets with seeds can sometimes cause a paper to appear. This doesn’t always work, but it proves to be a useful method especially when you’re walking for miles.

Now that we’ve gone over the overworld and all that lurks within, it’s time to look at the paper events. There are five games, and eight papers to collect. Some you can earn two papers in. Each game is hidden in a certain coloured door.

The green door will be the Bartzilla game. This two part game starts with Bartzilla rampaging through town. You can control his different blasts, either lazer shots, or fireballs. You have to learn which ones are the most useful to destroy the tanks, jets, and helicopters that stand in your way. If Bartzilla steps on a nuclear plant, it will destroy all enemies on screen. You have to last as long as possible until eventually a laser will show up and shrink you, which will earn you paper 1.

In paper two of this event, you will have to climb up a seemingly unending building. You can move with the Up button, and shimmy left and right with the D-Pad. You have to deal with hazards from the tenants of the building, that will drop various debris on you. Everything from bowling balls, cats, to what appears to be a Super Nintendo (I guess they’d prefer blast processing to super power).  Another hazard is Momthra (Marge as a giant moth), who will also knock you down on contact. Make it to the top, and zap King Homer with the B button to earn the 2nd piece of paper. This one can be annoying, as trying to time your movement, along with avoiding all the stuff being thrown can be taxing.

The purple door will have you in this weird area where you swim around, destroying giant germs. Two different types of germs appear, ones that will poke you with their spiked helmet, and ones that throw grenades at you that can instant kill you. You can pump them up and destroy them with the B button. You’ll see a bunch of Smiling Joe Fission icons floating about. Collecting a number of them will eventually release the paper to collect.

In the yellow door is the Itchy and Scratchy levels. This beat em up levels have you using either a hammer, or a gun to defeat wave after wave of Itchys and Scratchys, as well as dealing with some other evil hazards that can instantly kill you. The best strategy I found to this is to hang in the top area, and spam the hammer, which is more useful than the weaker ranged gun. You will have to go through the Simpsons house. From the warped living room, the attic, and the kitchen. You will also have to play this game twice to get the two papers for this world.

Next up is the blue door which has the Bartman level. In this game, you fly about as Bart’s superhero alter ego, avoiding the many aerial enemies, like missiles, paper planes, and Nelson on a hang glider. You can destroy Krusty balloons to get extra items, including soda bottles that will give you extra health. Throughout the level you will have to face several bosses. First is Sherri and Terri who will drop bombs on you. Next is Barney on a pink elephant that will shoot peanuts and toxic burps. Next is Smithers on a Zeppelin that will shoot dart like missiles. And finally is Mr. Burns on a biplane. You have a trusty slingshot to defeat them all, but I find the range on the weapon can be flaky. Defeat them all, and get the one paper.

The final level is the orange door, and it’s easily my most hated level of the game, Indiana Bart. In these levels, you have to jump from block to block to make it to the end of each stage to grab the paper. You have to be careful with how and where you jump, as if a block is too low, you’ll fall to your instant death. The giant Maggie statues will shoot their pacifiers that will be another instant kill. There are also blue devils that you have to whip to kill before they push you backwards, often into a low block. You can whip them by holding A and pressing the directional button in that direction, and you can hold C and right to push the camera to the right, which can sometimes trick the Maggie statue. Once you do this hectic puzzle twice, you will get the last two papers.

There are no continues, or passwords in this game, and while the controls are decent, there are some hit detection issues, and sometimes it feels like your jump can still slip up. When you get a game over, you will get a grading depending on the papers found. Everything from an F if you didn’t get any to an A+ if you got them all on the first try.  There really is no major ending for beating the game, which is a letdown, especially considering how difficult the game can get at times.
The game has solid graphics. All of the sprites are well done, and the game has the look and feel of a Simpsons episode put into a 16 bit console. All of the enemies are well designed and unique, and Every Simpsons character looks like they should. Nothing to really complain about here.

The game boasts a rather decent soundtrack that has been handled well for the Genesis port. The best songs in the game in my opinion are the title theme, and the Bartman level. While it doesn’t have the greatest soundtrack of all time, there are definitely one or two tracks in the game that should stick with you for a while.

Bart’s Nightmare is not a good game. It has some major gameplay issues, and it can be tedious and annoying at times. But for as bad as it can be, I don’t hate it. It’s got some fun stages, has the look and feel of the Simpsons, and for all the bad Simpsons games out there, it actually has a bit of a higher fun factor. This definitely is one of the better of the bunch. And considering that there would be more Simpsons games to come on the Genesis, it was at least a breath of fresh air compared to what was to come. I’d say to at least give the game a try. It’s certainly not for everyone, but it may be better than you think.

RATING: C-