The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare
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| The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare | ||||||||||||
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 When they say nightmare, they really mean it.
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The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare is a 1992 video game developed by American company Sculptured Software based on the animated TV show The Simpsons. It was released on Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It serves as the fallow-up to Bart vs. The Juggernauts and is the eight Simpsons game to be created.
Development
Bart’s Nightmare was developed by Sculptured Software and chiefly designed by Bill Williams. Company meddling during the production of the game prompted Williams to leave the video game industry.[1] The Simpsons creator Matt Groening was involved with the development of earlier video games based on the series, having final approval on all storylines and character designs. For Bart’s Nightmare, Groening altered the color of Bart’s eyes as he felt they were originally too yellow.[2]
Plot
Bart Simpson falls asleep while studying and dreams of a strange universe where TVs and fairies roam the streets. The player must find Bart's lost homework and progress through the various levels to keep the homework pages and eventually wake up.
Why It's A Nightmare
- One of the main problems of this game is the hub world, which is incredibly terrible, tedious, and even pointless as there's everything that wants to kill you, and most of the enemies are almost impossible to dodge, if not impossible, and they also can't be killed.
- Believe it or not, but this might be the hardest part of the game with some exception since at times, the test copy cannot be found or at least takes a horrible amount of times to found, it so bad that this along with the frustrating difficulty, ruins the experience for this game.
- When you find copy, in the hub there will be more and more enemies that make their apparition, and guess what, it makes the experience even more frustrating and terrible, and considering that you don't have to jump on enemies to kill them, it is a huge problem, especially if you don't have enough energy bar.
- The mini games aren't better, as most of them had decent concepts, such as the Bartman one, but all of them were really awful and had extremely frustrating gameplay to the point of being unplayable at times, these are:
- Blue Door: Bartman, where Bart flies over Springfield as a superhero. Along the way, he fights many bosses, including Sherri and Terri in a hot air balloon, Barney Gumble on a pink elephant, Waylon Smithers in a blimp (you face him twice), and eventually Mr. Burns in a biplane. Besides the enemies, Bart must avoid clouds of radioactive gas. Bart also receives soda bottles from Apu on a magic carpet in this level, which serve to raise his energy bar. A rusty balloon drops a tall rectangle of what looks like Bart sleeping. It is not known what it does.
- The mini game could have been really good and likely the best part of the game, but the problems are the awful hit detection and the horrible controls.
- Yellow Door: Itchy and Scratchy, where Bart is being attacked by the "team up" duo, as well as various other household objects that become enemies (the oven shoots fire, the telephone explodes, the pictures in the hallways drop eyeballs, and more). This is the only mini-game divided in two; Bart must play one half first and the other half next. Not only that, but the controls here are abysmal, as they are unresponsive and clunky too, and the hit detection is awful too.
- Violet Door: A journey into Bart's blood stream, where Bart must use an air pump to inflate and destroy germs. After collecting 5 atoms when the page is visible, the player wins. This mini-game has a cameo appearance from Smilin' Joe Fission (a character from the first-season episode "Homer's Odyssey").
- Orange Door: Indiana Bart, where Bart must make through the balancing columns in "Temple of Maggie". He can use his whip to take out the demons who appear in his path, and the golden eggs will give him an extra chance to reach the valuable prize at the end.
- This is an absolutely terrible mini game since it is very frustrating and almost impossible to beat due to how bad it is, and the game design here is extremely awful.
- Green Door: Bartzilla, where Bart must stomp through the streets of Springfield and destroy the army with fiery breath and visual lasers. After being zapped by a shrink ray, Bart climbs the Springfield State Building and fights "Homer Kong" and "Momthra", but he must avoid being hit by falling objects. By climbing on to the building, he will get zapped by a UFO, and it's game over.
- Blue Door: Bartman, where Bart flies over Springfield as a superhero. Along the way, he fights many bosses, including Sherri and Terri in a hot air balloon, Barney Gumble on a pink elephant, Waylon Smithers in a blimp (you face him twice), and eventually Mr. Burns in a biplane. Besides the enemies, Bart must avoid clouds of radioactive gas. Bart also receives soda bottles from Apu on a magic carpet in this level, which serve to raise his energy bar. A rusty balloon drops a tall rectangle of what looks like Bart sleeping. It is not known what it does.
- While the mini games add a good veriaty, some of them each have their own problems:
- While the idea of Bartman is neat, the shots the he fires will shoot backwards if Bart's still flying, and will only go forward a little bit if he stops, it also has some bad difficulty-spikes, specie mention goes to the final boss Mr. Burns who goes WAY too fast and the green smoke clouds, both of which can easily chew down Bart's health-bar.
- In the case with the Itchy and Scratchy segment, there are way too many enemies that can ambush Bart while given him very little time to breath, some of the enemies in particular can also take out Bart in one hit.
- The first part of Bartzilla has the problem with its button lay-out, as each button has Bartzilla either fire eye lasers or spew out fireballs in only a cosponsoring area, and during the second part when a small Bartzilla has to climb up a tower in order to reach Homer Kong, Momthra will appear at random and push Bartzilla down should he make contact with her, this part is extremely obnoxious as not only is the controls for the small Bartzilla very slow, but Momthra can take up nearly the whole screen which makes it even more harder to avoid her.
- There is a way to avoid Momthra, and that's during the second segment of the towers were Bartzilla can hang on to one of the metal poles on the sides. But you wouldn't know that as the game never says anything that its possible, so the only way to know it is by trailer-and-error or by looking it up online.
- The controls in all of the mini games are incredibly awful and are some of the worst in any Simpsons games from the time; they manage to be even worse than both the NES trilogy and the Game Boy game Bart Simpson's Escape From Camp Deadly, which is quite an accomplishment considering how bad the controls in those games are. The controls mostly range from unresponsive to downright clunky and slippery too, and they can even make the game unplayable; the worst offender is in the Itchy and Scratchy mini game.
- Some of the mini games such as the Itchy and Scratchy one had some of the absolute worst controls you will ever see in a game on the SNES and Genesis, since they are extremely stiff, clunky and even delayed, sometimes it even takes half a second to do something, showing how bad the controls are and even how bad the mini game in general is.
- Some of the mini games had controls that simply do not work with their gameplay, an example of this would be in the Bartzilla level, where the controls are so unresponsive and clunky that it doesn't fit it's gameplay, at least in the second phase of the mini game.
- Horrible hit detection, especially in the hub world in which the enemies can hit you almost every time or in the mini game with Bartman, where the hit detection is so bad that it makes the game almost unbeatable, and also makes the hub world even harder to survive.
- Awful and tedious gameplay that is even worse than the NES trilogy, and considering how bad the mini games are, there are barely, if not any, fun moments in the entire game due to how horrible it is (with the exception of the Bartman mini game). Not only that, but the gameplay is extremely frustrating too.
- The scene where Bart gets an F (which is the game over if you prefer calling it like that) and the other family members(minus Meggy) being angry at him is extremely mean-spirited, (especially Lisa, who is so angry at Bart) and it might be one of the absolute worst moments in any The Simpsons media, and no, this is not a joke.
- In the bad ending where Marge and Homer be mad at Bart that he got a F and have too many bad nightmares.
- The soundtrack on the Sega Genesis version, while not bad, is weaker than the SNES version and has worse quality than the SNES version, but this is to be expected.
- Awful sound effects, especially in the mini games, when they are loud and annoying to hear them, not to mention that they are repeated really often.
- Some of them are also even worse in the Sega Genesis port since they either sound loud or sometimes cause ear bleeding, and you will hear them a lot, as said before.
- The game is really short; it can be finished in only 30 minutes, but that might be a good thing considering how bad this game is.
- Another huge problem of this game is the fact that there are no continues, which is a big problem considering how hard this game is, and there's also not any ways to get continues. This was also a problem for Virtual Bart.
- Another thing that ruins this game from being great is the extremely unbalanced difficulty, which is very frustrating and makes it one of the hardest SNES games and probably, as of now, the hardest Simpsons game ever made, along with Virtual Bart. This is also the main reason why this game is considered to be this bad.
- It also doesn't help that there are no continues, as stated before, and because of this, you will need a ton of retrying to fully beat this game if you didn't give up already.
- The Itchy and Scratchy mini game is one of the worst examples of this game being frustrating, since it is horribly hard for no good reasons and is way too hard mostly because of the atrocious controls and the abysmal hit detection that is even worse than in the Bartman mini game, and because of that, this mini game is likely the worst of the entire game.
- Not only that, but much like much like Doraemon on the Famicom, you can get hit from almost everything really easily, which doesn't help with the problem of the hub world and the mini games too.
- This is especially true with the Bartzilla and Bartman mini games where in these mini games, you will get hit really often to the point of making them almost impossible and also making them horribly frustrating and like for the hub world, you can get hit by almost everything and this make some parts of the game extremely hard and tedious, you can also lose lives really often in the mini games, thanks to how bad this is.
- The only replay value this game could give is if you want to trying to get the A+ grade, but that's not saying much, and like the rest of the game, the requirement is tedious and make no sense too.
- The mini games had boss fights in them, but they are extremely bad and frustrating. They mostly consisted of mini bosses, but they were all either too easy or horribly hard, which would even be the reason why you would get a game over, such as in the Bartman mini game.
- After two or three times you found them, finding new copy is extremely hard, frustrating and takes way too many times, sometimes it even takes 10 minutes to find one!
- Not only that, but you need to do objectives to collect them, but they are not clear and are often annoying or tedious, this involves breaking a TV or sometimes, you even had to wait until they appear.
- The logic to hit the old lady with the bubble gum makes absolutely no sense, since you don't have to be right at her to hit her face, but you need to be higher to hit her, which is not only a bad idea, but even to the smartest peoples, it is hard to figure this out.
- To kill the enemies in the hub, you didn't had to jump on them or attacking them, but rather jumping over them, which is not only a stupid idea, but it is done in the absolute worst way imaginable since you know, the hit detection is very awful and this could result in deaths because you tried to jump over them, but due to how bad the hit detection is, then you get hit when trying to do it.
Cowabunga Qualities
- The graphics are really good, as they are very detailed and colorful, and the art style is faithful to the show.
- The soundtrack is really good for the SNES version, despite the Genesis version having a weaker sound quality, as mentioned above, and is way better than in Virtual Bart.
- The Sega Genesis version also had a somewhat passable soundtrack, despite being weaker than the SNES version.
- It is also way better than in Virtual Bart, since it doesn't sound generic like that game.
- Despite how bad this game is, it is still better than its "sequel", Virtual Bart, which somehow manages to be a massive downgrade from this game.
- Awesome box art that is really detailed and is one of, if not the best, of any Simpsons games.
- It has some decent repeatability, as you can play any of the mini-games in any order you chose should the page that that mini-game.
- Some minigames had great concept, but unfortunately, they're terribly executed due to being really frustrating.
- If you collect all of the pages and get the last page after beating that mini-game, the good ending shows that Bart got an A+, and Bart's family(minus Meggy) will be proud of him and Lisa will look at Bart with a shocked expression, which is satisfying to watch the cutscene
- Homer and Marge were proud of Bart that he did such a great job of doing his homework and avoid bad nightmares.
Reception
The game received mixed to negative reviews by critics and players, who consider it to be one of the worst Simpsons games ever made, but there are still some people that somewhat like this game.
The graphics were however praised, with some that consider it to be one of the best looking Simpsons game ever, and were said to be imaginative and creative, this was always the part where the game did get the most praise.
The mini games were criticized of being extremely difficult and unbalanced for bad reasons, which was said to be the thing that ruined the game from being good, however most say that at least got creative ideas behind them, but were poorly executed.
Trivia
- In Japan, the characters had drawn with five fingers, not counting four, due to the real-life Yakuza.
- It is the first Simpsons game on the SNES as well as the second one to come out in Japan, the first being The Simpsons on Arcade.
- WatchMojo ranked this game the 5th WORST in Top 10 BEST & WORST Simpsons games
Gallery
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Well, he tried his best and then he got an F, and everyone is angry at him, what a horrible nightmare this is.
Videos
References
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