Developer: Sculptured Software Publisher: Acclaim Release: 09/92 Genre: Platformer
This fucking game. If the developers set out to create one of the most frustrating games of all time they succeeded. At first glance Bart’s Nightmare looks like the Simpsons game of your dreams. As an early SNES title it had a heavy ad campaign. With its 16-bit graphics it was looking to wipe away the bad memories of the subpar NES games. I am sure many bought the game for that reason alone. But once you have the controller in hand it is a different story. You will find a game that goes out of its way to make every bad design decision possible to rob the game of any potential fun it may have. Bart’s Nightmare is sadly another bad licensed game. Why is it so hard to make a good game with this license?
Bart resolves to finish his homework on time to finish the fourth grade, even if it means an all-nighter. Unfortunately his short attention span gets the best of him and he falls asleep. He dreams that all eight pieces of his homework flew out the window. But this isn’t a dream; it’s a nightmare!
I posed the question of why it was so hard for creators to make games based on the Simpsons. To be fair I will cut them some slack. The majority of these games were in development or released early in the TV show’s run. This was at a point where they were still nailing down what it would become. Even Konami’s fondly remembered arcade beat em up suffers from inconsistencies as there was little source material to work with. This situation does mean each developer was free to be creative. Titles such as this and Bart vs. the Space Mutants knock it out of the park with their premise. But that means nothing when the execution is lacking. Bart’s Nightmare feels like a collection of ideas stitched together into one package. Some works brilliantly, some lack focus. A little work and this could be good. Oh well.
Bart’s Nightmare has two halves. Windy World is the game’s hub. Here you walk the streets in search of pages that allow you to choose one of two minigames to retrieve a page of homework. There are five total with two awarding two pages for a total of eight. Windy World is full of danger. Mailboxes spring to life, Jebediah Springfield’s head stalks the streets, fairy Lisa’s will turn you in to a frog, and even the school bus threatens to run you over if you linger in the street too long. Bart is not completely defenseless. He can blow bubbles to deflect enemies or collect Z’s to restore health. Bart spits watermelon seeds like a gun and if all else fails uses a soda can like a smart bomb. Despite this Windy World is the game’s most dangerous zone as it is the only area you can truly “die”.
The framework of Bart’s Nightmare could work if it were not so god damn obtuse. Take finding the pages necessary to enter each minigame. If you simply wander the streets of Springfield it is the luck of the draw when a page will spawn. Sometimes one will spawn within minutes of starting, other times I would spend twenty minutes before another would appear. There are ways to make the pages spawn manually thankfully. Some you would never figure out without a strategy guide. Here is one example: the walking TVs sometimes appear when walking in the street. If you can hit them with a watermelon seed maybe a page will spawn seconds later. It makes no sense that it is so hard to find the items needed to play most of the game.
The frustration extends to each minigame. Nearly every one has myriad issues that are aggravating or make the game nearly unplayable. In Itchy and Scratchy the goal is to beat the titular duo as they attack with random weapons. It would be easy were it not for the ridiculous number of instant death traps and enemies. Bartzilla casts Bart as Godzilla as he stomps through the city. The controls are overly complicated and judging enemy positioning is a nightmare. The hit detection is also questionable; leaving what should be the best minigame possibly the worst. Bartman is mildly exciting; who does not want to be a superhero? This shooter is probably the least exciting as you can avoid most enemies and bee line to the bosses. Bart’s Bloodstream is similarly simple but also suffers from instant death enemies, sending you back to the overworld to once again find another page.
The absolute worst is the Temple of Maggie. Bart is decked out like Indiana Jones as he navigates a block jumping maze. As you leap on blocks some rise and others fall. Meanwhile demons stalk you and their attacks force you to jump on a previous tile and potentially die. These sections are long and tedious and there is a designated path. Unfortunately you are left to use trial and error to figure it out. Once again, failure sends you back to windy world, ruining the game’s pacing.
As you can imagine from my descriptions the difficulty is sky high. The frequency of instant death elements borders on ridiculous. It robs any desire to learn each game’s quirks to enjoy them. I do not like how much the controls vary from one game to the next; some of it feels unnecessary. Just getting to the damn minigames is a task in itself. The overworld is insanely difficult, with hazards every few steps. The game is stingy with life restoring Zs; my god just catching them feels like a chore. I guarantee many who either rented or bought this game never saw most of its minigames, it is so ridiculous. If the goal was to prevent gamers from finishing the game in a rental period than job well done. But at what cost?
Normally a bad game would not frustrate me so much. But in this case it is disappointing because the idea behind the game is sound. For a licensed title Bart’s Nightmare is a big swing. The game has weird dream logic, random humor, and constant references to elements from the show. There is a healthy dose of absurdity to be sure but that is par for the course with the Simpsons. But it is all wasted alongside the solid presentation on a game whose frustrating elements detract from its creativity.
In Closing
Bart’s Nightmare is an interesting mix of creativity and frustration that does not quite come together. This game will frustrate you like no other. Its dream-world structure captures the unpredictable humor of The Simpsons, and its variety keeps it interesting somewhat. Unfortunately, inconsistent gameplay and punishing difficulty prevent it from reaching classic status.
