I have yet to tamper in the rabbit hole that is the Simpsons video games. Mostly because the good lot of them are pretty annoying platform games to revisit, boasting some very outdated controls, even for their time. Bart's Nightmare, however, stands out to me. It's simultaneously one of the more creative, yet frustrating Simpsons games during the era.

Briefly, for anyone not old enough, before the series became centered around the antics of Homer, it really was astounding recalling how Bart Simpson was the renegade bad boy marketing machine for the series. Before it became a franchise, there was so much unofficial Bart merch, it made people's heads spin. There were shirts, dolls, posters, bumper stickers, even a lot of rumors about why he regularly appeared on ,erch in a blue shirt instead of his signature orange. The early video games were Bart-centric, he took on Space Mutants, the World, partnered with Radioactive Man, and in this particular instance, battled his own inner demons in his head to finish homework.

Developed by Sculptured Software and published by Acclaim, Bart's Nightmare is an interesting piece of work. Rather than being a platformer like the previous Simpsons entries, this game tries its hand at multiple formats. Take to the sky as Bartman in a shooter portion, swim through a bloodstream and defeat bacteria in an asteroids-style variant. Wreck a metropolis and then scale a building in the puzzle-based Bartzilla variant stages, avaoid the hazards of Itchy & Scratchy, and solve the rock formations in the Temple of Maggie in an Indiana Jones parody.

On top of that, there's the hub world where Bart has to acquire his homework, this twisted, bizarre mock-up of Springfield where everything either wants Bart dead(?) or to deter him from finishing his homework. I think if the game were based on this portion of the game itself, it'd be fascinating, just because of the many rules that apply to this relatively expansive open world. Objects and enemies that hit you drain away your sleep meter, represented by the "Z" count at the top of the screen. You can earn more by touching them with bubblegum, which is acquired by hopping over mailboxes that scuttle across the road. There's also red Z's, which deplete your blue Z's. Your sleep meter can also be expanded by riding the skateboard for an extended period of time. But where does Bart get a skateboard? By jumping over a basketball, of course! Wait, what...?

But you can't do rude things like blowing bubbles and ride skateboards if Principal Skinner puts you in a suit. However, if you're wearing a tucked in suit, Lisa the Fairy won't turn you into a frog, but will save you from Jimbo and his gang! This is just the a little bit of detail about how this world works, the first few times you're playing it, it's quite interesting.

So many of the rules aren't explained about how Bart's Nightmare works, but experimenting provides results. Defeating certain enemies and doing specific actions can trigger a piece of homework to appear, like spitting watermelon seeds at a sentient TV. Once in the various sub locations, the gameplay completely changes. Like the hub world, learning how to acquire the papers are completely left up you your experimenting, and it can get pretty cryptic. Itchy & Scratchy land and Bartman are pretty straightforward; clear the stages. Bartzilla part 1 is similar, survive long enough to get hit with the shrink ray, barring you can get a hang of the elaborate controls. and functions. 

You only get one shot in some worlds before being sent back to the hub world, which costs a Z from your sleep meter, and if you wake up with very few, or no pieces of homework, it's game over. Bart awakens with a failing grade, and you lose. The more I played, the better I got at this. The problem is, the endgame isn't really worth it, just to get a mildly different reaction from the family. Some parts of the game, like Temple of Maggie, are very difficult, as it's a memory game about being sure to not step on the platforms that plummet you to your doom. Or how Bartzilla portion 2 feels incredibly random while the climbing controls feel a little too unresponsive to get out of dodge.

Visually, Bart's Nightmare does look very good, I like the sheer amount of variety the game offers. Each of Bart's dream worlds, I used to think were based off his classes, but they seem to be cluttered thoughts from his very vivid imagination. It's probably a combination of both. While both the Drive and SNES versions play similar and there isn't a vast difference in the graphics, the Sega Genesis version has less visual detail and a noticeable lack of depth in the color palette. Many of the cartoony elements are executed amazingly well. Not much in the way of slowdown or graphical clipping, it's pretty impressive, considering just how much is going on. 

The sound isn't bad either, the tunes and sound effects are pretty catchy. I like how when you're close to waking up, the music wanes a little and a fading border overlay around the screen. It's peril without firing off klaxons or obnoxious beeping or buzzing effects. In its peacefulness, it does a great job of making you incredibly nervous, especially if there's no ways to gain any extra Z's to keep Bart asleep. And I'm a big fan of the Bartman theme, it's perfect for SHMUPs.

So it Bart's Nightmare worth playing? There's an arcadey appeal to it that I do appreciate, the tricky part s whether or not it's worth investing the time to get skilled enough in some of the worlds to ace them. Their difficulty is tough to explain. Getting a good grade doesn't mean it's being saved to leaderboards. For that matter, top scores aren't saved through battery backup or profiles, so the bragging rights are minimal. In retrospect, Bart's Nightmare gained quite a reputation among the speedrunner community, but beyond that, getting good at this game is like being able to bend your thumb back to touch your wrist or knowing how to voluntarily move one of your eyes; you can do it, but why?