The Simpsons: Bart and the Beanstalk

"Fee-Fye-No-Fun"

This really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. It's been two decades since The Simpsons first aired, and in that time there have been plenty of games coming out bearing the name of America's favorite animated family. Of course, most of those games have been mediocre at best. Yeah, Road Rage was alright, Hit and Run seemed like a nice expansion of Road Rage, and who could forget that great arcade beat'em-up of yesteryear in which Maggie was kidnapped? Yeah, there've been a few Simpson games that were alright, but most of them drift into the sludge pile.

Bart and the Beanstalk is one such example. You really have to wonder: what exactly were the developers thinking? What was going through the executive's mind who said, "Hey! Let's make something for the Game Boy that crosses over The Simpsons with Jack and the Beanstalk!" Well, whatever they were thinking, it didn't turn out so well.

STORY

I'm not really holding this against the game, but I just thought I should cover it since the developers tried to implement a little bit of plot. If you know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, you already know the entire story to this game-just replace the characters in the classic fairy tale with characters from The Simpsons and you're good to go.

Basically, Bart and Homer are two peasants, and one day they're so desperate for money that Homer sends Bart into town to sell the family cow so they have money to buy food. Instead, Bart exchanges the cow for some beans, and Homer doesn't take too kindly to that. After Homer chucks the beans out the window, a giant beanstalk stretching all the way to the sky sprouts from the ground. Bart can't keep his curiosity under control, so he decides to climb it.

Alright, I'll stop there. You probably know the story anyway, so there's no point in reiterating it. Let's get down to details and see if we can figure out where this game went wrong.

GAMEPLAY

You take control of Bart at the foot of the beanstalk. From there, you begin climbing higher and higher while battling enemies, most of them being massive bugs or hornets. To defeat them, you have to shoot them a few times with Bart's trusty slingshot. This is where the game suffers one of its first problems: the shots you fire don't go very far at all. Because of this, you'll frequently have to walk up to an enemy until you're practically in its face before you can fire a shot and hit it. The problem with this, of course, is that it makes it more likely you'll be hit yourself. For better or for worse, though, the enemies have very simple, repetitive patterns in their movements, so you should have no trouble learning how to avoid those dastardly foes.

You can pick up some powerups for your slingshot that can increase the strength of your attacks, as well as increase the distance in you can fire them from. Unfortunately, these beefed up shots are limited, and you can't even decide between using them or your regular shots. So if you don't want to waste them, you have no choice but to avoid the regular enemies.

Thankfully, your slingshot isn't the only weapon in the game-but that's not to say there's a wide variety of weapons either. There are bombs (at least, that's what I'm assuming they are) that can hurt any enemies on screen, and maybe one or two other types of attacks Bart can perform. So battling enemies is easier with these other weapons, but it doesn't make that huge of a difference.

And you have to be pretty careful when fighting these enemies, because Bart really doesn't have a ton of health. At the bottom of the screen is a life bar; as you'd expect, the bar decreases when you take damage, and when the bar is completely depleted, you lose a life. You can only take five or six hits from an enemy before you lose a life. The worst part of this is that if you lose a life, you have to start all the way back at the very beginning of the level. You can also lose a life if Bart falls from a height that's too high...which is generally anything off screen. Since the levels can get kind of long and are a pain to go through, having to start from scratch only adds to this game's list of problems.

Speaking of the levels, let's talk about those for a little bit. As you'd expect, some of the levels are very linear and involve trotting from the left side of the screen to the right side. Do this for long enough, and eventually you'll find yourself in a quick boss battle. The bosses, like the enemies, have equally repetitive and predictable patterns, although they are noticeably harder to hit. But back to what I was saying before about the levels-some of them actually aren't all about side-scrolling. There are a few levels where you climb up to certain spots and can climb down vines or things like that to get to other areas of the level, but it doesn't add much. (The first level is a good example of this, as it is surprisingly one of the more complex levels in the game.)

But you can't just go through the level until you reach the end and to duke it out with a boss. As an added gameplay element, you also have to scavenge the level for coins scattered about. And you can't complete the level and try your luck at a boss until you have found and collected every single coin in the level. This can get annoying, as it's very possible to go through some of the longer, more complex levels, only to reach the end and have Bart tell you that you have to find more coins. Thankfully, the coins can help you out instead of just driving you crazy. There are a few occasions throughout the game when coins are scattered in groups of three, and if you collect all three coins in one jump, then you regain some of your health.

Finding all the coins and defeating some of the enemies was enough to make navigating the levels a chore, but the experience is topped off with the clunky controls. Bart seldom starts and stops moving when you tell him to, and it takes a little bit of practice to learn how to do things like time jumps and dodge enemy attacks. In general, the controls are kind of slippery, although they're nothing you can't get used to.

GRAPHICS

Now that I've explained the game's flaws when it comes to how it plays. But what about all the graphics? At best, they're mediocre. You can tell Bart is Bart...sort of, and the few still pictures capture the essence of the various SImpsons characters as well as the Gameboy probably can. Still, this doesn't make up for the repetitive backgrounds, simplistic enemy designs and overall bland appearance. I know it's only the Gameboy, but it still looks overall plain and uninspired. The worst part is that the graphics are one of the game's better points, especially when compared to other things, like its...

SOUND

The sound starts off alright. You're greeted by the standard, generic title music. Start the game, and you'll hear the level one music. It starts off alright, and maybe even slightly catchy...for the first minute or so. But after that, you'll quickly hear the music looping over and over, and before long you'll find yourself shutting the volume off. As you venture through level one, you'll literally hear the same repetitive, annoying music loop literally dozens of times. The only saving grace is when you get to a boss battle...and you hear an equally annoying and even more repetitive boss tune. (At least you don't have to listen to it nearly as much.) Oh, and if you're expecting a break from that annoying level one music to go away once you beat the first boss...think again. Apparently, the developers thought it would be cool to have the same background music play for every single stage in the game! Either that or they were just lazy. Regardless of the reason, you have to listen to the same annoying, looping music through every single level. From the very beginning when Bart is just starting to scale the beanstalk, to the final stage when the giant is in hot pursuit as Bart hurries down the beanstalk, you have to endure the same track over, and over, and over. I really don't know what the developers were thinking.

LENGTH

The game itself isn't too long. It can be completed in under an hour by someone who knows what they're doing. But the problem with the game's length isn't the raw amount of time it takes to play through it. You could easily find yourself taking days to beat the game because it can be freaking hard. It takes practice to get through the levels without dying, and having to start back at the very beginning of each level could easily discourage someone from trying to finish the game. (Not that they're really missing anything by not beating the last level.)

PROS

+ Music is kinda catchy at first
+ Uh...it's the Simpsons?
+ Some levels aren't simply side scrollers

CONS

- Difficult controls
- Mediocre at best graphics
- Annoying music that repeats WAY too much
- Needlessly frustrating at times

CLOSING NOTES

All in all, this game doesn't represent The Simpsons or the Gameboy very well. Almost everything about this game is flawed, from the annoying level designs, to the difficulty of controlling Bart and attacking enemies, and the lack of any different songs to break up the annoyance of hearing that single level track played over and over. Unless you're a Simpsons memorabilia junkie, you'll probably want to avoid this.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 05/13/05, Updated 03/02/09

Game Release: The Simpsons: Bart and the Beanstalk (US, February 1994)