YMMV / The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants

• Anti-Climax Boss: Coming after the absolutely brutal museum level, Dr. Marvin Monroe is a pathetically easy boss, as he'll die quickly from just being jumped on three times, probably before Homer (if you were able to get the letters for his name) even gets the chance to do anything to help out. It's almost like the developers felt sorry for throwing such a difficult level at the player, and decided to go easy for a change. Making things worse, Monroe is the last actual boss in the game, as the next and final level, the nuclear plant, doesn't have any bosses.
• Best Level Ever: People who grew up with the game tend to fondly remember the first level for being at least a little fun, pretty immersive with various tasks to perform, and not too difficult with innovative (for the time) puzzle solving as you go about changing the color of everything purple. The rest of the game, even though it has the same basic gameplay, not so much...
• Demonic Spiders: EVERY ENEMY IN THE GAME
• Disappointing Last Level: So you spent the first four levels platforming, detecting space mutants in disguise, solving minor puzzles, finding secrets, and playing the occasional minigame, huh? Welcome to the fifth and final level... a friggin' maze! All you do is navigate the Springfield Power Plant looking for 16 plutonium rods and taking them to the basement. Oh, and to make matters worse, you know that 16th rod you can't find anywhere? It's Maggie's pacifier. The game doesn't give you a clue and it makes zero sense, but just touch her after you took the other 15 rods to the basement, and you win.
• Funny Moments: The "Eat my shorts!" that plays whenever Bart starts a new life. Just hearing it in a Nintendo game is hilarious.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The titular aliens look exactly like vortigaunts, despite coming out seven years before the original Half-Life.
• No Export for You: The Sega Master System port was never released outside of Europe.
• Polished Port: The Sega Genesis port has much better graphics, irons out most of the control issues, and makes some level design tweaks that make it generally much less aggravating to play. The only major downside is that the Simpsons theme is for some reason omitted from this port, and replaced with some rather generic original music.
• The Problem with Licensed Games: There's a reason why the AVGN decided to review it. Admittedly it's nowhere near as bad as some of the later Simpsons games, and does try to be more than one of the standard-issue platformers that most licensed games tended to be, but the end result is a game filled with Guide Dang It! moments and other frustrations.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The controls. Jump and run are both the same button. You can do a "super jump" if you hold both buttons and the same time, but it's still not as good as a running jump.
  • The inability to replenish your health if you take a hit. There are no health pickups in the game. The only way to get your hit point back is by finishing the level.
  • The inability to defend yourself from most of the enemies.
• That One Boss: None of the stage bosses, but a miniboss in the dreaded museum level, a Tyrannosaurus Rex head that leans over a large open pit and spits sparks at you from the far right and can only be stomped on the head from a hidden background spot on the screen and only with a perfect jump, and if you don't stick the landing perfect, you will still fall to your death. Not to mention the awkward screen scroll if you do kill him that can still kill you much of the time through no fault of your own.
• That One Level: The 4th level museum takes seemingly forever and throws all kinds of brutal and tedious platforming tests at you. You basically stack up your lives throughout the game to survive the museum.

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