PrinceWatercress plays The Simpsons: Bart and the Beanstalk - Part 1 of 4

Another Simpsons game from the '90s...and now I'm the one playing it. 

In case you need an explanation about the story, it's Jack and the Beanstalk...except it also involves The Simpsons.

Guess what? It's not that good.

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Level 1

Left and Right let you move, A lets you jump and B lets you shoot pebbles with the slingshot.

Bart's main weapon is the slingshot that he got along with the magic beans from Monty the Miser, but the pebbles don't go very far.

You'll have to collect all 40 gold coins in order to get the boss battle at the end of the stage. If you can collect three coins in very quick succession, you can get some of your health back, and if you grab six in very quick succession, you can get temporary invincibility. There are not many opportunities for you to do anything like this.

You have a life meter at the bottom center. If it runs out, you lose a life. You'll want to try hard not to die, because there isn't much in the way of checkpoints. As a matter of fact, there are none at all.

Dynamite can be used by pressing the Select button. The dynamite will clear the screen of enemies. Sadly, you can only carry one stick of dynamite at a time.

The paper airplanes are a little stronger than your slingshot, but use them wisely. You can only hold either the paper airplanes or the dynamite at any given time, as the game will not let you carry around both.

Use the springy leaves on the beanstalks to jump to higher heights.

You can climb up and down vines with and jump off of them to reach certain areas.

Be careful when falling. The camera is slow to catch up with you, and if you drop from too great a height, Bart will drop beyond the bottom of the gameplay screen and die.

The beetles take three hits before dying. Watch out for the circles of bees that block your path at times, as the only way to get ride of them is with the dynamite.

It should be mentioned that if any enemies move off-screen, you will have to get them back on-screen yourself.

The flies fly around in circles and take two hits to kill.

The music you hear in the first level is in all the other levels, so get used to hearing it.

Some floors fall apart when you step on them; just jump over them to avoid that.

The boss is a giant beetle. Jump over it as it moves from one side of the screen to the other and shoot it down as it jumps straight up. Its pattern will then repeat. This is a really easy boss.