The Simpsons (Arcade)

While buying some jewels for Mr. Burns, Smithers bumps into the Simpson family...causing one of the diamonds to fly into Maggie's mouth! Rather than just taking the jewel out of her mouth, Smithers and his bone-stupid henchmen (that he's always had but you never see on the show) kidnap Maggie! It's up to The Simpsons to get her back.

Filler Tiles


These tiles are used as filler for the player graphics.



These are the filler tiles used for the first half of the object graphics.



This 2x2 filler picture of Krusty is used in the latter half of the object graphics. The correct palette is unknown and may not exist in the ROM anymore.

Inanimate Carbon Rod


This is found with the rest of the thrown item graphics, but it's not found anywhere in the game.

Text


This should show up when picking up a health item, but nope.

An early version of Smithers' boss dialogue. This uses a unique dialogue balloon and is in all caps, unlike the final version.

An unused dialogue string. Definitely meant for level 3.

Weapon Icons


These appear to be status icons for a bomb, a bottle, a can of soda and a slingshot. They were located in the game's graphics, near the character portraits.

Unused Music
This song is hidden in the game data. It isn't available in the game's built-in sound test, but you can listen to it by loading the game romset in M1 and playing sound code. There is speculation that this was an unused boss theme for Smithers, which would be used before the final fight against Mr. Burns. Plus, every time the song loops, it starts to play a little bit faster than before.

Version Differences
The Japanese version is markedly different than other versions. Most of the changes are for game balance issues.

Scoring
The Japanese version adds two trailing zeroes to the score.

The Score Ranking screen was adjusted for the extra zeroes. The character heads were moved from the score to the rank number.

These zeroes were added to accommodate the Japanese version's more dynamic scoring system. In the World version, every enemy defeated is worth just 1 point. In the Japanese version, certain enemies are worth more, as are bosses:

Bonuses


The Japanese version gives players a vitality bonus at the end of each level.

The two bonus games have time bonuses in the Japanese version. These aren't present in the World version.

Game Mechanics


It's possible to extend health past 100% in the Japanese version. Picking up food while at full health gives the player bonus health (shown in yellow). It's possible to extend it even further (200%+), in which case the bonus will be in green.

In the World version, weapons can't be used in the air. This was fixed in the Japanese version.

Other changes:
 * The enemies in this version seem a bit more stupid compared to the World version.
 * In the Japanese version, you must press the attack button in front of a food item to collect it.
 * The slingshot was buffed significantly. In the World version it's about as strong as a normal attack. In the Japanese version, it will kill anything in one hit!

Level 1
Other Changes:
 * The Hamburger at the end of the stage was changed to a Hot Dog.

Level 2

 * The Hot Dog at the end of the stage was changed to a Hamburger.

Level 7
Other Changes:
 * The Corn pickup was changed to a Hamburger.

Ending


More characters were added to the ending (Principal Skinner, Milhouse, Nelson, Sherri and Terri, Santa's Little Helper, and Snowball II)