5 Hardest Games Based On Popular Kids’ Cartoons

Video game makers have always made it a point to target a family-friendly audience. After all, kids generally have more free time than adults, so giving them great games to play makes perfect sense. However, during the early days of gaming, many developers were often obsessed with making tough-as-nails games to keep players engaged. It might seem weird to make a game based on fan-favorite Saturday morning cartoons as hard as any other game on a system, but that was happening more often than not.

Here are the five hardest games based on popular kids’ cartoons. Note that it’s kids’ cartoons, so don’t expect to see games like Bart vs. The Space Mutants, despite that game being incredibly difficult (and downright terrible).

5) Goof Troop

Unlike most cartoon games of the era, Goof Troop is not your standard action-adventure platformer. Instead, this game, which is based on the animated TV show, features a heavy dose of puzzles. Yes, Goofy and Max have a few abilities they can use to take out enemies, but most of the game asks players to solve puzzles of increasing difficulty, something that frustrated most kids picking up Goof Troop.

What makes this one even more interesting is that Shinji Mikami was one of the lead designers. Fans of Resident Evil will immediately recognize that name because he was the driving force behind that fan-favorite series. You won’t exactly see the bones of future Resident Evil games in Goof Troop‘s gameplay, but it is a fun time capsule of what Mikami and Capcom were up to in the early 90s.

4) Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mania has a great gimmick. The team at Traveller’s Tales used all of Mickey’s various styles over the years to create all of the levels. That means you’re playing through stages based on everything from Steamboat Willie and The Prince and the Pauper. That’s an exceptional set-up, and Mickey Mania is a solid platformer.

That said, any young gamer hopping into Mickey Mania was going to have a bad time. The platformer’s difficulty might be fine for older players, but the target audience largely didn’t have the dexterity to keep up with Mickey’s many challenges. Still, if you’re a Mickey fan, this is a must-play game with an exceptional look and an even better soundtrack.

3) Garfield: Caught in the Act

Garfield: Caught in the Act has a few problems that place it on this list. The most notable is how slow Garfield moves. You could argue that’s staying within the character, considering how much that cat loves lasagna, but it doesn’t make Caught in the Act fun. On top of that, Garfield‘s attacks are incredibly weak, turning enemies into damage sponges that stick around way too long and make some of the platforming unfair.

Frankly, Caught in the Act doesn’t look good enough to overcome the sluggish controls. Even fans of Garfield and his antics won’t find much to enjoy here. Heck, there aren’t even any good jokes. You’d be much better off just heading back to the funny pages and reading about Garfield‘s adventures because playing through them is a slog.

2) Gargoyles

Gargoyles has always been one of Disney’s darkest properties, but unfortunately, developer Disney Interactive took that a little too literally. In the Gargoyles game for Sega Genesis, you control Goliath, leader of the Gargoyles. He can use his strength and agility to move through each platforming mission, which is great when it works. The problem is that Gargoyles is so dark that you’ll struggle to see exactly what you can interact with.

Toss in frustrating controls that were tough to master, and you have a game that needed a bit more polish to get it where it needed to be. Don’t get me wrong, Gargoyles is a solid game in most respects, but it’s far too difficult for the intended audience. Thankfully, it was remade in 2023, and that version is much crisper, making it an easy game to recommend to fans of the show.

1) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES)

One game I wouldn’t recommend to anyone, regardless of how much they love the property being adapted in the NES version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Dam and Technodrome levels, in particular, blow past “hard” and are completely unfair. Enemies respawn constantly, and the levels are designed in a way that makes it almost impossible to safely traverse.

It’s a shame because the NES version of TMNT has a few nifty ideas. All four turtles have their own special attacks, and you can swap between them on the fly. That opens up strategic options that could’ve been a bright spot for the game. Sadly, the difficulty is ever-present, making it tough to notice anything else. Even TMNT diehards should steer clear.

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5 Best Games Based on Cartoons