 The NES gets a lot of flack for having so many bad movie and TV licensed games, and sure, there are some bad ones on the Super Nintendo too, but there's a surprising number of good games. There's Chew Lies, Batman Returns, Goof Troop, Looney Tunes, Bee Ball, all sorts of stuff, including the Jetsons, Invasion of the Planet Pirates. Yeah, this is actually a pretty good game, and it was good enough to even get a re-skin over in Japan, where they removed all the Jetsons stuff, replaced it with characters from the manga Yokai Buster Ruka, and released the game as Yokai Buster Ruka No Daibouken. So yeah, a game based on a TV show that was actually RE-PURPESSED to be used again for a different license, how often did that happen back then? It's also interesting to note that this one was developed by Sting Entertainment, who were all over the map when it came to the Super Nintendo and Super Famicom, creating a solid shoot-em-up and flying hero, Bugiro No Daibouken, to an RPG that was published by Squaresoft, Treasure Hunter G. The Jetsons, however, is a straight-ahead action platformer, and admittedly, it doesn't have a TON to do with the show. This is one of those games that's kind of on its own island, so to speak. For instance, Captain Zoom is normally a fictional character in the Jetsons universe, but in this game, he's real, and he's apparently fighting space pirates led by the evil Zora. No, not that Zora. Captain Zoom is apparently too tired or hungover or something to keep up the fight, so he tasks George Jetson with protecting the planet from the plundering pirates. So how does Captain Zoom prepare George to defend the entire planet? Does he give them guns, knives, bombs? Ehh, how about a vacuum cleaner? Well, the game calls it a pneumo-osmatic precipitator, but it's pretty much a sucking device that allows you to climb walls, travel through smaller passages, and use whatever objects are around you as projectiles, even other enemies. You can even use it as a scuba device in a pinch, and it can be upgraded to be made more powerful so you can reach blocks and enemies that are further away. There's a fun and inventive mechanic that you don't see in too many other games, and the level design complements it well. It might seem at first that the vacuum mechanic might be a bit overpowered since you can just make your way across the ceiling and avoid everything, but most levels are structured so you can't really do that. Granted, sometimes it seems like they get a bit too carried away with the level design, since occasionally it can be hard to simply find the exit, but I think overall it's done pretty well, like the third level here where you have to rotate the entire area by hitting switches, kind of like in Legend of the Missile Ninja, and then again in level 5 where it's the enemies rotating the room and you have to try and survive, or this underwater level here where you have to balance out having enough suction to defeat enemies and enough air to breathe. But yeah, other than the vacuum mechanic, this is a pretty standard action platformer with the same old stuff you'd expect, like food for health, and stars for extra points which earn you extra lives. There's 8 levels here but no battery saver password system, and that leads me to a big flaw I gotta point out. The last level of this game is really hard. Trying to deal with these flying dishes is really frustrating. It's hard not to take a ton of damage and lose a lot of lives. And that sucks because after all that, it's one big boss gauntlet. Yup, you gotta fight every boss again all in a row, and it's really tough. On the bright side, they did do a great job representing the Jetsons universe here. The story may not be a perfect fit, but the color palette and the George Sprite are all spot on. It definitely looks like a Jetsons game. While you do hear the main cartoon theme at the title screen, the music isn't particularly Jetsons-y, whatever that might mean, but that's okay. The soundtrack here is perfectly fine. And hey, even if you don't particularly care for the Jetsons and want something completely different, there's the Japanese version I mentioned earlier, Yokai Buster. Instead of George Jetson, you play as Ruka, a thousand-year-old demon girl who wants to get rid of the other demons and have all the demon glory on Earth to herself, I guess. And instead of a vacuum thing, you carry around a little alien thing that, uh, does all the sucking. It's all new music, and all the graphics and enemies are changed up, too. They polished up the level design a bit by adding arrows so you know where the exit is, and there's also an entirely new final boss. Unfortunately, Yokai Buster is one of those Super Famicom cartridges like Hyper Area and Psycho Dream, and it goes for close to $200. Heck, even the Jetsons game goes for something like $75. But yeah, Jetsons Invasion of the Planet Pirates is a worthwhile playthrough with some surprisingly original mechanics for the time. I enjoyed this one, the boss fights are well done, and the game is definitely challenging. It may not always be the most balanced game, that last level is brutal, but that's alright. Besides, people's expectations for games like this are usually pretty low, so the fact that this is even a decent playthrough is a pleasant surprise. I'd recommend this one, and if you really dig this game, check out Yokai Buster as well.