If you've been on the internet for a while, you'll know that 90s cartoons have a way of bringing people together, whether or not they were actually around to see them air on TV back in the day. There's something that feels uniquely timeless about 90s cartoons and the tie-in games that spawned from them.
Many consider the burst of licensed video games based on these cartoons to also be the gold standard for tie-in games, with great experiences everywhere you look. If you're looking for a way to relive the great cartoons of the 90s, try out these games.
8 Nicktoons Unite
Nicktoons Unite trumps Avengers: Endgame for the greatest crossover event ever attempted. Jokes aside, Nicktoons Unite does a great job of bringing together many kids' favorite 90s and 2000s cartoon characters for a co-op beat-em-up adventure.
Danny Phantom, Jimmy Neutron, Timmy Turner, and Spongebob Squarepants join forces to stop villains from their shows in a janky but fun adventure.
7 The Simpsons (Arcade)
You'd be hard-pressed to find a cartoon more iconic than The Simpsons. At the height of the show's fame, the famous family branched out from the TV screen and headed to a similarly small screen in the local arcade.
The Simpsons arcade game is a fairly generic beat-em-up that's elevated by the absolute icons Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa. Each family member has their move set to take them through varied stages based on the show's most beloved settings and episodes. While it wasn't universally praised upon launch, there's no denying the game's success, with cabinets remaining in arcades until the early 2010s.
6 Pokemon Yellow
Pokemon Yellow is a re-imagining of the original Red & Blue RPGs, with most of the new features and content coming straight from the first series of the 1997 Pokemon anime. The generation one games receive an overhaul to make the player feel more like Ash Ketchum, with a mandatory Pikachu starter that can't evolve and fights against Jesse and James, the show's antagonists.
Aside from anime tie-ins, Yellow also brought many balance changes that bring the notoriously broken gen one battle system closer to function, such as extra moves and stat changes for some of the most unbalanced Pokemon.
5 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time
As one of the most popular cartoon franchises of all time, it's no surprise that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has received a ton of tie-in games. Over 30 years from its original SNES release, TMNT: Turtles in Time holds its spot as the best of them.
Turtles in Time is the pinnacle of the beat-em-up genre that swept home consoles and arcades alike in the 90s, letting you take your favorite hero in a half-shell across nine stages full of the turtles' most iconic villains.
4 Kingdom Hearts
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Kingdom Hearts may not be entirely based on 90s cartoons, but its unique blend of iconic Disney and Final Fantasy characters could never have worked without the classic 90s films it borrows from. While every Kingdom Hearts game takes influence from 90s Disney properties, the original is still the game that does it best.
The first game's renditions of Aladdin's Agrabah and The Nightmare Before Christmas' Halloween Town are the most authentic Kingdom Hearts has produced. Halloween Town's Oogie Boogie boss fight remains one of the best in the series, 20 years after the game's release.
3 Spongebob Squarepants: Battle For Bikini Bottom
Spongebob Squarepants is the most popular children's cartoon of all time, so it's only fitting that it received one of the best tie-in games of the PS2 era. Battle for Bikini Bottom is a typical collectathon, influenced by classics like Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64.
While it doesn't quite stand toe-to-toe with the classics that inspired it, there's no denying that Battle for Bikini Bottom is an incredible game. Rather than re-tell classic episodes from the show's past, Battle for Bikini Bottom takes small elements from the best parts of Spongebob's classic pre-movie seasons to create the best Spongebob game ever.
2 South Park: The Fractured But Whole
South Park: The Fractured But Whole is one of the best tactics RPGs in recent years. No, really. The second of the South Park RPGs takes what made the Stick of Truth so great and wraps it up into an even tighter package. The combat is incredibly well-designed, full of tactical decisions and absurd humor that breaks up the action.
The Fractured But Whole trades in The Stick of Truth's fantasy aesthetic for a sprawling superhero story that sees its beloved cast of characters stumble through disaster after disaster as they attempt to play an innocent game of superhero dress-up. If you like South Park even a tiny amount, The Fractured But Whole is absolutely worth playing.
1 The Simpsons: Hit & Run
The Simpsons: Hit & Run is many people's first thought when they think of a great tie-in video game. GTA-goes-Simpsons is an unlikely mashup that went right in every possible way, leading to fans clamoring for a remaster every day since remasters became the money machine they now are.
Hit & Run does just about everything right when it comes to adapting an existing universe into a video game format. References to the show are handled excellently and fill the game. The unexpected racing mechanics bring a new angle to the world of the show yet fit in perfectly with the established personalities of the Simpson family.