It seems like most of the Simpsons video games are widely despised, I think it's because many of them are frustratingly difficult, not sure off-hand if it's anything else (I should go back and rewatch The Angry Video Game Nerd's reviews of the games and The Nostalgia Critic's "Let's Play" of Bart's Nightmare and see if they mentioned anything bad besides the difficult), and yet the arcade game seems to be one of the few universally praised Simpsons games (too bad they couldn't put it on consoles besides computers), but the arcade game is also difficult. The first level is easy, I'm not sure what the average difficult level is (I've never made it past the third level, and only made it past the second level once, and as an adult at that). Not sure if it's frustratingly hard, but arcade games are generally made to be difficult to get people putting in more quarters (though I think the first levels of arcade platforms/beat 'em ups are generally easy).
And there are Simpsons games that I was unable to get past the first level of (Bart vs. the World, Night of the Living Treehouse of Horror, Krusty's Fun House), but there are also Simpsons games I could at least pass the first level of (Bart vs. The World, The Simpsons Game), though I have rarely been able to pass any of the mini-games in Bart's Nightmare and I've never been able to pass any of the platform mini-games in Virtual Bart.
So what makes the arcade game so universially liked while the other games are so disliked?