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"Do You Believe In The Batman?"

Gotham City is nearing it's bicentennial festival, and is unrelented by the recent wave of crime plaguing the fair city. As Batman you must fight to protect the citizens of Gotham against all threats using a variety of gadgets, including boomerangs and shurikens, as well as hand to hand techniques. The crimelord Joker must be put down once and for all, and it is up to you to do it.

Batman is an action/platformer based very loosely on the movie of the same name, Batman(1989). They share very little of the same elements as many 8 bit games based on movies did. The protagonist is Batman, the antagonist is Joker, the location is Gotham City, Batman has a killer car, and that's about as much as they have in common.

Visuals 8/10

Despite some minor quirks and flaws, Batman looks marvelous. Each of the 5 stages, especially Axis Chemicals, look very detailed for an NES game, and sport a wide variety of locales, despite all taking place within Gotham City. The art style strangely, is nothing like the movie however. I'm not sure if it's a good or a bad thing, but the artwork seems to give off an air of cyberpunk rather than the dark gothic style that the movies and comics grimly portray. There's lots of steamworks, robotics, lasers, gears, and all sorts of things that really have no place in the Batman mythos. It's all put together and presented stunningly well however, so big points for that.

Another oddity this game includes is even stranger. For some reason all enemies you defeat burst into flames. While this would make sense if you use the rocket gun, it doesn't when the combustion occurs even when simply beating an opponent to death with your fists. Not only that but after Batman himself has taken one too many hits he strangely ignites and turns to dust. I really can't understand who came up with the decision to include this feature but it's borders on nutty.

The cutscenes that occur between levels are nicely done and surprisingly contain some animation. Granted it's archaic, old animation but still it's animation. The colors are a bit muddled however, with a greenish batmobile, and an oddly colored Joker, but they still look superb. This strange colorization is not only present during cinematics as the caped crusader himself is painted in a blue hue rather than his black movie color during gameplay. Whether they did this as an homage to the blue Batman from the 60s TV show, or just to help the player see Batman better remains a mystery.

Sound 9/10

Sunsoft did an outstanding job with the music and sound effects, although I do have to bump a point off because again like the art style it's nothing at all like the movies. Granted Danny Elfman and Prince don't transfer well to the NES's less than stellar sound chip, but I'm sure if they wanted to score something similar to the movie's superb atmosphere they could have.

In place of the movie's dark melodic soundtrack, is a relatively fast-paced action game soundtrack that I liken to games like Contra. The beats make even the most musically apathetic stiffs want to bob their heads. Another nod to the Axis Chemicals stage for having my favorite song in the game. Groovy stuff. Not just any ordinary grooviness, but groovy enough that it actually has been remixed several times.

The sound effects are all top notch as well. The explosive punches not only are exaggerated visually but they sound pretty silly and comical. Not laugh out loud comical, more comical in an Indiana Jones sense, where it sounded more like heads of lettuce being punched. The lasers, flames, explosions, power-up pickups, and even the death jingle all mesh together well with the cyberpunk atmosphere of the game.

Gameplay 9/10

The first thing noticeable once you take control of the dark knight, well the azure knight, is the way he gracefully moves. Unlike the ten-dozen other action games on Nintendo this pixelated hero moves with great ease. It's the typical 2 button setup of punch and jump, however it all works fluidly in this game. (Edit: If you've read my other reviews you must think of me as a control-freak by now) Jumping can be executed with a great degree of precision with regards to height and distance, even with the archaic digital pad. I really have no idea how Sunsoft managed to pull this off, but they did and it shows. This is truly one of the best platforming experiences of the 80s. This is also one of the first games that used the wall kick off technique that was popularized by Megaman in the X series.

You'll be making extensive use of the wall kick-off throughout the game from start to finish. It's a lot of fun and makes most of the older platformers seem kind of slow and boring in comparison.

The combat itself is fairly simple, and can be a bit of a pest at times. This is the only reason why the game did not earn a perfect score in this department. It's something that can be rectified by using the 4 button pad of the PSP or using a PC keyboard, but it's still a difficulty. I'm referring to the 3 weapons that Batman carries. Obviously since the NES pad only had 2 action buttons, swapping through weapons with nonexistant shoulder buttons was an impossibility, so you were relegated to hitting the start button to change weapons on the fly, while the select button pauses the game. This swap is a bit of an oddity at first, but it was done simply out of necessity (the start button being closer the action buttons). Other than that nuisance it works out well. The 3 weapons are varied and can be used for harder situations where swooping in and punching an enemy to death is impossible. The first weapon is a gun that fires small rockets straight at the enemy, the second is a boomerang which like any knucklehead knows, you throw and it comes back to you, the third is a shuriken type weapon that you hurl straght at the opponent and splits into 3 weak shurikens that damage a much larger area.

Like any 8 bit action game this game's plot is characterized by the hero's impetuous struggle to move from the left side of the screen to the right, destroying everything that gets in his way, capping off with boss fights that range from mildly difficult to lock up all the guns in the house and throw away the key. Athough they are difficult, each of the boss fights are vastly different in required technique and execution. They're not the simple "kill the much larger pixellated blob" affairs that a lot of other games throw at you.

The difficulty of the levels themselves rises at a mild rate, aside from the sewer level that will make you want to gouge your eyes out however. Everyone I know who has played the game unanimously agrees the sewer equals hell, you'll find out why for yourself, I don't want to spoil anything.

Overall it's quite a sizeable game. It spans 5 stages each with multiple substages that you definetly will not be able to conquer your first few attempts, and even if you do manage to get to the final boss, the Joker is quite a pain in Batman's blue leathered ass. Although it's really not much like the movie, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's a great experience for those who yearn to rekindle their love for retro action.


Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/03/05