Welcome to another edition of Playing With Power. The review article that looks at all things Nintendo Entertainment System. When it comes to superheroes and video games, without a doubt no superhero has made a better transition than Batman. Despite a few clunkers here and there, the dark knight may be the one superhero with the most consistent amount of good to amazing video games. That’s certainly more than what could be said about Superman, that’s for darn sure. So, to see if that statement holds true, this week we’ll look at one of the three NES Batman games. Does it live up to the standards of the caped crusader? Or is it just another one of Joker’s boners?
Oh, you know what I mean.
Year of Release: 1991
Publisher: Sunsoft
Genre: Action Shooter
In the summer of 1989, Tim Burton’s Batman opened to theaters among massive critical and box office success. Naturally, any success usually sees its way to the video game market. In 1990, company Sunsoft would release Batman: The Video Game. The game was very loosely based on the movie as Batman had to deal with Joke Nicholson.. I mean, The Joker and the chaos he was causing throughout Gotham City. However, despite not being a faithful adaptation to the film (but to be honest, what game ever is?), this was still an amazing game on the console. Excellent music, great graphics, and a tough but solid difficulty level. Plus some unique gameplay ideas for its time like Batman’s cling and wall jump ability. The game earned high critical praise, and ended up being a strong seller on the console.
Naturally, Sunsoft would take the success of the game and make a sequel. The only snag was that there was no official Batman movie sequel out yet. Batman Returns was still a year away. So Sunsoft went their own route and created their own original game based very loosely on the ending of the original game. Thus, Batman Return of the Joker was born. The game would be ported to various other consoles. One for the Game Boy (which was a completely different game), and a Genesis port called “Revenge of the Joker”, which was an almost exact port of the NES version. A Super Nintendo version was in the works, but for unknown reasons (possibly Sunsoft’s losing the Batman license to Konami by then), the game was scrapped entirely. There is however a rom of the SNES version online.
COVER STORY
Time for a new segment of the Playing With Power articles, where we look at the box art for the game, and see how well it holds up.
The cover is one of my favorites on the NES, but I will admit it actually scared me as a kid. The Joker himself already was a very frightening figure to me as a youngster. So seeing this picture in the comic books with that menacing smile, and the bat signal in his eyes was goose bump inducing. Now that I’m older, I love this box art. The Joker is well drawn, and as I said, looks very menacing and scary. It’s like he’s inviting you to take him on and defeat him. So, chalk this one up as a good cover.
STORY
Well, it seems like not even being thrown off the Gotham City cathedral can keep a good clown down. The Joker has returned, and is stealing precious metals to make his own supply of missiles. The only one who can stop him is Batman of course. It’s up to Batman to get to the Island Joker is hiding out on, and put a stop to the madman once and for all.
GAMEPLAY
Batman: Return of the Joker is a side-scrolling shooter game. You play as Batman, who has to traverse across seven stages to face off with the Joker and his minions. To do so, Batman has to shoot down his enemies and any mechanized terrors that come your way, through eache stage to make it to the end. Each stage is usually broken into 2-3 portions.
The D-Pad controls Batman, who can move with left and right, duck with Down, and shoot upward if needed with Up. The A Button is Batman’s jump command, and the B button is the fire button. You control your weapon in two ways. Tapping B will fire a basic shot, while holding B will activate a charged shot that can do more damage, and sometimes work as a shield to help in tight spots. When it comes to weapons in the game, gone are the dart gun and dirks from the last game. In their place are batarangs, crossbows, sonic neutralizers, and shield stars. Each weapon is found in certain crates, or dropped from defeated enemies. Each are represented by a letter (N for Sonic Neutralizer, B for Batarang, etc).
You can only carry one weapon at a time, so choose wisely. Though an alternative method is to constantly fire at the item box. It will cause the item to shift letters until it vanishes, so get the one you seek before it’s too late. Another item you can gain is the backpack energy capsule. If you collect eight of these, you will gain a short invincibility time, that can be really helpful in tight spots.
While this is a sorta-sequel to the previous Batman game, it doesn’t retain any of the gameplay elements of the former. Gone is the wall jumping ability, as well as the punching ability that feels more authentic to Batman than using blasters to obliterate his foes. I do find the controls can be a bit clunky at times as well, but they can still handle well without too many issues. Also, unlike the former, there aren’t any cut scenes either. Just the demo cinematic and the credits. While this isn’t a major problem, it is a bit of a letdown.
There is plenty of level variety. You start at what looks to be the Gotham Cathedral. From there you traverse rooftops, head through factories, deal with stock snow and lava stages, and finally head to the Island where the Joker is hiding out. Along the way you’ll deal with plenty of stock thugs and robot soldiers. That’s pretty much it when it comes to main enemies save for one or two different enemies in the snow level (giant spiders and these weird guys that whip tornadoes at you). While there isn’t too much in actual enemies, there are plenty of hazards to make up for that. There are pitfalls to jump over, electrified floors, spinning saw blades, spiked ceilings that descend and ascend, and so much more.
Now while that’s challenge enough, I do feel some enemy placement can be pretty cheap. Like enemies and projectiles you have to avoid while on precarious platforms. Other than that, I’d say the difficulty is average. Don’t misconstrue though, there is still plenty of challenge, and this game certainly won’t be one you beat in a single sitting. Thankfully there are plenty of continues (though set to a 9 second timer), and a password. And unlike nightmare password modes like Monster Party, this one is thankfully 4 characters long, and no real hassle of upper or lower case letters/numbers to deal with.
The game has three different modes of gameplay you’ll encounter throughout. First is the basic platforming levels like i’ve glossed over. But there are also the auto-scrolling shooter levels. In these stages, Batman will fly on a jet pack as he shoots down enemies and robots that get in his way, while avoiding perils like spiked orbs, as he makes it to the end of the level. I find these levels to be pretty easy, and control pretty well. also, the enemies and obstacles can be pretty easy to conquer.
And then there’s the very unique boss battles. In the last act of certain stages (the ones without the auto-scroll shooter stages), you’ll face off with the boss. However, the big gimmick change is instead of health bars, or a set number of hits, both you and the boss are given health scores at the bottom of the screen. Points will deplete with the more damage done to either one of you. Victory occurs when either Batman or the boss is depleted to a score of 0. This is actually a pretty cool and unique idea for a boss battle, and I like it a lot. It’ s something I wish more games replicated better. And just like the previous Batman games, the bosses are for the most part pretty basic. Just enemy soldiers, evil machines, and finally The Joker… who also uses robots to fight you. I dunno, I didn’t like that when it came to the final boss fight of the game. It lacked the epic feel of the previous Batman game.
GRAPHICS
This game has some of the best graphics on the NES bar none. Pushing the console to its limit with excellently detailed backgrounds, and bigger and far more detailed sprites. This isn’t too shocking since this was when Sunsoft were at the top of their game when it comes to Graphics. And this one was definitely proof of that.
MUSIC
Just like the graphics, the music is top notch. The soundtrack not only has some intense tunes, but a higher, nearly 16-bit quality to it Thanks to the works of Naoki Kodaka, Hara Nouyuki, and Shinichi Seya, who had worked on other amazing Sunsoft soundtracks such as Ufouria, Blaster Master, and Journey to Silius. My only real gripe is that I don’t think all of the songs are really catchy and memorable, save for the first level tune. But that aside, it still can’t be denied that this game’s soundtrack is absolute quality.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
Batman: Return of the Joker isn’t perfect by any means. Mainly due to being overshadowed by a far better Batman game the company had previously released. It does suffer from minor control issues, some cheapness, and lacking in the cool features the original had. But if you remove that shadow, you still get a solid game. It’s impressive graphically and musically, and has it’s on unique and original gameplay ideas like the boss battles. So in the end, I’d say it’s okay. There are far better action platformers on the console, and far better Batman games, but this one still holds its own. If you can find a copy, give it a play. This is certainly not a bad joke.
Rating: Thumbs Up