270 · Batman: The Video Game
The NES version of Batman: The Video Game is loosely based on the 1989 movie. It is a side-scrolling game, with a blue dressed Batman fighting enemies such as robots, jet-packed soldiers, ninjas and mutants.
Sunsoft made and published this side-scroller in 1990. It is loosely based on the 1989 movie: five stages, the Joker at the end, and not much else. The box promises a Batman who is "totally new, totally tough," and we agreed Tim Burton's Batman would never say "totally." We expected bad news and found a hard game with a feel of its own. The Essential vote split.
What works
- It feels heavy, on purpose. This isn't Mario momentum. You plant yourself and punch hard, like a big, burly billionaire dressed as a bat.
- The wall jump. We called it the gold standard for NES wall jumping, with a Prince of Persia feel. Unlike Ryu in Ninja Gaiden you can't just hang there, you press A off the wall. A tap is a normal jump and a hold is the Batman jump.
- Enemy placement. Enemies don't constantly spawn, so the platforming matters as much as the fighting.
The gadgets
You get a spear gun (we decided it's Nerf), a batarang and a three-way shot, all from one ammo pool, so yes, even the boomerang runs out of ammo.
Opinions split. They are strictly projectiles, a missed chance next to Batman's utility belt. But the batarang arcs wider if you jump out of the way of its return, and choosing between boomerang and spread shot made us stop and think.
What doesn't
- Hard, with a thin health bar. Some hits cost more than one bar, and losing ranged ammo is crippling. One workaround: reach a boss with a life to spare, die, restart at the boss at full health, then die on purpose to start the next stage with fresh lives.
- The bosses. The patterns are learnable, but you die several times learning each, and some felt like timed set pieces more than fights. The first two seemed fair to others.
- Start cycles your gadgets. It is also pause, which led to accidental pauses. Making up jump would be clunky for wall jumps.
- A loose story. The cutscenes have nice sprites but don't connect to the stage you just played.
Worth knowing
In a prototype, the last boss was just Firebug, with Batman beating the Joker in a cutscene. Sunsoft's PC Engine Batman is a top-down puzzler like Adventures of Lolo, and it never came to North America.
The bottom line
Play it. The vote split: Joe voted it onto the Essential Games List, Mike and Sean voted no, so it did not make it. Joe only got to the third stage, but said the challenge never felt unfair and it made him feel like Batman, as far as an NES game can. The no votes liked it but found it uneven: great controls, weaker bosses, and difficulty that ramps up fast.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
- He’s totally new. Totally Tough. And he’ll stop at nothing to make sure justice prevails
- NES Longplay
- Introductions
- And that back of the box was totally tonally off right?
- This isn’t just a Batman Video Game, like the box would have you believe, it’s Batman: The Movie: The Game.
- Overview
- In this side scrolling action game, play as batman through five levels loosely based on the 1989 film before a final showdown with the Joker
- Gameplay
- It’s kind of a meme now to say the Arkham games really make you feel like Batman. So since I can’t resist a meme, does this game make you feel like Batman?
- The Levels
- Wall Jumping
- Some areas where it seems like you just have to take damage
- The cutscenes between levels don’t exactly connect with what happened in the levels
- Bat-Gadgets
- the batarang, batdisk, and batpoon
- The problem with the gadgets is cycling through them just to get back to your punch. They are very useful against tougher enemies though
- Enemies
- A number of notable DC Comics villains appear as low-level minions in the game, including Deadshot, KGBeast, Maxie Zeus, Heat Wave, Shakedown, and Nightslayer.
- The bosses in the game are Killer Moth, the “Machine Intelligence System”, the Electrocutioner, a machine known as “the Dual-Container Alarm”, Firebug, and the Joker.
- The penultimate boss will be skipped in the continued play if the player reached the Joker previously, so the player can directly fight the Joker next time.
- The NES version is also considered by many players and reviewers to be one of the most difficult games ever released for the system.
- The prototype version of the game had some significant differences, such as a 1UP icon and entirely different cut-scenes. The game's original last boss was Firebug and there was no Joker boss. Instead, Batman defeats the Joker in the ending cut-scene. The art and dialogue were changed from the prototype to the final version to better reflect the look and events from the movie.
- Sequels and Spinoffs
- Just wanna talk about the other BATMAN movie games
- The Genesis version is more faithful to the movie, but deemed too short and uninteresting.
- Game Boy versions has Batman attacking with a gun and is arguably the least related title to the movie. Batman did use a gun in Year 2 (which is stupid and does not personally happen in my own comic timeline)
- Batman for the PC Engine is an action-puzzle game, developed by Sunsoft and released in 1990 only in Japan. For unknown reasons the game was never released in North America for the TurboGrafx-16.
- Just wanna talk about the other BATMAN movie games
- EGL
- Next week - Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum
- NEStalgia Byte - Chaos World
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Batman, the video game. He's totally new, totally tough, and he'll stop at nothing to make sure justice prevails.
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. And that back of the box was totally, totally off, right? Oh, sorry, can you say it again? Yeah, it was, he's totally new, totally tough. Like, nobody, Batman, maybe in the 60s for the Adam West version, but like, this is loosely based off of the 1989 film, and I just feel like that doesn't make any sense, right?
I mean, you know, it's only a year old, this is how most people were introduced to Batman. Not really. I don't know. You're right, it's off. Yeah, it's totally new, just in reference to, like, yeah, because it's the new movie. Yes, that's what I would be thinking of. Or is it like, hey, we came up with a new idea, Batman.
No, I think it's the movie, but even then, like, the movie is really, it's not, it's not like they reinvented Batman in this movie. Now, I understand that the movie did wonders for Batman, like, as a brand, and like, you know, reignited a lot of, you know, interest in the general population. Of course, comic people were already having their Batman renaissance with Batman Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, being two comics that were released the two previous years from the release of this film.
But, nevertheless, I don't think that the Tim Burton world of Batman ever would have used the word totally, you know? Yeah, maybe not. I don't think that that would have flown there, and I don't think, even in this loosely based NES game, and I'm going to keep mentioning that it's loosely based, because, obviously, Batman, the video game, is using imagery from the movie, but that's kind of where the similarities stop. Like, yeah, you have the Joker at the end of the game, but otherwise, like, this is not
yourself, like, being Batman working through the plot of the movie. It's just a Batman video game that happened to come out after the release of the movie, so they said, yeah, we could do this, we could tie them together. They didn't call it Batman the movie the game, which is a step up, they just called it Batman the video game, but it's definitely not the movie. Yeah, I mean, the fact that one of the first things that you might do when playing this game is go through your sort of utility belt and find a gun, you know that it's not entirely, like, Batman researched.
Is it like a gun gun, or does it shoot some weird, like, rocket propelled, like, gadget or something? It says it shoots a spear, which sounds worse than a gun. Yeah. It says it's Batman's spear gun, which, again, is funny, but to shoot a short pointed spear at the enemies, so not sure how Stark Bullets it is. As long as it's not a totally not K in Batman's book. Yeah, they're all dull tips. They forgot to mention that part. It's Nerf. Right. And, yes, he does have his Batarang as well, and then he has the Dirk, but I just consider that a, like, what are those things? Ninja Stars, you know, like, the Dirk. I don't know if that's an actual reference. You mean, like, the big gun, where it turns into three bullets?
Is that what that is? I guess it is. Yeah, yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah, it's the one that shoots in three different directions. I was thinking of the symbol. The symbol looked like a Ninja Star.
Got it, got it. Yeah, okay. I like that triple one. I use that quite often, but I had a question. I don't know what it was. Oh, you know what? Speaking of the Batarang, though, that thing. Now, this is just a, don't even take this as a complaint. It's just a funny little thing I noticed, where the whole point of this boomerang coming back to you is it comes back to you, right?
Why do you have ammo for that? I keep running out of ammo for my boomerang. It's all the times he didn't catch it. It looks like he caught it, but he didn't. I'm watching him catch it. No, no, no. It just looks like it. Yeah, no, you guys all bring up great points. We're not going to talk about the movie, I suppose, unless anybody feels strongly about the Tim Burton Batman movie.
It was fine. Fine. Interesting. I don't really remember much of it. Some people still think it's one of the best. I mean, it's a good movie. Yeah. I wouldn't say it's up there, though. I think it's a good movie. I don't think it's up there. Yeah, I don't think... I prefer the Nolan movies, but I don't have any... I like the aesthetic of the old ones, you know? Or at least this one. The other ones were terrible.
No, no, no. The next one, Batman Returns, with Danny DeVito as the penguin. That one, aesthetically, took everything up another notch. Yeah, that... I guess I meant more so the Jerry Bruckheimer ones. Got it, yeah, yeah. Clooney and Kilmer. Yeah, with the nipples. You know. Is this... Oh, yeah. But this is, like, officially licensed, though, right? Of, like, of that movie. Yes. Not just Batman the character. Yeah, he says lines in the movie at some point, right?
Like, clearly Jack Nicholson? Maybe not clearly Jack Nicholson. Maybe I didn't see as many cutscenes as you, but... I'd say that, like, it's at least saying lines from the movie, so it's 100% based on the movie. Yeah, it's clearly Jack Nicholson as much as the main menu screen when you first see Batman is clearly Michael Keaton. Like, it's pixelated, so it's like, ah, you could make the argument. Like, I doubt they paid Michael Keaton in any shape or form for this. But, you know, it looks close enough, and that's definitely the same exact costume he wore in the movie.
Well, the image that I'm talking about, I mean, I was not really thinking about the movie. I'd forgotten that Jack Nicholson was in the movie, and I saw his sprite, and I was like, oh, that's a sprite of Jack Nicholson. Like, I immediately jumped out at me. Got it, got it. That is funny. I do know which one you're talking about because it's also in the manual. You're talking about when you're, like, he's on those TVs?
Oh, yeah. I don't remember. I'm scrubbing through right now here. It's in, like, when you get, it's the stage four when you get to the laboratory. Yes, yeah. Yeah. So you thought, like, wow, Batman went to that hotel in Colorado? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I knew that Jack Nicholson was in the movie, but I just, like, had forgotten, and it just shocked me for a second to see. What is that, the Overlook Hotel? The Overlook Hotel, yeah. Yeah, okay. All right. So, Hotel in Colorado or the Overlook Hotel, you know, they're both famous.
Yeah. Anyway, to get back on track, in this side-scrolling action game, you play as Batman through five levels, loosely based. And again, they're words, not mine, but loosely based on the 1989 film before a final showdown with the Joker. And I know it's kind of a meme to say that, you know, the Arkham games really make you feel like Batman. So, since I can't resist saying it as well, if the test of a Batman video game is whether you feel like Batman or not, does this game make you feel like Batman? If not Batman, it makes me feel like Batman. I'm a mutant video game character.
Because I'd say when it comes to these side-scrollers, a lot of them just sort of either try and emulate Mario, or they do something completely different, or they do something completely failure-tastic. Whereas I think this one actually has its own feel and style to it, where things feel fluid, but not like Mario. And the parts that don't really feel fluid feel intentionally heavy, because you're a big, burly, billionaire dressed as a bat. A lot of bees in there. It's beautiful.
So, yeah, I don't know. I think the jury's still loud on feeling like Batman, but yeah, I feel at least like a unique character. See, I will say that taking out all the context of today, and taking out the idea of Arkham Asylum games, in 1990, I'd say that this loosely makes me feel like Batman, in much more subtle ways. But I think that that heaviness, or weight to the character that you're talking about, Sean, really stood out to me.
And I think that usually when we talk about weight to a character, we are talking about Mario as the gold standard, because he has that momentum, and he slides a bit. But this is more the opposite. You feel heavy in the fact that you stick in where you are, where you feel like you're like Batman, and you're throwing your weight around.
And I'm not the biggest Batman guy, so maybe this isn't the way that he fights, but when I picture Batman, he's not Spider-Man. He's not doing acrobatics, he's not jumping around. He's planting himself and punching people hard. And I did feel like I was doing that. Yeah. But he still has some acrobatics, but it's in a much more... physical way. Yeah, it's a lot more precision, and they feel like the way Batman would do acrobatics.
Yeah. And this may not be totally in line with what we were just saying, but there's also this kind of Prince of Persia feel to it, with how central to navigation wall jumping is. And as far as NES games go, this is sort of the gold standard, I feel, to wall jumping. Again, it feels heavy, but it also has an ease to it that still feels skill-based,
that I think just shows you whether it's light or heavy or whatever adjective you want to use. It is well designed. The wall jump here is a little different than what we saw in Ninja Gaiden, where Ryu would just kind of hang on the wall. But it's also different from other wall jumps where it requires incredibly precise timing on your wall jump. This feels, at the same time, it feels as good as Ryu's, but with a little more...
You know, you still have to... You can't just hang on the wall. You do have to press the A button off the wall to go to jump to the other direction. But kind of like how you press the A button, too... Yeah. Both on a wall jump and in just a regular jump, like, affects it as well, which is like a nice touch to all the platforming. In the manual, it describes it as a normal jump, which is just tapping the A button, and then a press and hold, which is the Batman jump.
And even though they don't really do it in the pixel art, I got the impression that the Batman jump has, like, the maneuverability of using the cape. Yeah. Where it, like, holds a little bit, and I agree. I think that, in a weird way, some people will complain about the sluggishness of Batman, but in the way that they've laid out the game here, the way that, like, enemies don't just constantly spawn on screen,
the platforming is just as important as the action element, so you kind of have to both deal with, you know, pitfalls, but also deal with enemies. Like, I feel like they got it right in terms of where Batman should be on the acrobatic side, but also on the dealing with enemies. That said, there are totally moments in this game that the enemies aren't well placed. And there are times in this game where I've felt, like, you either use the, one of the Batman weapons, which is fine, right? I mean, you could do the pacifist run and not use the gun, right? Like, they're all the same ammo. Whether you use the gun, the batarang, or the dirk, it doesn't matter because they're all coming from the same ammo source.
When you use them, you kind of have to because there are some, like, platforms that have an enemy there, and, like, you'll either have to jump onto the platform and take some form of damage before you can start wailing on them, or you use the item. And then there's other times where it's like, well, it doesn't really matter either way because you're just going to have to take some form of damage. And I couldn't confirm that or not, but even just watching, like, there was one particular thing on stage two where I was watching a long play
after I couldn't figure out, like, how not to take damage. And then they just skipped it too. They were like, no, I'm just going to take damage as well. Yeah, just tank it. Right, and I was like, what happens if that was your last, like, you know, bar on your health meter?
I think, yeah, you just got to restart. But I will say that there are definitely parts in this game, particularly boss fights, where having ammo for the boss fight is imperative. Like, I don't even think it's possible, especially with the boss of level 2, which is just sort of like this Rube Goldberg machine of shit just getting shot at you. I don't think you can punch everything.
I think you can, actually. Really? Because I got there the first time, yeah, this funny, like, boss, which is, like, the room is the boss. But I got there the first time without any ammo. And unfortunately, I was kind of dying already, but I got to a point where I would, like, duck under the thing that's shooting at me, jump up, and punch between every shot. Because it would do, like, a...
It would, like, shoot three bullets and then, like, retract for a second. So I could, like, duck under the bullets, jump up, punch a couple times. I ended up dying anyways, but I was making progress. Then I went back there and beat it much more easily with weapons. Sounds incredibly tedious. Yeah. But it didn't seem, like, crazy. Like, it didn't seem like it was, like, going to take me a half hour if I could have not died. But who knows? It does, though, you know, because you are limited in the ammo, it does create some awkward moments with the fist fighting where, if you know an enemy is coming, you just kind of stand in place and just punch repeatedly until the enemy kind of, like, walks into you. I don't know if you guys did that specifically.
But, like, yeah, I don't know. That's not something Batman would do. It's something that works in this game. But it's an awkward thing instead of a... And, look, this game doesn't have to be, like... Arkham Asylum where every takedown is cool and slow-mo and stuff like that. Like, I'm not asking for that. I do just wish that they figured out a way... I don't know. Bat gadgets or bat weapons, whatever they're called. Like, those things are so a part of the character that I would have liked to have seen them just be more than just projectiles.
Yeah, particularly... I mean, I don't mind some of them being projectiles. I know I kind of joked about it before, but, like, that boomerang, that should just be a thing that you have. Yeah. Like, contextually but also gameplay-wise, it would have been nice. I think it would have helped with balance, because I know that we've been touching upon it, but... This is just a very hard game, and losing any kind of ranged attack is pretty crippling, unless you have devoted a significant amount of time to mastering this game. So, having at least this sort of low-range batarang just always with you would have been helpful.
And it's one of those hard games, too, because I feel like Batman's, as they described in the manual, power life. I'm not sure what the difference between Batman's life and Batman's power life are, but, you know, that bar isn't exactly, you know, robust. And if you take hits from certain enemies, it's more than just one bar, too. And this is the kind of game where you can't be perfect, and Batman's never really perfect, to be honest, either. So, it is a tough thing to manage your health all the way to the end of a stage. Yeah, I agree.
I would very often get to a boss, and then just get one shot, even though... It was very... I throw the word around a lot, but it was the very, like, Dark Souls of it. Like, you just keep getting through it, and it basically just turned into a boss run. And then you get to the boss, and you have nothing to really defend yourself with, so you may as well just restart anyway.
But there isn't, like, a respawn button, so... I don't know. That was just sort of my experience with it. I found myself more managing my deaths, if that makes any sense, where I would just try to get to the boss with one life left. Because then I knew that I could die and restart and still be at the boss without getting a game over, where I'd have to go back to the beginning of the stage.
But I'd die with one life left, still be at the boss, and then I could kill the boss with my gadgets, hopefully. Then I would go on to the next stage, just die on purpose. So that way I start the next stage right away with, like, all three or four of my lives, and try to get to the next boss with at least one life left, so I can respawn, you know, and just kind of kept doing it that way. Granted, I think sometimes I had to, like, respawn a little earlier and, like, get gadgets ahead of time, but...
For the most part... Or maybe it was more so for the health, rather, than the gadgets. I'm trying to remember... Actually, you might not spawn with, like, a ton of gadgets all the time. But it was for my health, for, like, the one-hit KO of it all. Like, if I had one hit left, I wouldn't want to face the boss like that. So as long as I had one more life, I could start the boss full health. That's an interesting strategy. I didn't think of that.
And, you know, the game is considered hard by many hardcore NES fans, no doubt, but it is a weird kind of hard, where... Not that the game can be made easier, but it is more manageable the more you slow down, which feels weird for Batman as well, right? Like, not that it should be, like, you know, blitzing your way through this stuff, but Batman is a, you know... There's always that joke of how much time do Batman have to plan, and then he could kill anybody.
Or, sorry, he doesn't kill. But, you know, that idea in mind, it is kind of true in this game, because enemies don't just respawn on screen, that if you just be more methodical and time out certain things, like, if you slow down the gameplay a little bit, you'll find yourself, at least in my position, like, getting through the level more efficiently than if you just think, like,
Oh, well, I can take this hit and just get through this, or, oh, I can just, uh, I can beat this enemy, but this enemy is gonna hit me. It's like, if you just slow it down and work on using the gadgets appropriately to kill the proper enemy and then use your fist for a different enemy, you know, there's all different kinds of enemies, which we should get to in a second, because I don't recognize any of these guys.
But, um, but that's not a problem right now. The problem right now is that I just don't think that, I wound up actually taking the fun out of the game for me. It's not, it's not a puzzle, right? It's just that to preserve health, you have to go slow. It'd be like, you know, in Mario, to, you know, to get this right, you know, make sure you think about the jump beforehand. It's like, I don't know, you just kind of want to run and jump, right?
Like, the game that's designed to go straight. I don't know. Yeah, I don't think I feel the same way about that. I feel like that the, the kind of, it never felt like I had to, like, sit there and, like, really, really put a lot of, like, thought that, like, stopped down the flow of the gameplay. It just felt like the flow of the gameplay was intentionally more methodical and slower.
That's exactly the word I was going to use. I don't think that, I agree that it is more methodical, but I wouldn't say that it intrinsically makes it more boring. I mean, you may, you may feel that way, but I, I don't. I think, I think what Joe might have been doing might have been a bit more tedious than what I would like, but in general.
Well, yeah, that was more out of necessity based on my skill level. So these enemies, uh, you know, obviously we're not expecting, you know, just a hundred Riddlers to be who we fight, right? Like, you got to have some kind of grunts doing, uh, doing the work through most of these stages. And they could have just been guys, bad guys with guns, right? Like that would have, that would have been enough, right?
Uh, but there's, there's a weird mix of like, yeah, the Joker's in this game, but then like his henchman or his main henchman is this guy, Firebug, who I'm, I'm certain hasn't been in more than like probably 50 issues of Batman over his 80 years. But, uh, you got Firebug, but even just like the, the regular enemies you get in this game, you don't really see anybody that's like, oh yeah, yeah, neat. Like that guy, like, I don't know. I think it's strange who they chose from and I wonder how you choose.
So is Firebug like just one guy in like the actual Batman comics? Yeah, just one guy. And he just appeared. See, that's weirder to me. I thought it was like, okay, maybe there are no, like, I don't know if there's like a particular like faction of people that would be recognizable because of a uniform that you could put in there. So they just put random people. But the fact that they took a character and just copy and paste them over and over again, that's a little funky, but did they? Interesting. No, no, no. Firebug is the guy at the end, Joe. Um, the flamethrower guy. I thought you were talking about the flamethrower guy as like just being a regular enemy.
Oh, yeah. Then forget everything I said. Yeah, I think the weirdest thing about this game is that it seems to just, I mean, again, this is loosely based off the movie, but it seems to take it, take place in an alternate like cyberpunk universe where the Joker is more of a mad computer scientist or something. There's a lot of robots in this. And I think like, I know that especially in the Arkham games, which are probably my primary non-movie exposure to Batman. There are robots, but they're not, there aren't that many.
Maybe this is a Batman Beyond game. Possibly. And, you know, some of these guys, like, you're not even sure if that's who they're referencing, like, when you go and look back at their Wikipedia pages. So the guy you were talking about, um, Joe, I think his name is. That's the Batman who laughs. No, no. That's, his name is Heat Wave. And Heat Wave could just be a cool name for an enemy, right? Like, all right, cool.
Uh, the generic enemy that shoots fire, let's call him Heat Wave. But there is a Heat Wave in the DC universe, but he's mostly like a Flash enemy who then, like, the first time he ever showed up in a Batman thing was for the Batman, the Brave and the Bold animated series, which would be after this game was released. So somehow they might have chosen to use a Flash villain in a Batman game that's based on a movie where Heat Wave definitely wasn't in. So it's just strange. And also I know for a fact that, uh, you don't even have to watch the movie to know that, like, Firebug is not the Joker's most trusted bodyguard.
Wait, so did you, you said it was called, this cartoon, The Brave and the Bold? Yeah, The Brave and the Bold. That sounds like a, like a soap opera. The Young and the Restless, Batman, The Brave and the Bold.
I think actually Batman, The Brave and the Bold, first off, 65 episodes, so kudos to them. You know, that's a lot. I think it's actually one of the, uh, more regarded, uh, animated Batman series. Now, obviously nowhere up there with Batman, the animated series, but there were a lot of stinkers in between.
Okay. Not to talk about cartoons, of course. Uh, the enemies. We're grownups. Forget the fact that you don't know who the heck they are. Um, these enemies, are they, are they annoying? Are they, um, you know, we talked about how they're not, like, randomly generated and they're not just constantly spawning and everything, so at least they have proper placement and everything. But were there some that were, like, those moving minds? Were you just like, uh, get out of here?
Like? I didn't really have a problem with the, like, mob design. I more had a problem with the boss design because they all seem to be, like, they all seem to, to, to be designed to be frustrating, uh, in their patterns. And I know that they all have patterns and they're all learnable, but, uh, it, it didn't feel like something that you could really one-shot. Uh, you had to, like, die several times in order to, like, okay, now I got this, this sequence down. Okay, now I got this sequence down. Uh, at least for me. Again, I wasn't very good at this game. Uh, but the, the standard enemies, while in some ways uninspired, I didn't find them entirely the worst.
Um, well, I'm gonna, I'll level with you guys. I only faced two bosses. I play a lot of that third level, but I got stuck a lot with those, like, jumping monster things that would always kill me. So I actually never got to the third boss. I watched him, but the first two bosses, I think there's only four stages, right? Five. Five stages, but, like, the, the last two are just, like, way longer than the first three for some reason. So, so, like, I'm looking at a video, I'm like, oh, I'm, like, halfway through the game, and then the other half is just, like, one stage or two stages. But anyway, um, those first two bosses that I faced, I didn't feel that they felt unfair.
I, I thought that the first one was kind of tough at first, definitely die a lot, but once I kind of, like, figured out, okay, I just kind of get between those things when he shoots, and then if I have a projectile, shoot at him. That one I could see being very difficult if I just had my fists.
Um, the second one I felt was, like, the most methodical boss we've ever had. You, you really kind of could just wait until, like, you get to the right, until you, you could sit there and think about it, and then figure out, like, how you want to approach it, and then, like, all right, I'm going to go into this spot and take out this part, I'm going to that spot. So those two didn't bother me. Granted, as I'm saying this, I am watching what I think is the third one, which is this guy who just shoots this, like, twice-year height,
blade at you, and I don't know how you really avoid that. The electrocutioner. Yeah. That guy. Yeah, and even if the bosses are, like, you know, they're significantly harder than the regular enemies in the game, and certainly, um, the machine ones, if you don't learn the pattern, could take you out. The fighting machines in general is, like, a weird thing for Batman. Forget the fact that we've already discussed that all these enemies are kind of, like, who are you? The machine intelligence system, I'm sure, is not an actual, like, Batman villain, I'm sure, that was just inserted for this game. Um, yeah, I don't know, it just, it, the bosses felt like, the bosses felt like the only aspect of, like, uh,
at the same time, they're attacking fast, and yet they're kind of taking your shots like nothing compared to the general enemies in this game, and I get it, they're bosses, but just something about the scale of it all, like, fell off there. Yeah, it almost feels like they were going for sort of simulating, uh, Batman trying to MacGyver himself out of a situation, like, less a boss fight and more of, like, a set piece with a timer. I know it's not timed, but when there isn't really, like, a dude to fight, um, it, yeah, it just feels more like a scene. The cutscenes between the levels, it's not that they don't, like, tell a story or whatever, but they don't exactly connect with what happened in the levels, like, sometimes it's just like,
alright, and then he got in the car, and he drove off, like, I felt like they, you know, and those are nice sprite work and everything, so I'm not, like, I'm not too upset, I just wish they could have done a little more of the storytelling, especially if they wanted to connect this to the movie a little bit, with those cutscenes. Yeah, again, it just sort of boils down to, like, they have the rights to this movie, but between, again, like, the cyberpunk elements and, uh, the, the weird extra characters that weren't in the movie, but are, I guess, in, like, three or four issues of the, of a, of the comic, uh, it doesn't, it's not clear where they're going with this.
Yeah, it feels like they just had to make decisions quickly and didn't have time from, like, the burden people to get, like, even an advanced copy of the movie, they just had to make the game. You know, and I think that that's probably better. Like, try, I feel like trying to shoehorn the plot of the game into somehow, like, the gameplay or the environment, nine times out of ten, ends up making the game worse.
Yeah. So, I'm, I'm happy that it ended up this way. Yeah. Like, it's just a Batman game, and it looks like Tim Burton Batman. It, I think the first couple episodes look like Tim Burton, not couple episodes, the first couple, at levels look like Tim Burton Batman, but as you go forward, it very much does not, and you get, like, that, the, like, the, the genre shift in the middle. So, I could have done without that, and, like, maybe just, you know, find settings that look like the movie, and that, that's, that's as based off the movie as I'm fine with, so. So, to backtrack to the gadgets for a second, maybe this works because of the slower gameplay, but I did think it was a bit of a problem that to cycle through the gadgets,
you have to press the start button, which is usually the pause button, but that's how you cycle through your gadgets and your punch. So, um, the gadgets, while they're very useful against, like, tougher enemies or enemies in a weird spot or, uh, enemies on platforms, to cycle between that and the punch, uh, use it using that, it just felt like maybe there could have been a dedicated button for your, for your gadget and a dedicated button for your punch. I guess that would make up jump.
Which would have sucked, too, so I'm not sure, you know, which, I'm not sure what the way around it is, and again, because for the most part, you can take your time, it's, you know, you have time to be like, oh, I'm gonna use this gadget now, or I'm gonna go back to my fist. You just can't do that if you're on, like, a, a straight line with a bunch of enemies. Yeah, I, I will agree that the fact that this was mapped to start was very jarring, and it messed me up a lot. I didn't, like, interfere with the game itself, but I unintentionally paused quite often.
Um, but I think, like, you know, I think a compromise for this, because you have more time to think, maybe holding up and pressing A or B, and whichever one is in jump, uh, maybe that would have helped, and you could still cycle through them, and not have, like, a button combo for each different thing, but, uh, it would at least allow for punching and some kind of projectile at the same time. I think that it's, yeah, I guess I can see that working a little bit, but I, I think that this is, in my opinion, the, the lessest of many evils.
That makes any sense. Like, I, I think that, um, this is not ideal, but the solution of making up to jump in this game, I definitely would not want. Um, not that this is, like, a fast, like, game in, as far as, like, the way you're platforming, but it is, like, precise, and I feel like it would be weird to be using, like, the left and right directional while jumping to try and, like, stick to a wall to jump off of it. I just feel like that would be clunky.
Um, Sean, your suggestion I do like a little more, I don't know, I, I guess I'd have to, like, get my hands on something like that, though, because I, I still feel like that would be more
meticulous than just using the start button. Yeah, it's possible. It's hard to say. I just think that they just need another button on this controller, is really what the solution is. No, no, no, here's what you do. You don't, you can't pause the game. You press start to jump. I like that, yeah. No, the reset button on the, on the NES itself. Yeah. Is punch. You unlock the second set of moves with the controller two. Yes. So you have to hold two controllers at the same time. Right. I like that. The prototype, the prototype version of the game had some significant differences.
Um, different cut scenes, different one-up icon, but the game's original last boss was just Firebug. There was no Joker boss. So, and it would just be Batman defeating the Joker in a cut scene instead. Well, I'm glad we got that. Yeah. That's the least they could add, right? Is the, the guy who was the villain in the movie. Yes. Yeah, right. So there I go. They're taking some cues from the movie.
But would lead Credence to the idea that, uh, first off, that's kind of funny. That they thought they could end a Batman game with you defeating Firebug. Like, as if anybody would give a shit. Yeah. Well, in the movie, I don't remember, but does, uh, does the Joker call lightning down from the sky? He does not have that ability. I think that was in the director's cut. That was a big ability in, uh, in the game.
You have to give him some kind of power, right? You can't just give him a gun. Well, you give him something that, like, some sort of gadget or something. Like, I don't know. You give him an extra long gun. He should have been able to control Batman's parents. That should have been his power. Well, that's the thing. Maybe it was. That's how they end the game, right?
He, Batman in cold blood, kills the Joker because he was involved in the killing of his parents. Just like it always goes. Yeah. But did he kill the Joker in that movie? No. Did he? I mean, no, he doesn't kill, but I thought in that movie it was, like, the exception. He knocked him out of, like, a helicopter or something, didn't he? Or, like... Hey, if you don't see the death... Yeah. He knocked him. He's dead. Out of sight, out of mind.
Think about how many people you've probably killed in Batman video games, but, like, you know, they're just like, no, no, no, no. You just, you know, I know you snapped his neck there, but it was, it was just to knock him out. Well, think of how many people you might have killed just in your everyday life. Wow. Think about it. You think about it. Maybe think twice about talking to me like that.
Just in case there were any doubts, it's worth mentioning that the, you know, Joker dies at the end of the movie, but it is ambiguous on Batman's, like, role in it because he used the grappling hook to help the Joker, like, put it, you know, put him on the gargoyle. However, because of the Joker, you know, like, being, you know, of his size and the gargoyle not being in the, you know, best state, it does fall off. And so does the Joker.
All right. So, you know, Batman... Let's call it, let's call it, let's call it, uh, manslaughter. Yeah, exactly. Not so much murder. Okay. And he never had a rule against manslaughter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Technically, that's all of his confirmed kills were just manslaughter. Right. And what are you going to do? Prosecute the Batman? You can't. Isn't that kind of how the Joker goes in, um, in the Dark Knight off of the ledge?
He's, like, hanging in there, right? Right, right, right. Yeah. But are we, we never see it. Are we to believe that he just was able to hold the weight that time? Who knows? Maybe it was also a very weak, crumbling gargoyle. And, uh, off screen, he fell. It's possible. Anything is possible when the cameras aren't running.
On the sequels and spinoffs side, just want to talk about not other Batman games, because that's a whole, another thing. Batman movie games. And not just all Batman movie games. I think I've talked before on this podcast that I'm amazed that there was a Batman Begins video game. Not because it's impossible to make a Batman Begins video game, but because it just doesn't feel right for, like, a Christopher Nolan movie to have a video game and then, like, be this, you know, so different than the Batman.
You know, who knows? Maybe Firebug's in that one, too. Maybe he's the final boss in the Batman Begins game. I have heard that it's not that terrible. I bet it's not. I bet, I bet now it makes me want to, like, play that and then go to, like, a flea market and find somebody who has a copy of Batman The Dark Knight, the video game, and be like, whoa, like, this isn't supposed to exist. And then, like, put it in my PS3 and it all gets corrupted.
Yeah. And then you post a creepypasta about it. Yeah. Anyway, to talk about just the other Batman 1989 movie games, the Genesis version, the Genesis is a controller that has three buttons, so it is better than the NES and probably could have figured out a way to, you know, have a third button for those gadgets without sacrificing the jump. The Genesis version is more faithful to the movie, but is deemed by critics as way too short. It's actually shorter than this one. And, uh, furthermore, uninteresting. Now, I think that's a little harsh. I played this game for a couple minutes and I didn't find it uninteresting, but maybe, maybe a couple more minutes would have revealed it to be a really boring game.
I think we should just start doing, we should just play the game for five minutes and then record this podcast. You know what's funny? For the sequels and spinoffs, that's kind of what I have to do. I don't have unlimited time to, like, play all these games. Oh, you play them. Oh, I play these other ones. Yeah, I got, you know, a little bit.
Like, all the time? Yeah, yeah, for the most part. If I, if I don't know what's going on, you can better believe I didn't play it. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Go back and listen to all our episodes and tell us which ones Mike played. Yeah. There was a time, I think, in the start of the 1989 season where I was trying to play every sequel and spinoff to better understand, and I was like, better understand what? Like, I'm gonna die.
Game Boy version of the Batman movie has Batman only attacking with a gun. So you can say that that one is probably the least related to the movie. Wow. It's crazy because also, like, they try to show, that's another thing that we didn't talk about. In this game, at least the sprite looks like Batman. It doesn't look like, like, the X-Men ones were a little weird, right? When we played that X-Men video game, they weren't spot on to the X-Men characters. Yeah. No, this is a very, you know, the proportions are all there.
Yeah, it's a good-looking sprite. And in this one, the Batman Game Boy one, it's like, they, you know, it's a smaller screen, you got less pixels to work with or whatever, but they had to make sure that you knew that he was wearing the cowl. So he has, like, these really pointy ears and then a really, really, like, short, stubby body. And it just, it looks very funny. So he's like a bunny? He's chibi. Yeah, yeah, almost a bunny. I like that, Sean. But still a bat because he's Batman. Batman did use a gun in year two, which is stupid and does not personally happen in my own comic timeline. I removed year two.
But I guess it's worth mentioning, right? Like, it's not unheard of for Batman to use a gun, but in year two, he realizes that, like, oh, it's wrong to use this gun, but he does it anyway after, you know, and then reconciles it. But it's like, he didn't, he didn't do that in year one. Like, he didn't need to learn not to use a gun. He went all of year one without doing it. No, okay. I think it has to do, and this is coming from someone that never read the comic, so please listen closely.
But it's probably like, oh, you know, this is my greatest test yet. And I think I might need to use the gun. And he realized that no matter how hard the odds look, don't gun. You should be writing Batman year 2.1. I will.
And then the last Batman 1989 movie, the game that we have to talk about, is Batman for the PC engine, which really needs, you guys either need to, like, pull up a YouTube video or just check it out later. It needs to be seen to be believed because it almost has nothing to do with the movie or Batman for that instance. It's an action puzzle game that plays a lot like, I guess you could say it's like the Adventures of Lolo, where it's a top-down Batman in, like, a warehouse, and he stuns enemies by firing
batarangs at them. And then once they're stunned, he can just walk into them to kill them. And they'll just keep spawning. So just, you have to collect all the items in the room. And then once you've collected all the items in the room, you can move on to the next room in the warehouse. And that just keeps happening forever.
You know what? When I, at first glance at this, I was like, oh yeah, this, this doesn't not make sense. I mean, he's being stealthy. But then, like, as soon as you see any gameplay, like, actually happen, you're like, oh, you're not being stealthy. You're just throwing, they're not even, like, attacking you. People are just walking around. You're just throwing shit at them and throwing them up in the sky. It's very weird. This is just showing me that you don't appreciate the world's greatest detective. I don't, no. He's not doing any detecting. He's detecting. He's looking at paintings and stuff that's detecting. Looking for clues. You're looking at a different video.
For unknown reasons, the game was never released in North America for the TurboGrafx-16. Instead, only in Japan and developed by Sunsoft. So, good. They fell asleep with a wheel on that one. I just, they must have just got the license and already had this game and said, yeah, just throw Batman all over it. And we have to throw Batman through one more thing. And that is the essential games list.
Batman, the video game, which probably should have been Batman, the movie, the video game, which would now have to be Batman 1989, the movie, the video game. It's a surprisingly decent game.
All things considered, I heard bad things about this one. I've heard things from it's bad to it's hard. And sometimes it both can be true. And sometimes one can be true, right? We've had good hard games and we've had bad easy games. But this one, I would not classify in the bad category at all. But I would certainly say that it's difficult, but it's still fun for it's challenging. I think like the bosses might actually be the weakest part of the game for me. One, because they're not the cool bosses that I would love to see Batman go up against and, you know, use their gimmicks in a video game.
But the actual, like, the staging and the platforming and the enemies, like, I'm all here for it. I think Batman controls really tightly and the gadgets work and everything. So it definitely gets a pass in my book. It's just not going to get the full essential vote because it still needs to be like, I don't know, it needs to be more enjoyable throughout and not this, like, high and low.
Or specifically, like, not a game that ramps up in difficulty so quickly that you struggle to make any future progress. This feels like the kind of game that a lot of people consider hard. But if they took the time to really just, like, learn the levels and memorize the, you know, the patterns and stuff like that. They, like so many other NES games before, they could do it. Unfortunately, I don't think that that's, like, what I'm looking for when I'm putting games on the essential games list. So for that reason, I'm not going to put it on the essential games list. But I was surprised by it, and I think that's worth mentioning.
Joe? I had a great time with this game, too. And I also had heard, at least in my, somewhere in my memory, I thought I had heard really bad things about this game. And I thought it was pretty darn fun, to be honest.
As far as, like, a platformer goes, it's totally different than, like, other platformers that I've liked. But it does its own thing, and it works for it. Like, this kind of more methodical thing. I never felt really like you needed to, like, memorize much. It does, it just feels like you have to plan ahead a little more. But, like I said, I didn't get all the way through this game. I only got to the third stage.
But I think it is really fun. And that challenge, like, never felt, so far, never felt like, okay, this is unfair now. I don't want to keep going. I like the way that it, I've concluded that it does make me feel like Batman. Batman, at least as far as, like, an NES game can make me feel like Batman. And I really like that about it. And I think that it's a little bit of an on-the-fence thing. But I think I want to throw this a vote. So I'm going to vote for this to go on the Essential Games list.
Wow. Yeah, this was a tough one for me. I am pretty much in love with the character systems here. The slightly off the beaten path, like, jumping, the wall jump, like, all the navigational stuff, and how the gadgets are implemented. Like, that's all great. It's where it all, like, it's the setting. It's where we're using these systems. And to an extent, the enemies that we're using these systems against, that things kind of diverge a bit. I don't think that it's a terrible implementation of these things. But I think that there are a lot of places that these could have been done better.
And for that reason, I'm not going to vote this Essential. But it is a very good game. And maybe I'll think elsewise in the future. But I do really like it. I'm surprised to hear the gadgets get a shout-out. I actually thought they were the weakest part of the game because Batman's gadget arsenal is so, you know, robust. And part of what, you know, his utility belt has been there since the very beginning. But in this game, they're strictly for projectile use.
Like, I feel like they could have done so much more with that, with the platforming. I think the Batarang is a pretty good implementation of that. With, you know, if you sort of jump out of the way of where it comes back to you, then it'll do a wider arc. And I know that's not the first time that that's been done in a game. But I think it was done relatively well. And, I don't know, I think they hit those marks. Not so much the variety of the utility belt, but they are there.
Yeah, I'm a person who's not, like, super, super familiar with Batman. Like, I do know about, like, that, like, the gadgets are a big part of it. But it didn't, it's not something that's, like, in the forefront of my mind when I'm playing this game. So, to me, I was just like, oh, there are some cool gadgets. And I did feel like I had a different use for, even though they are all projectiles. I did feel like, okay, I'm going to use the boomerang for this guy because I got some time.
And, like, they're not as valuable. But I'm going to use the one, the spread shot for this one because, like, I really need to get a lot of the damage. So, like, it did feel like I was stopping and thinking, which gadget should I use? Like, that was a cool feeling. But, yeah, I could see other implementations, like, I mean, you know, it'd be cool to have, like, a bionic commando style, like, grappling hook or something. But, you know, obviously that would redesign the game. But, like, I could see other things that aren't just weapons. But the absence didn't bother me.
Yeah, you could have a limited use grappling hook, too, though. Something where you have to, you know, like, plant it on one end and then plant it on the other in order to cross through or something like that. Or, you know, smoke bombs or something where, like, if you let off one of those, you can go through enemies. They don't work on bosses or something like that. But just thinking about more, like, practical uses for Batman's gadgets because that's really, like, at the end of the day, what makes Batman such a cool superhero is that he has no superpowers.
Which is crazy because obviously he does if he's able to get the shit kicked out of him every single night and get back up in the morning. But he's not supposed to have any superpowers. So, really, it's his mind and these gadgets and his detective work that makes it, you know, who he is. And I feel like this game kind of focused more on the platforming to its advantage, right? We talked about how great that Batman jump feels and everything, adding a little extra weight to him. But it kind of sacrificed some of the other elements that Batman's known for. Now, if this, you know, wasn't a Batman game, would you judge it the same way?
That's true. Like, so that's not necessarily fair to just put 100% of your vote into the fact that because they titled the game Batman and it's not using all of Batman's elements. Just like it's not all of Batman's known enemies just because they put different enemies in. You don't, like, take it off for that. I agree with that. And next week, on a totally different note, we will be playing Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum, which is a crazy title that I can't wait to play. Hopefully, the game is just as crazy.
Important to note, can't tell if this is a rattlesnake or not. Looks like a cobra. So, justice for our boys last week. We have a cobra on the box. It was misnamed. Always love a cobra. It's like how some Pokemon are named, like, the wrong name. Like, this was supposed to be twin cobra.
And that was supposed to be whatever the fuck you just said. Right, right, Dash. Box probably an asylum, Dash Galaxy. Dash Galaxy was actually supposed to be Dragonair's final evolution. Right, right, yeah. I don't know.
