Batman: The Video Game Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/21/2024)

[Image from igdb.com]

Batman: The Video Game

Developer: Sunsoft

Publisher: Sunsoft

Genre(s): 2D Platformer

Platforms: NES

Release Date: December 22, 1989

If the long-running tenure of James Rolfe’s AVGN internet series is any indication, the NES era was rank with movie tie-in pollution. For some odd reason, video game tie-ins coinciding with the release of a blockbuster Hollywood movie were always utter disasters. Actually, the reason is fairly clear-cut: the developers knew that their games would still sell regardless of their quality, so they barely attempted to grasp the source material or render interesting or engaging gameplay elements to justify the movie’s transition to the medium of video games. The primary culprit to the scourge of cheap cash grabs is LJN, a company that spat out shoddy film adaptations onto the NES console as frequently as a female rabbit gives birth to a litter. The nerd character vindictively referred to the developer’s full name as “laughin’ jokin’ numbnuts,” but the representative L in the acronym should stand for lazy. But as I’ve stated before countless times, licensed video games do not inherently have a crippling handicap that dooms them to disgracing the video game medium or their source material. Perhaps the industry could produce a licensed tie-in game of higher quality under a competent developer, say, Sunsoft? The creators of the acclaimed 2D tank shooter Blaster Master were tasked with adapting Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman smash hit film. Because the gothic and moody Jack Nicholson Joker vehicle was the starting point of taking the caped crusader seriously once again, we couldn't let LJN fuck this up. The reputable Sunsoft was more likely to guarantee that the video game tie-in for Batman’s cinematic comeback wouldn’t impress poorly on it by association, and their choice of developer resulted in something relatively more substantial.

Primitive pixelation prevents the Batman video game from capturing the full cinematic splendor of the movie, so I’d hesitate to call it a loyal adaptation by the fault of the NES’s inhibitions. Still, the game does its damnedest to render the properties of the film with 8-bit graphics, and the still cutscenes of Jack in Joker makeup and the revving Batmobile are actually quite impressive all things considered. When the player is launched into the action of controlling Batman, the graphics are far less refined than that of the rolling clips. Still, Sunsoft understood the crippling limitations that came with 8-bit hardware and wisely chose a direction of effective artistic minimalism. The darkened hues present throughout the levels dim the pixels enough to convey the intended atmosphere without obscuring all of the necessary foreground visuals. Gotham City is still ominous, and the city's various machinations such as the Axis Chemical Factory and Underground Conduit exude enough dangerous industrial sterility. Some may wonder why Batman’s body is entirely blue, considering that brooding Batman is shrouded in black and this is the lighter shade that signifies the campy TV Adam West Batman from the 1960s. If I had to guess, blue Batman better complemented the color scheme of the background as Belmont's tangerine glow did for Castlevania. The NES obviously couldn’t have recreated the film it's adapting, but the few feasible technical elements like lighting and color come pretty damn close to matching its aura.

But we all know the grand appeal of a licensed Batman game is controlling the bat via the potential of the gaming medium, one vicarious leap of immersion beyond putting on his Batsuit and playing pretend out in the yard like the poor saps from generations prior. As it is, Batman already lends himself as an exemplary superhero to be rendered into a 2D platformer game. His spry acrobatics essentially define his superhero aptness in lieu of not possessing any supernatural powers like the rest of his Justice League comrades. They translate fairly well here, especially regarding the wall jump maneuver where Batman’s adhesiveness to parallel surfaces feels less gluey than that of Ryu from Ninja Gaiden. What particularly injects me into the caped crusader’s shoes even more than his innate physical dexterity is the ability to use his array of bat gadgets. The game provides three of Batman’s trusty tools activated by pressing the pause button: the iconic Batarang, the triple-disked dirk, and his spear gun modeled as a blunt rocket launcher instead of an apparatus to aid in scaling tall buildings. Using any of these gadgets will cost the player an arbitrary amount of weapon points, so it’s still wise to keep conservation in mind even though they can be easily replenished on the field. I recommended the Batarang because it allows doubling the damage on reentry for a measly single-number cost. Still, having four different attack options on hand at all times allows the player to diversify Batman’s combative efforts to a great extent.

The player must become well acquainted with Batman’s stacked arsenal to survive the onslaught of Gotham City crooks and diabolical criminals. As par for the course, Batman manages to uphold that blistering NES difficulty we tend to associate with this gaming era. The game is composed of only five levels, so being forced to approach each moment with caution and plan accordingly is the developer’s tactic to ensure that the player gets their money’s worth. Gotham’s collective underbelly has evidently been eating their Wheaties, as Batman struggles to apprehend these seedy bastards more than ever before. Mutant thugs the size of gorillas roaming the watery sewage system pounce on the Bat with animalistic aggression, and the higher ground achieved by the Joker’s soldiers with jetpacks naturally gives them an irritating advantage. Machines are especially ferocious here, with sensory landmines crawling up towards Batman sometimes unknowingly and bulky tanks that I swear have dead-on accurate aiming. Ammunition for the gadgets is precious, so there will be tight moments of melee combat that will more often than not damage the Bat unless the player is as swift as a ninja. Instances of painstaking precision also seep into the platforming, with perilous pits directly below the trajectory and wall jumping sections with hazards on the sides that punish the player severely for simply grazing them with the pointy ears of the Batsuit. I’m thoroughly convinced that the player cannot avoid taking damage while trying to ascend up the cathedral, with its rotating gears crunching Batman’s life bar away at the slightest impact.

Trial and error is the ethos behind Batman’s design philosophy as it is for several other NES games. Fortunately, the game grants the player plenty of opportunity to learn the layout of each level. Batman is given three lives per continue but once he exhausts all of them, which is very likely, the game does not hastily rewind the player all the way back to the beginning. Batman’s levels are spliced into chapters like fellow tough-as-nails 2D platformer Ninja Gaiden. On top of treating these small milestones of progression as checkpoints, Batman adds another layer of accessibility by sending the player back to one of these mile markers upon continuing. I truly haven’t seen an NES game act so accommodating towards the player. It’s practically uncharacteristic of the era. Then again, we’re reminded why the developers were so charitable whenever we play any of the levels and suddenly, Batman doesn’t seem so breezy.

However, upon depleting all of Batman’s lives after facing a boss, the game decides to warp the player back to the level that precedes it. Batman’s bosses are the apex challenge that caps off a level, so the developers figured that their merciful methods would compromise the impact of their encounters. I’d argue what lessens the scope of fighting these bosses is how unremarkable a good number of them are. Batman has been around since the tail end of the Great Depression, so the DC IP has accumulated a smattering of Batman baddies in the half of a century before this game was released. We’re guaranteed that his iconic arch-nemesis The Joker will be featured because he’s the primary antagonist of the 1989 Batman film, but his appearance is obviously going to be reserved as the final boss. What about the supplementary foes on the climb up to The Joker? Naturally, no one will top the mad clown, but the other bosses in Batman hardly even make the C-list of Batman villains. Out of the legitimate villains exhibited here, Killer Moth is the only one of note, and he’s not exactly a VIP contender in the Batman universe. I’m sure some uber-nerd is going to chastise me for not recognizing The Electrocutioner or Firebug, but it’s not as if they’ve ever headlined any Batman media I’ve seen beforehand. Two other bosses involve the dismantling of the Joker’s armed security systems, a robotic series of machines with no personality whatsoever. How exciting for every Batman fan, indeed. I’m not even sure if including The Joker at the end is really a reward because quite a few players won’t reach the game’s climactic peak due to its difficulty. Considering the movie source material is as loose as pocket change, the developers definitely could’ve thrown every Batman fan a bone and included The Penguin, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, etc. just to satisfy the wish of seeing the notable Batman villains rendered in a video game.

Batman on the NES is further proof that LJN simply never bothered to care. With Sunsoft’s superior developing efforts, they crafted a licensed game that came as close to the quality of the film it was using as inspiration. The fidelity to the source material could’ve only stacked up so far considering the primitive gaming hardware they were working with, but captured both the moody atmosphere and basic story premise using the pixels nonetheless. The game is certainly a challenge, but the game is aware of its steep learning curve and shows more mercy than any other NES game would allow. The objective of the film was to make Batman cool again, and the game accomplishes the same mission. It supports more reasons to hang up a Batman poster in your college dorm room rather than one of those neon beer signs or that photo of John Belushi from Animal House.