Batman was released in 1989, the same year the film was released. The game is loosely based after the events of the movie, with a whole Batman vs. Joker thing going on, but pretty much all the bosses besides the Joker are taken from Batman?s comic book rogues gallery. The stages are a little on the generic side, with city streets and factories making up the predominant locales, but the cutscenes use 2D art that?s definitely lifted from the film. Digitized Jack Nicholson is actually pretty damn creepy.
It was published by Sunsoft, which should be a recognizable name for any kid that grew up with the NES in the 80?s. They published a number of noteworthy titles, including a few overlooked gems. Blaster Master is the first one that springs to mind, but they also did a couple other Batman titles, Journey into Silius, Gremlins 2, and a lot of other 16-bit titles. They had a pretty healthy mix of licensed games and original IP?s, and thankfully had a better track record in regards to quality than other, similar publishers at the time like Acclaim.
The gameplay for Batman was pretty great for its day, and also reminiscent of another more popular NES title, Ninja Gaiden. Like NG?s lead character Ryu, Batman can wall jump through a number of areas in this game, and the wall jumping mechanic actually becomes pretty major as the levels advance. The last stage, which involves a series of jumps through tiny platforms with their real estate already occupied by enemies, will test your patience and timing like few other NES games can. Being able to master the appropriate time to kick off from the wall to the next one becomes a pretty important skill to master.
The boss fights in the game are no joke either. Some of the bosses are pretty exploitable, like old games tend to be. You can sometimes find a safe spot to snipe a boss from a distance without worry of a projectile hitting you, but most bosses require a combination of attacks and jumps if you hope to survive the encounter. The first boss, Killer Moth, is certainly easy enough, but the second stage boss ramps up the difficulty quite a bit.
And the boss selection of Batman is pretty wild, all things considered. If you look at modern day Batman titles like Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, we?ve all come to expect certain bad guys will populate those games. It?s not unusual to see Two Face, Catwoman, Penguin, and The Riddler to pop up, but Batman on the NES really went out of its way to gather a pretty odd assortment of villains. And it?s not that the rogues chosen were particularly popular in 1989, but for whatever reason the game features foes like KGBeast, Killer Moth, Firefly and other more obscure bat-villains. It?s definitely an odd assortment of bad guys to say the least.
If you?ve never had a chance to check out this hidden gem on the NES, I highly urge you to do so. It can be found easily enough, with most copies not demanding much more than five bucks if you?re ok with a cart only version of the game. It?s got that old-school NES difficulty to it, but I never felt like it was particularly cheap or punishing, and the level checkpoints are surprisingly fair. And it still holds up well today, which is always a big plus. It?d be awesome to see a Virtual Console port of the game, but sadly with this being a licensed title the chances for that occurring are pretty much nonexistent. So fire up that emulator, or plug that old CRT back into the wall if you want to experience some classic gaming beat ?em up fun, Caped Crusader style.
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