Batman Forever
Sega Genesis
Ahhh, Batman Forever. I can watch that movie nowadays and enjoy it for what it is worth. Hokey, silly, over the top. It's a relatively good time. But I have to admit that I really hated the movie when it first came out. I had been nuts about the first two Batman movies with Michael Keaton. I was an obsessive watcher of Batman: The Animated Series. I liked that dark, somber version of Batman. This film was not what I was expecting. It was the complete opposite. It had such a different tone than what I am familiar with when I think of the caped crusader. I couldn't take it seriously. I wanted to, but I just couldn't. I thought it was so stupid.
Which is funny because I felt the exact same way about its video game counterpart. As usual, I fell hook, line, and sinker for the whole blockbuster movie turned into a video game trap. I bought a lot of them when I was a kid. According to popular opinion most of these movie to video game adaptations sucked. But I never complained. I always had a good time with them. Until I got Batman Forever.
I already knew that the movie was no good, but I still got the game anyway. What can I say, I was invested in the whole Batman Forever thing back then. I wanted it to like it SO MUCH. I hadn't read any reviews, but the game's previews had at least looked pretty good. They couldn't possibly mess up both the movie and the game version of Batman Forever, right? Wrong.
I came in open minded, but within the first few minutes of playing the game I began to have my doubts. The graphics looked grainy and not as realistic as the pictures had made them out to be. The controls were a bit stiff and they seemed like they had been stolen directly from a Mortal Kombat game. Plus, I was already lost. I must have spent a full day or two stuck on one of the very first screens of the game. I hit a dead end with nowhere to go. I wandered around, but found nothing that could help me. There was something that resembled a giant hole in the floor so I thought maybe I could use it to drop to another level and make progress from there. But nothing happened when I walked over it. Hitting down did nothing. I went back to the beginning of the level and explored. Combed every inch of the surface of the game's first few screens. Nothing. Nowhere to go. I was stuck as stuck could be. It even started to cross my mind that maybe my copy of the game was broken.
Eventually I figured it out. It just HAD to have something to do with the giant hole in the floor. I stood over it and mashed every single button combination I could think of. Eventually, Batman ducked down and jumped into the hole. I had moved on to another floor of the building. Just like that I was unstuck. After more than a full day of being completely frustrated I had finally figured it out. But I didn't even know what button combination I had hit. After some experimenting, I discovered that you had to hold the low kick button and then hit down to jump down to a different level. Something that was never explained and was most definitely NOT in the game's instruction manual. How were people supposed to figure that out?
As irritated as I was, at least I could now begin to actually play the game. I can't say I liked the game, but I did play it a lot. I knew I was playing a bad game but at the same time I didn't have a lot of other options for things to play. I had spent precious money on the game, dang right I was going to play it. I beat it within the week. I replayed it often and uncovered most of the game's secrets. I had struggled with the game at first, but by the end I was a pro. As normal with all those old Genesis games I used to play, eventually Batman Forever was lost to time. I am pretty sure I traded it in because I knew its use for me had run out. I tolerated the game and played it out of necessity but I hadn't really enjoyed it that much. I'd never want to play it again, right?
For the most part, yeah. In the ensuing twenty years, Batman Forever has barely crossed my mind. I would have been okay with not playing it again. But then a copy of the game found its way into my hands. I have mentioned a few times on this blog that my cousin Ryan has loaned me a box of his old Sega Genesis games. I've been playing through and reviewing a ton of these games lately. Batman Forever is, you guessed it, another game from that box.
When I saw the game in the there, I knew that it was going to be one that I would replay soon. I had spent a decent amount of time with it in my teenage years. No it wasn't very good, but I never thought of it as a truly terrible game either. If you have been following this blog closely at all, it is very obvious that nostalgia goes a long way with me. I was convinced that upon replay I would like it and think it was great. But that turns out to not be the case.
As much as I wanted to like the game, it is just too flawed for me. Perhaps I should explain how it works before I move on any further. Action takes place from a 2D side scrolling perspective. Controlling either Batman or Robin (or both if you are playing cooperative two player) you make it through each stage beating up your enemies, collecting items, and discovering secret areas. The controls are very touchy as it feels they have been lifted directly from a Mortal Kombat game. There is no jump button, you have to press up and the direction you want to jump in. You have high kicks and low kicks, high punches and low ones. Crouch and punch together and you uppercut. Duck and kick and you do a leg sweep. Down, right, then punch throws a projectile. Other Mortal Kombat like combinations do other special moves. I don't know if this is laziness on behalf of the game makers or what. Literally everything is lifted from Mortal Kombat. Which I would be okay with but it makes for some really awkward situations when doing things like jumping or fighting multiple enemies at the same time.
Levels don't necessarily follow the traditional "left side to right side" progression that is normally found in games of this nature. The levels are big and can be fully explored. You can move up and down between floors. Open doors and enter rooms. Find secret areas off the edge of the screen. Batman has a grappling hook he can use to reach high ledges and swing over chasms. Different levels have different objectives. In the bank heist level you have to save the guards who are being held hostage. In the circus level you have to ascend the tent and disable the bomb at the top, while racing against the five minute timer. Many levels have many different branches or routes you can take. The warehouse level and the subway tunnels stand out in my mind. Secret areas are hidden everywhere. I can't fault the game's level design. It is pretty decent.
I will gripe that there is no Batmobile stage, however. There is a big Batmobile action scene in the movie so you would think that somehow it would have been incorporated into the game. But noooooo!
Graphically the stages are decent for 16 bit, but nothing special. The game tried to be different with its character design and the results are a mixed bag. I think they tried to go with digitized graphics for the characters to make them look more realistic. Some of the characters look decent. For some reason I really like how Robin looks and I usually pick him for this reason. But you can't deny that the characters look a little messy and pixelated. The animation is.... decent. But I guess overall they would have been better off just going with more traditional animated character sprites. It seems to have severely limited enemy design as you fight seemingly the same five or six character types over and over and over and over again. At least they all have interesting names.
The game can be challenging if you are not good at fighting. Plus some of the levels don't make it clear where you are supposed to go next. You can get stuck or lost from time to time. After playing long enough the game becomes extremely repetitive. You fight the same looking characters using the same tactics again and again. On my first attempt yesterday I made it all the way to the end boss before dying. The game had already taken its toll on me. Imagine my dismay that I had to play the whole thing over again. Luckily I flew through my second attempt with flying colors.
Even still, I was OVER IT by the end. The game is just far too repetitive. I remember after beating the game letting out a sigh of relief because I would never have to play through this again.
So does that mean I hated that game and it should get a failing score? No, not at all. As always, nostalgia plays a factor. I can look at the graphics and appreciate them. Even though the characters look messy by today's standards I probably thought they were amazing as a kid. There are some good things about the actual game itself. I enjoyed the challenge. I enjoyed seeing my fighting get markedly better the more I played. I liked exploring the stages and finding all the secret items. There is just something super fulfilling about finding hidden secrets in this game for some reason.
I can still of course recognize the game's flaws. The controls, the fighting style, the game's piss-poor soundtrack and super fuzzy voice overs. It is extremely repetitive and there are points in the game where it becomes flat out not fun anymore.
I guess the main question boils down to this: Is it a good game? I would have to say the answer is no. But at the same time, can I say it is a bad game? I don't know if I can say it is. It is most definitely a flawed game, but that doesn't mean there are not good things about it.
I know that most reviews out there give this game extremely poor marks. I don't think it's that bad. There are certainly far worse games out there. But I can see why they would not like Batman Forever. I however, am not going to add to the collective dogpile of this game. I could just say it is trash and give it an F to concede to popular opinion, but I will not do that. While it is certainly a below average title, Batman Forever is far from failing.
Overall:
D+
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