Batman: The Animated Series
Game Boy
Nostalgia Factor:
Batman: The Animated series is perhaps my favorite 90s cartoon of all time. I watched it religiously as a kid, and to this day I still think it is fantastic. That said, I never owned a Game Boy growing up and I never had any idea that this game even existed. I just happened upon it by chance here in the year 2021 – 28 years after the game’s initial 1993 release date. I didn’t expect much from this title, but seeing how big a fan I am of the source material I couldn’t help but give it a chance. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise! Read on for my full thoughts.
Story:
This game plays out in a similar fashion to the show. You’ve got several levels, each one “themed” after one of the villains (a Joker stage, a Mr Freeze Stage, etc). At the end of each level you fight said villain as a boss character. There are short storyboard sequences before and after each stage that help flesh out the different scenarios. Honestly there is nothing too horribly memorable to see here as far as the story goes. Mr. Freeze wants to freeze the city. The Joker wants to cause chaos, etc. Mainly I just love how loyal to the source material the game is.
Gameplay:
As soon as I started playing this it brought to mind NES classics like Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania. I’m not saying it is as good as those games (it’s not), but it does have some familiar elements to it – mainly in the controls. The jumping and platforming sections are crisp and on the money. You can wall jump. You use a grappling hook to get to hard-to-reach locations. As far as combat goes, mainly you have to get in close to your enemies and hit them with a melee attack, but you can discover batarang projectiles to make your life easier as you progress through each stage. The game is super easy to just pick up and play in a large part because of its familiarity.
That said, it may be easy to pick up and play but it is still pretty difficult to master. That’s also where the NES comparisons come in. This game is tough! You get a small handful of lives and a limited number of continues in which to beat this game. Run out of continues and you go back to the beginning of the game. No save or password options here, unfortunately.
You’ll be able to trial and error your way through this game, slowly getting better with each subsequent attempt. The only thing that really tripped me up were the boss fights. Some of them can be quite brutal.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that you do take control of Robin two different times throughout this game. Robin handles differently with his ability to scale walls and hang from the ceiling. His stages seem to be more about nailing difficult jumps and navigating stage obstacles as opposed to the combat oriented Batman levels. I had fun with these levels, though, and was able to appreciate that the makers of the game tried to mix things up a little bit to keep everything fresh.
Graphics:
This is possibly the best looking Game Boy game I have played. I’ve only played three of them, so that may not seem like a very good complement. But I have a feeling that this is probably the best the Game Boy can get. The cutscenes, the stages, the character designs – I was completely shocked the whole way through this with just how well they captured the feel of the show. It’s tough to do in black and white, but they completely pulled it off.
My only complaint is that there were a few stages where Batman’s dark character design blended in with the background and made him a bit difficult to see. Otherwise I'd say this game exceeded my modest expectations.
Sound:
They pulled off the sound of the show very well too. I absolutely loved how they turned the cartoon’s soundtrack into 8-bit style musical tunes. The recreation of the cartoon’s opening sequence really got me pumped to play this game. Again – super impressive considering this is a 28 year old Game Boy title.
Overall:
I had such a fun time with this game, and I was not expecting it at all. I had never heard a single word said about this game – good or bad. Usually that means the game is completely dull or forgettable. Luckily that was not the case in this instance. It is the perfect mix of NES style 2D platforming, a good challenge, a great theme, and just good ole fun game mechanics and level design. If you’re a fan of the show or this genre of game in general you will probably like this game. I’d definitely recommend it!
Final Score:
B+
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