This review contains spoilers
It's the Sega Genesis game with its sharp gameplay but unfair level design, and its gloomy atmosphere with great attention to detail. I particularly love how chaotic Gotham became under the Red Circus rampage that the upper right part of the shopping mall (platforming level 2-2), an area you are not even obliged to see, is completely burnt down. Yes, it's a very dark and depressing looking game, just like the movie, but I prefer that consistency than Sunsoft's NES games just having ninjas and the Joker using a mecha because it's a videogame from japanese company, LULZ XD.
But this Sega CD version adds scaling driving stages making use of the hardware, which I don't know if it's because of my lack of experience with driving games or me playing the Genesis version a lot as a kid, but they are extremely complicated in comparison to the base game, specially the sewer level. For those who are just looking for the atmosphere and don't care for the techincal marvel, be my guest and deactivate them from the Options menu to play the platform segments only (or viceversa to those who come for the cool special effects).
I rate this a 5/10 while the Genesis one gets a 4/10 because the soundtrack by Spencer Nielsen adds a layer of professionalism to the project which the cartridge version, using the GEMS sound driver, doesn't achieve with its grating instruments.
However I have two complaints: I actually prefer the melancholic compositions of the Genesis version, of which only that beautiful final confrontation theme (https://youtu.be/z_UVx1qBeog) is present here, with the outstanding production values being more effective at communicating the pathetic tragedy in the Penguin's death as in the film (even though you can take all his health away, he only dies once you break down a controller of the temperature he accustomed himself to). If Nielsen could have used those magnificent compositions and remix them with better instruments you would have had one of the masterpieces of the 16 bit soundtrack library.
My second pet peeve is that if you beat the game with both the driving stages and the platformers on, they have a showoff of a cool Batman pose as end credits, but they remove the epilogue where you control Batman and have a final face off against Catwoman during the end credits with its ambiguous, pretty artistic finale depending of who is the winner. Instead, here, the last time you see Selina and then never know what happened to her is on an anticlimatic boss fight in stage 2 (OUT OF FIVE). So I beat the game at its hardest and instead of an emotional conclusion as a reward I get a special effects showoff that aged poorly.
Yes, this is still an unrefined work, but it's the better version. Just play this without the driving stages, please.
But this Sega CD version adds scaling driving stages making use of the hardware, which I don't know if it's because of my lack of experience with driving games or me playing the Genesis version a lot as a kid, but they are extremely complicated in comparison to the base game, specially the sewer level. For those who are just looking for the atmosphere and don't care for the techincal marvel, be my guest and deactivate them from the Options menu to play the platform segments only (or viceversa to those who come for the cool special effects).
I rate this a 5/10 while the Genesis one gets a 4/10 because the soundtrack by Spencer Nielsen adds a layer of professionalism to the project which the cartridge version, using the GEMS sound driver, doesn't achieve with its grating instruments.
However I have two complaints: I actually prefer the melancholic compositions of the Genesis version, of which only that beautiful final confrontation theme (https://youtu.be/z_UVx1qBeog) is present here, with the outstanding production values being more effective at communicating the pathetic tragedy in the Penguin's death as in the film (even though you can take all his health away, he only dies once you break down a controller of the temperature he accustomed himself to). If Nielsen could have used those magnificent compositions and remix them with better instruments you would have had one of the masterpieces of the 16 bit soundtrack library.
My second pet peeve is that if you beat the game with both the driving stages and the platformers on, they have a showoff of a cool Batman pose as end credits, but they remove the epilogue where you control Batman and have a final face off against Catwoman during the end credits with its ambiguous, pretty artistic finale depending of who is the winner. Instead, here, the last time you see Selina and then never know what happened to her is on an anticlimatic boss fight in stage 2 (OUT OF FIVE). So I beat the game at its hardest and instead of an emotional conclusion as a reward I get a special effects showoff that aged poorly.
Yes, this is still an unrefined work, but it's the better version. Just play this without the driving stages, please.