A more faithful adaptation of the movie than the beloved NES game, and of course that's a double-edged sword.
Extremely strong showing on the presentation end of things, with some art that is genuinely stunning for 1990 Genesis at times (especially the backgrounds!) and - because it's Sunsoft - an OST that goes way / too / fucking / hard. Unfortunately the gameplay doesn't really live up to that stuff. It's stiff and Batman doesn't do much - just jump, punch, throw a Batarang, and grapple straight up. It's all fine, it works well enough, the whole game is perfectly playable, but I wouldn't say it's particularly thrilling. Just simple. Pretty much every amusingly normal boss (they're just Joker's more notable goons from the movie) has exactly the same strategy to them, and there are only a couple interesting platforming situations to speak of. The biggest changeup is two surprisingly competent scrolling shooter levels, and they also represent the only real difficulty spikes.
In the end, there are worse things to be than a kind of dull and easy, but really good-looking (and -sounding, oh my lord) platformer. I'll take that. I'll see the sights and punch the Joker. There are way worse Batman games.
Extremely strong showing on the presentation end of things, with some art that is genuinely stunning for 1990 Genesis at times (especially the backgrounds!) and - because it's Sunsoft - an OST that goes way / too / fucking / hard. Unfortunately the gameplay doesn't really live up to that stuff. It's stiff and Batman doesn't do much - just jump, punch, throw a Batarang, and grapple straight up. It's all fine, it works well enough, the whole game is perfectly playable, but I wouldn't say it's particularly thrilling. Just simple. Pretty much every amusingly normal boss (they're just Joker's more notable goons from the movie) has exactly the same strategy to them, and there are only a couple interesting platforming situations to speak of. The biggest changeup is two surprisingly competent scrolling shooter levels, and they also represent the only real difficulty spikes.
In the end, there are worse things to be than a kind of dull and easy, but really good-looking (and -sounding, oh my lord) platformer. I'll take that. I'll see the sights and punch the Joker. There are way worse Batman games.