(This is the 59th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

Sequel to Sunsoft's first NES Batman game called 'Batman: The Video Game', Batman: Return of the Joker, released on December 20th, 1991, is an Action / Platformer game. The game has achieved some interesting feats, like the Joker portrayal here being called the 3rd best ever by IGN in 2019, or 'The Gamer' claiming this to be the best-looking game for the NES. Is it a fun game to play though? I go over everything in my review.

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10

You get the story explained in the manual. Someone has stolen precious metals in Gotham City. Batman links this to the Joker. Now you must take on his henchmen to reach Joker's hideout.

The intro to the game shows three scrolling images. First, Joker leaning forward with a laugh on his face and "HaHaHa" written all over the screen. Second, a bat signal being sent, indicating the police asking Batman for help. Third, Batman, striking a pose and looking to the right, seemingly aware of the 2D nature of the game he is trapped in. Red balls scroll vertically behind him on a purple background. What are those red balls and why are they there?

Anyway, this is pretty much it. Is the portayal of Joker worthy of the #3 position given to it by IGN? You decide. I just gave you one third of his appearance in the entire game. He appears as a boss twice late-game, both in weird, futuristic devices, one where he uses some flying object and one where he is inside a wall-mounted robot type thing. Don't know a lot about the Joker, but haven't seen him use anything like this in any movies. Maybe in the comics? Anyway, what I'm saying is, if this is truly the 3rd (!) best rendition of the Joker in the video game medium, that's kind of sad, though I'd disagree, since the Joker has next to zero charm and pretty much is as replacable as an end boss as it gets.

GAMEPLAY | 11/20

Batman is equipped with a wrist projector, which basically shoots energy projectiles. Odd choice for Batman, but 1990's 'Batman: The Video Game' for the Game Boy had him equipped with a simple gun, so I guess this game wins.

There are three sorts of stages and substages. One where you do some platforming on horizontally scrolling stages and shoot enemies. One where you are in the same 2D perspective but are flying and need to shoot enemies in a shoot 'em up type stage. Finally, one where you fight bosses, where you get an individual health pool of 80.000.

The Sega Genesis Batman game from 1990 has more variety and is overall more enjoyable, makes sense considering it's a 16-bit game with more capabilities, but this Batman game also offers more variety than you usually see in these types of games, where all stages are just simple platforming and then boss fights where you carry your health into them.

The problem with this game is that it feels too by-the-numbers anyway. Due to the high detail in backgrounds and high processing power usage graphically, levels aren't all too populated with enemies, and those that do pop-up hit you a split-second after you see them. Gotta increase the difficulty somewhere I guess, and if it's not in enemy density, it's in unfair cheap shots. There are many enemies designed like this, but one particularly nasty part is where bombs drop from the heavens at specific points. There is no tell for these, and the only way to dodge them is to literally take a step forward and then run back, and do this over and over, unless you play enough to have the level memorized.

The boss fights are enjoyable for the most part, though poorly designed in a way because of the health allocation. Both you and the boss gets a boss-fight specific amount of health. You get 80k, the bosses start at about 20k and max out at over 100k with the final boss. Since this is the case, the first couple bosses can literally be spammed with attacks and all their hits can be tanked, since you will outpace them in damage easily. Conversely, later bosses, especially the first Joker fight, hit you with tons of attacks constantly which do 4 or 6k damage each, while each attack you make per attack window you get for each attack pattern is less than that, so there is an actual challenge there to avoid hits. I had the impression that the Joker fights in particular where very fair in their attack patterns and you could actually learn them easily, though mastering them without getting hit from time to time appeared tough. Basically, a solid challenge.

For your own attacks, you can collect differently lettered capsules to change your attacking style, though a criss-cross attacking weapon felt much more useful than a simple, frontward one-at-a-time projectile shooting attack, for obvious reasons.

Overall, this felt quite basic and forgettable, though not particularly annoying or frustrating.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10

No voice acting. Fantastic, albeit very short title screen music. Rest of the track ranges from good to very good as well, with Sunsoft proving that they know how to make use of the NES' sound capabilities. It doesn't sound particularly like Batman but rather like a Sunsoft NES Action game soundtrack, but that'll do for sure.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10

When it is said that this game might have the best NES graphics, I can't say I disagree when it comes to putting it into the upper echelon. Great graphics, pretty good sprite work and a ton of detail in the background.

ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 5/10

You don't ever feel like you're playing a Batman game but rather a simple NES Action game. That's more than fine of course, but it doesn't make for much atmosphere. The point where you feel it the most is in the title screen, when the opening track plays followed by the intro with the slideshow.

CONTENT | 5/10

There are 7 stages and I believe 3 sub-stages per stage, with 5 of these containing a boss fight at the end. As I explained, there are 3 types of levels in this game (platforming, shoot 'em up and boss fights), but it doesn't stand out in any particular way and is done very quickly as well. Don't think there are secrets to find, the enemy variety is low and most boss fights are push-overs due to the health system for them.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10

The design of the levels is not unusual for early 90's platformers. This game suffers from its graphics, as this pretty much forces the game to stick with fewer enemies on-screen at the same time, which in turn has made the devs add difficulty by making the present enemies unfair in how they appear on screen and damage you a couple frames later. I did like how the game added little shoot 'em up stages to add variety, even if it only happened twice, and I didn't mind the later boss fights, which were more than doable after figuring out the boss patterns.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 4/10

The most innovative part about this game will be the fact that you get a separate health pool for boss fights. And apart from the great graphics, nothing else makes this game really stand out.

REPLAYABILITY | 1/5

No motivation given to replay this game after having beaten it the first time, not even a high score system to try to beat your previous one.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5

Worked well at all times.

OVERALL | 54/100

This is your pretty average NES platformer experience. The above-average graphics are really the only difference-maker here, but apart from that, this plays formulaic, and that formula has gotten pretty stale by now.

Reviewed on May 20, 2023


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