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Batman: The Video Game is a collection of platform games that are different in gameplay and story depending on the platform it released for, developed and published by Sunsoft.
The first version released for the NES in 1989 and is a side-scrolling platformer with features like the grappling hook, wall jumps and projectile weapons like the batarang and batdiscs.
The version I played, the Game Boy version, released on April 13, 1990 and is much less ambitious in both graphics and gameplay. It features Batman with a gun and is also a side scrolling platformer.
There are two other versions for the Sega Genesis, a game I will play as we move further along in 1990, and a PC Engine version which released in Japan-only and is an action-puzzle game.
Each game ties in to the movie from 1989 starring Jack Nicholson as the Joker to varying degrees, with the Game Boy version having the "least relation".
STORYTELLING
There is almost none present. Each "chapter" starts and ends with a very brief cutscene involving Joker and Batman. It would have been nice to have a bit more here or, as I will discuss later, more of a Batman feel in the level and/or graphic design, because while the game was fun, it could have been called anything but Batman and no one would have batted an eye.
GAMEPLAY
A lot of fun. If you are looking for platformers from this time and are looking for a game that is easier than usual for this period (1), that has more generous hit boxes (2), doesn't take too long (3) and has some variation (4), you'll find a pretty good game in the GameBoy version of Batman: The Video Game.
This is a side scrolling platformer with your usual dangers. There are enemies that simply follow a pre-determined route and will damage you if you touch them. Later on, they start shooting at you as well. Plus you can of course fall down to your death as well. You control Batman who is pointing a gun forward at all times. Batman using a gun already doesn't seem quite like Batman, but so be it. You can find a bunch of power-ups as you go through levels which alter your damage output and the way your gun shoots. Some give you more power but reduce your range, some make the bullet fly in half circles up and down. Stages are different enough that specific bullets (each different bullet variation is marked with a letter like "N" or "S) will be required to go through them without taking any damage, or perhaps even go through them period. One stage for example has enemies covering a whole platform and can't be shot at with the low-range bullet, so you have to jump on top of it and sacrifice some of your health. If your health is too low at that point, you're basically guaranteed to die. But each level allows you the opportunity to switch to a more usable bullet.
Shooting and platforming becomes more and more tricky as the game goes on, but it doesn't really become hard until about Chapter/Stage 3. I immediately noticed how hit boxes were really the opposite of what I came to expect out of games from 1990. Bullets could touch your sprite and you sometimes would take no damage. Especially when crouching down, bullets would touch your head but it wouldn't register as a hit. Conversely, bullets that barely scrape the enemy still hit them. Pretty much all the other games need you to be way more specific and give you way less leeway there, so this was a welcome surprise. As you will find out over the course of this game, that does make the game simpler, but it's hardly easy throughout. It's simply actually beatable without spending dozens of hours perfecting later stages. If you are a side-scrolling platform veteran however, this game will not scratch that hardcore challenge itch that you might have.
There is also a bat mobile shmup type level which offers some nice variety and is pretty challenging as more and more enemies and bullets start flying around you.
Boss fights are not that plentiful and end up being bullet-sponge fests more than anything, so they were a bit of a let down.
But overall, gameplay wise I had a lot of fun with this, even if the last stage and boss fight did my head in.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design was average, which is good for the time, but the firing sound could have done with a little bit more 'oomph'. This gun holding animation-starved Batman could have definitely used it to give him at least some sort of badass vibes.
I liked the music but only because it pretty much sounds like any other soundtrack of its time, and most 8 bit soundtracks were bangers, but as with most of this game, it didn't give off any Batman vibes.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The Game Boy games of this time weren't particularly nice to look at, and that is no different here. Many magazines and reviews of the time I found call this game one of the better looking Game Boy games of the time, so I'm going to believe them here. Still, there isn't much here, you could have put any character in here instead of Batman and it would have done the same, minus the presence of Joker in cutscenes (his in-game character also looks like a random detective-like NPC though).
ATMOSPHERE
It has a typical Game Boy platformer atmosphere and that is totally fine, but again, it doesn't feel at all like Batman. I find this to be a good platformer first rather than a bad Batman game, so it depends on what you value more here.
CONTENT
There isn't much here, but what is here is fun. It took me roughly 4 hours to beat it.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
It's an odd choice to turn this into a generic platformer because Sunsoft's other Batman games in this 'package of platformers' include a lot more of Batman's typical gear, in addition to wall climbing. Here, they just gave BATMAN a gun and said enjoy.
There are four chapters with 3 or 4 stages in each and apart from the final one, which was so long, I enjoyed going through them all. Boss fights also took too long even though they didn't take long to figure out.
But the game gets an additional bonus for putting each level in different locations. For a 1990 Gameboy game, that is commendable.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
From the reactions of 1990 it's clear that this game was one of the better Game Boy games at the time, both graphically and in terms of gameplay, which is good, but not innovative.
REPLAYABILITY
You can play games with about a handful of different 'bullet effects' and of course try to beat your high score, or try to go from start to finish without any continues. The boring and long boss fights and not many gameplay elements overall to take away some from the game's replayability.
PLAYABILITY
The game worked fine at all times.
OVERALL
This is a game that is not notable as a package because it pretty much only does one thing really well or even above-average, but what it does well is be an enjoyable, fair platformer that is atypical for this time where games were supposed to be punishing to artificially increase playing time of otherwise short games. This one does that in its final chapter as well, but even then it is more than beatable and flows well overall, if it weren't for those long and boring boss fight interruptions.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Steve Harris for Electronic Gaming Monthly Issue 14 (Sep 90): "The graphics, by GameBoy standards, are superlative"
- Sushi-X for Electronic Gaming Monthly Issue 14 (Sep 90): "Gee Batman, better lose a few pounds and put that gun away and slug it out like you're supposed to" Glad this was addressed back in the day as well. Fyi, he gave the game a 7/10 anyway because this really is a fun game.
- ?? for Mean Machines Issue 3 (Dec 90): "if you're a Nintendo owner, miss this game at your peril."
The first version released for the NES in 1989 and is a side-scrolling platformer with features like the grappling hook, wall jumps and projectile weapons like the batarang and batdiscs.
The version I played, the Game Boy version, released on April 13, 1990 and is much less ambitious in both graphics and gameplay. It features Batman with a gun and is also a side scrolling platformer.
There are two other versions for the Sega Genesis, a game I will play as we move further along in 1990, and a PC Engine version which released in Japan-only and is an action-puzzle game.
Each game ties in to the movie from 1989 starring Jack Nicholson as the Joker to varying degrees, with the Game Boy version having the "least relation".
STORYTELLING
There is almost none present. Each "chapter" starts and ends with a very brief cutscene involving Joker and Batman. It would have been nice to have a bit more here or, as I will discuss later, more of a Batman feel in the level and/or graphic design, because while the game was fun, it could have been called anything but Batman and no one would have batted an eye.
GAMEPLAY
A lot of fun. If you are looking for platformers from this time and are looking for a game that is easier than usual for this period (1), that has more generous hit boxes (2), doesn't take too long (3) and has some variation (4), you'll find a pretty good game in the GameBoy version of Batman: The Video Game.
This is a side scrolling platformer with your usual dangers. There are enemies that simply follow a pre-determined route and will damage you if you touch them. Later on, they start shooting at you as well. Plus you can of course fall down to your death as well. You control Batman who is pointing a gun forward at all times. Batman using a gun already doesn't seem quite like Batman, but so be it. You can find a bunch of power-ups as you go through levels which alter your damage output and the way your gun shoots. Some give you more power but reduce your range, some make the bullet fly in half circles up and down. Stages are different enough that specific bullets (each different bullet variation is marked with a letter like "N" or "S) will be required to go through them without taking any damage, or perhaps even go through them period. One stage for example has enemies covering a whole platform and can't be shot at with the low-range bullet, so you have to jump on top of it and sacrifice some of your health. If your health is too low at that point, you're basically guaranteed to die. But each level allows you the opportunity to switch to a more usable bullet.
Shooting and platforming becomes more and more tricky as the game goes on, but it doesn't really become hard until about Chapter/Stage 3. I immediately noticed how hit boxes were really the opposite of what I came to expect out of games from 1990. Bullets could touch your sprite and you sometimes would take no damage. Especially when crouching down, bullets would touch your head but it wouldn't register as a hit. Conversely, bullets that barely scrape the enemy still hit them. Pretty much all the other games need you to be way more specific and give you way less leeway there, so this was a welcome surprise. As you will find out over the course of this game, that does make the game simpler, but it's hardly easy throughout. It's simply actually beatable without spending dozens of hours perfecting later stages. If you are a side-scrolling platform veteran however, this game will not scratch that hardcore challenge itch that you might have.
There is also a bat mobile shmup type level which offers some nice variety and is pretty challenging as more and more enemies and bullets start flying around you.
Boss fights are not that plentiful and end up being bullet-sponge fests more than anything, so they were a bit of a let down.
But overall, gameplay wise I had a lot of fun with this, even if the last stage and boss fight did my head in.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design was average, which is good for the time, but the firing sound could have done with a little bit more 'oomph'. This gun holding animation-starved Batman could have definitely used it to give him at least some sort of badass vibes.
I liked the music but only because it pretty much sounds like any other soundtrack of its time, and most 8 bit soundtracks were bangers, but as with most of this game, it didn't give off any Batman vibes.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The Game Boy games of this time weren't particularly nice to look at, and that is no different here. Many magazines and reviews of the time I found call this game one of the better looking Game Boy games of the time, so I'm going to believe them here. Still, there isn't much here, you could have put any character in here instead of Batman and it would have done the same, minus the presence of Joker in cutscenes (his in-game character also looks like a random detective-like NPC though).
ATMOSPHERE
It has a typical Game Boy platformer atmosphere and that is totally fine, but again, it doesn't feel at all like Batman. I find this to be a good platformer first rather than a bad Batman game, so it depends on what you value more here.
CONTENT
There isn't much here, but what is here is fun. It took me roughly 4 hours to beat it.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
It's an odd choice to turn this into a generic platformer because Sunsoft's other Batman games in this 'package of platformers' include a lot more of Batman's typical gear, in addition to wall climbing. Here, they just gave BATMAN a gun and said enjoy.
There are four chapters with 3 or 4 stages in each and apart from the final one, which was so long, I enjoyed going through them all. Boss fights also took too long even though they didn't take long to figure out.
But the game gets an additional bonus for putting each level in different locations. For a 1990 Gameboy game, that is commendable.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
From the reactions of 1990 it's clear that this game was one of the better Game Boy games at the time, both graphically and in terms of gameplay, which is good, but not innovative.
REPLAYABILITY
You can play games with about a handful of different 'bullet effects' and of course try to beat your high score, or try to go from start to finish without any continues. The boring and long boss fights and not many gameplay elements overall to take away some from the game's replayability.
PLAYABILITY
The game worked fine at all times.
OVERALL
This is a game that is not notable as a package because it pretty much only does one thing really well or even above-average, but what it does well is be an enjoyable, fair platformer that is atypical for this time where games were supposed to be punishing to artificially increase playing time of otherwise short games. This one does that in its final chapter as well, but even then it is more than beatable and flows well overall, if it weren't for those long and boring boss fight interruptions.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Steve Harris for Electronic Gaming Monthly Issue 14 (Sep 90): "The graphics, by GameBoy standards, are superlative"
- Sushi-X for Electronic Gaming Monthly Issue 14 (Sep 90): "Gee Batman, better lose a few pounds and put that gun away and slug it out like you're supposed to" Glad this was addressed back in the day as well. Fyi, he gave the game a 7/10 anyway because this really is a fun game.
- ?? for Mean Machines Issue 3 (Dec 90): "if you're a Nintendo owner, miss this game at your peril."
2011
To The Moon regularly gets praise online for its story and seemingly everyone I've seen talk about this game cried at the end. Interestingly enough, 3 games made me teary-eyed over my lifetime, and I consider those to be the three best games I've ever played, so To The Moon would be in elite territory if it accomplished as much.
In all seriousness, the reviews set expectations for a short, walking simulator like, 2D indie pixel adventure game made with RPG Maker really high, almost unfairly so. I'm happy to say though that those expectations were met. I didn't cry, but the twists and revelations of the story did have an impact on me either way. Unfortunately, revealing nearly anything would rob you of the experience, so I'm going to refrain from doing so. The gist of it is that an old man has a dying wish: He wants to experience going to the moon. A special agency can dive into memories of their clients to grant them this wish by altering their actual memories into artifical memories, and two employees of this agency, Dr. Eva Rosalene and Dr. Neil Watts, must uncover the clients (Johnny Wyles) backstory to be able to make the right changes to his memories.
It starts slow but gets going quickly and never really lets up from there. It's a very short and linear experience at pretty much exactly 4 hours, and that's perfect for what this game is. The story includes little to no filler and is told really well, with the two employees Watts and Rosalene making for a pretty funny combo to balance out the otherwise emotional ride the game's story is.
If you're looking for gameplay, you won't find much of it here. Gameplay doesn't go beyond walking to your target locations and doing a few very simple puzzles. I'm not the biggest fan of walking simulators or visual novels but I do enjoy the occasional one. If you feel similarly or stronger about these genres, you gotta play To The Moon.
In all seriousness, the reviews set expectations for a short, walking simulator like, 2D indie pixel adventure game made with RPG Maker really high, almost unfairly so. I'm happy to say though that those expectations were met. I didn't cry, but the twists and revelations of the story did have an impact on me either way. Unfortunately, revealing nearly anything would rob you of the experience, so I'm going to refrain from doing so. The gist of it is that an old man has a dying wish: He wants to experience going to the moon. A special agency can dive into memories of their clients to grant them this wish by altering their actual memories into artifical memories, and two employees of this agency, Dr. Eva Rosalene and Dr. Neil Watts, must uncover the clients (Johnny Wyles) backstory to be able to make the right changes to his memories.
It starts slow but gets going quickly and never really lets up from there. It's a very short and linear experience at pretty much exactly 4 hours, and that's perfect for what this game is. The story includes little to no filler and is told really well, with the two employees Watts and Rosalene making for a pretty funny combo to balance out the otherwise emotional ride the game's story is.
If you're looking for gameplay, you won't find much of it here. Gameplay doesn't go beyond walking to your target locations and doing a few very simple puzzles. I'm not the biggest fan of walking simulators or visual novels but I do enjoy the occasional one. If you feel similarly or stronger about these genres, you gotta play To The Moon.
There is no reason to really review this too deeply. There are 3 games in this collection and all are pretty much identical 45 minute "detective" adventure games. They all have that very low budget modern indie game charm. The games are not meant to be taken seriously and the mysteries surrounding these games are similarly silly, and whether you will enjoy these games or not will depend on two things.
The Frog Detective games live and die by their humor and their vibe. The vibe the games go for is the chill, turn your brain off and just have a cozy, comfortable little adventure type. If you really dig that vibe, you probably will like the humor as well. For me personally, the games weren't funny, but needless to say that is a very subjective matter. But if the humor doesn't hit, these games become pretty boring. If it does hit, and you dig the vibe, well, you got a very cozy afternoon or two to look forward to playing Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery.
The reason why I say that the games live and die by their humor and vibe is because the gameplay is very basic. You go around a small area that the games play in and talk to every person there. Each person wants an item from you and will give you something else in return. You pick up an item that you can find in the game world to start, give it to the right person and start a chain reaction of giving Person A's item to B, B's item to C etc. It's the same for all three games and then the games end. I think even games that go for this style can offer a lot more, but clearly, a lot of people enjoyed what the first game was going for, so I don't blame the devs at all for sticking with it for the next two games.
The Frog Detective games live and die by their humor and their vibe. The vibe the games go for is the chill, turn your brain off and just have a cozy, comfortable little adventure type. If you really dig that vibe, you probably will like the humor as well. For me personally, the games weren't funny, but needless to say that is a very subjective matter. But if the humor doesn't hit, these games become pretty boring. If it does hit, and you dig the vibe, well, you got a very cozy afternoon or two to look forward to playing Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery.
The reason why I say that the games live and die by their humor and vibe is because the gameplay is very basic. You go around a small area that the games play in and talk to every person there. Each person wants an item from you and will give you something else in return. You pick up an item that you can find in the game world to start, give it to the right person and start a chain reaction of giving Person A's item to B, B's item to C etc. It's the same for all three games and then the games end. I think even games that go for this style can offer a lot more, but clearly, a lot of people enjoyed what the first game was going for, so I don't blame the devs at all for sticking with it for the next two games.
Based on the movie by the same name from 1988, Michael Jackson's Moonwalker is a beat 'em up game released initially on August 24, 1990 for the Sega Genesis and Master System. An Arcade version was released a month earlier, which is an isometric run and gun game.
The game is better than I expected for a game around a celebrity, and the good parts go beyond the soundtrack. More on my thoughts in detail below.
____________
STORYTELLING
The setup for the story is explained in the manual, while the game itself only has any explanation shortly before the boss fight. What your goal is, is self-explanatory as you play though.
You control Michael Jackson, duh, and go into hostile territory to free a bunch of kidnapped children. All children look like Katie from the movie and say "Michael!" when you free them whilst giving you a boost to your magic/health bar.
At the end of each stage, Mr. Big - the boss - shows up and tells you that "you will never catch me" before he sends a bunch of his goons at you.
The manual tells you that Mr. Big is kidnapping every kid in the world to turn them into his slaves and the text in-game only tells you that you can now face him, so there isn't much here. I'm probably the guy who dived the deepest into the storytelling of this game ever right now because it's barely existent and not the point of this game.
GAMEPLAY
Michael Jackson shows up in a club and flips a coin into a jukebox to flip on a banging soundtrack that provides the backdrop for a gaming experience that is fun despite its limitations, but is held back tremendously by the game's level design.
In this 2D beat 'em up game, you do two things. First, you beat up a bunch of bad guys using your feet (or your arms when you jump), which releases magical sparkles that apparently damage bad people. Second, you have to rescue children.
The Fighting Part: This was fun but had plenty of issues. You see, you have only ONE bar in this game, which represents both your health AND your magical spark tank. And once you drop below a certain amount, you can only do weak punches, not shoot magic anymore. There is a special attack that you can do by spinning, which however drains your bar very fast. If you spin for a little bit, you throw your hat and it creates an explosion. If you spin for half of your health bar, every enemy on screen stands next to Michael Jackson and they do a little dance, which kills every enemy afterwards. It's a great little gimmick for this game but it's unfortunate that it drains your health bar to do it, instead of getting its individual bar. This made me ignore this feature apart from a few small instances throughout the game.
Another issue I got was that you couldn't both turn and shoot magic. Especially in the final two "chapters", enemies would be thrown at you in bunches from both sides, and it felt like it was pretty much impossible to get through the levels unless you knew where to find the kids and therefore skipped most of the level.
The Finding Children Part: And so, let's talk about this part. Depending on the level you find yourself in, you have to check windows, doors, in car trunks, in caves, behind bushes or even behind tombstones to find children. There are dozens of these per level and there is a set number of children hiding in pre-determined hiding spots. As mentioned, I'm glad, because this is probably the only way to beat the game (which I didn't), but imagine missing ONE spot and having to go through the entire level again trying to find it, whilst enemies keep respawning and draining your health bar.
Some hiding spots you won't even find because you won't know where to look. For example you will have to look behind manhole cover that seem to be there as part of the scenery, but no, you actually have to do a spin on top of it to essentially screw it open.
Overall, the core gameplay loop was fun enough, but it all went to shizzles starting in around Chapter 4, where so many enemies would appear that it would make looking for kids tedious. The boss fight only triggers once you find them all, and even the boss fights become a pain, because all of a sudden, 10, nope 20, nope 30 enemies appear one after the other, if not even more than that, and in the graveyard level in particular, those damn zombies appear that can just detach from their legs and fly at you to deal a lot of damage. Meanwhile you can't use any special attacks because it would drain your health too much and you'd die shortly after. These zombies are beatable, I managed it, but it only gets worse from there and that's where I said I've played this enough.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
Not fair to call it voice acting, but the children do say "Michael" every time you rescue one, which I imagine will be instantly memorable for those who have played this a lot when they were young. I have mixed thoughts about the sound design. Some actions sound good, like the sparkle of the magic or Michael saying "wooo" when you jump-punch, but then you got the bad swooshing sound that plays whenever you check windows, doors, bushes and so on. Overall it's not too bad, not that great either.
What is great however is the soundtrack. It's a 16 bit remix of some of Michael Jackson's most popular songs and whether you like the beats or not will make or break this for you. I think his most popular songs are timeless classics, so naturally I enjoyed this quite a lot. My only issue was that there was no Thriller during the graveyard level (zombies and Michael even did the dance) but apparently there were licensing issues there.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The design of Michael Jackson and enemies is great and the game has plenty of differently and nicely designed levels from a graphical standpoint.
ATMOSPHERE
Mixing beats from Michael Jackson songs alongside a graveyard level with zombies and Michael doing the Thriller dance is great and puts you in a great mood, even if the song Thriller itself is not licensed. Levels also have unique themes which I enjoyed, even if they didn't always feel like they suit Michael Jackson.
CONTENT
The overall package here is fun but there isn't a lot of variety. You don't gain any new abilities, there are no power up items, special moves are discouraged due to draining your health, mission objectives are always the same and most of the playing time you accrue comes from trial and error. As I said, the content overall is fun though, so I'll assume that most of you will enjoy a couple hours with it.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
This just gets progressively worse as more and more and more and more enemies are thrown at you, but your abilities never improve to properly tackle them on. Instead you just wildly shoot left and right and hope you get them all before your health runs out. Don't even think about using special items because that's basically suicide.
On a smaller scale, making it extremely hard to even figure out where to look for the children, making you go all the way to the boss fight whenever you die during one and making you run around the entire level if you miss a single child are some more annoyances with how this game is designed. Not good.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
The way they've added a bunch of Michael Jackson animation and dance moves, the dance he does with the enemies, the remix of his songs and designing the game to his likeness overall is pretty well done, however it doesn't really translate to other games.
REPLAYABILITY
No abilities to collect/find, no secrets apart from one if you somehow manage to catch a shooting star (check it out on YT if you don't want to play this game, it's pretty nice), no randomizing of hiding spots for children (though some of you might prefer this) and terrible level design in later chapters means a replay is only advisable if you really want to try and beat your high score.
PLAYABILITY
It works well from start to finish.
OVERALL
I liked the core gameplay here, even if its is feature-limited. Playing this to that great soundtrack was great fun for the first few hours but once I got into the latter stages of the graveyard chapter, it just got more and more annoying to play. Ultimately that makes it an average game for its time overall.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
This game was a big topic back in the day, with multiple magazines putting Michael Jackson on their covers.
- Andy Eddy for VGCE, Issue 19 (Aug 90): "Updated cartridges were constantly provided to Jackson, and his suggestions were then passed on to the programmers" | Not an 'opinion' but certainly awesome to hear Jackson being so involved in the creation of this game
- Andromeda for GamePro, Issue 13 (Aug 90): "The animation is smooth, realistic and eye-popping."
The game is better than I expected for a game around a celebrity, and the good parts go beyond the soundtrack. More on my thoughts in detail below.
____________
STORYTELLING
The setup for the story is explained in the manual, while the game itself only has any explanation shortly before the boss fight. What your goal is, is self-explanatory as you play though.
You control Michael Jackson, duh, and go into hostile territory to free a bunch of kidnapped children. All children look like Katie from the movie and say "Michael!" when you free them whilst giving you a boost to your magic/health bar.
At the end of each stage, Mr. Big - the boss - shows up and tells you that "you will never catch me" before he sends a bunch of his goons at you.
The manual tells you that Mr. Big is kidnapping every kid in the world to turn them into his slaves and the text in-game only tells you that you can now face him, so there isn't much here. I'm probably the guy who dived the deepest into the storytelling of this game ever right now because it's barely existent and not the point of this game.
GAMEPLAY
Michael Jackson shows up in a club and flips a coin into a jukebox to flip on a banging soundtrack that provides the backdrop for a gaming experience that is fun despite its limitations, but is held back tremendously by the game's level design.
In this 2D beat 'em up game, you do two things. First, you beat up a bunch of bad guys using your feet (or your arms when you jump), which releases magical sparkles that apparently damage bad people. Second, you have to rescue children.
The Fighting Part: This was fun but had plenty of issues. You see, you have only ONE bar in this game, which represents both your health AND your magical spark tank. And once you drop below a certain amount, you can only do weak punches, not shoot magic anymore. There is a special attack that you can do by spinning, which however drains your bar very fast. If you spin for a little bit, you throw your hat and it creates an explosion. If you spin for half of your health bar, every enemy on screen stands next to Michael Jackson and they do a little dance, which kills every enemy afterwards. It's a great little gimmick for this game but it's unfortunate that it drains your health bar to do it, instead of getting its individual bar. This made me ignore this feature apart from a few small instances throughout the game.
Another issue I got was that you couldn't both turn and shoot magic. Especially in the final two "chapters", enemies would be thrown at you in bunches from both sides, and it felt like it was pretty much impossible to get through the levels unless you knew where to find the kids and therefore skipped most of the level.
The Finding Children Part: And so, let's talk about this part. Depending on the level you find yourself in, you have to check windows, doors, in car trunks, in caves, behind bushes or even behind tombstones to find children. There are dozens of these per level and there is a set number of children hiding in pre-determined hiding spots. As mentioned, I'm glad, because this is probably the only way to beat the game (which I didn't), but imagine missing ONE spot and having to go through the entire level again trying to find it, whilst enemies keep respawning and draining your health bar.
Some hiding spots you won't even find because you won't know where to look. For example you will have to look behind manhole cover that seem to be there as part of the scenery, but no, you actually have to do a spin on top of it to essentially screw it open.
Overall, the core gameplay loop was fun enough, but it all went to shizzles starting in around Chapter 4, where so many enemies would appear that it would make looking for kids tedious. The boss fight only triggers once you find them all, and even the boss fights become a pain, because all of a sudden, 10, nope 20, nope 30 enemies appear one after the other, if not even more than that, and in the graveyard level in particular, those damn zombies appear that can just detach from their legs and fly at you to deal a lot of damage. Meanwhile you can't use any special attacks because it would drain your health too much and you'd die shortly after. These zombies are beatable, I managed it, but it only gets worse from there and that's where I said I've played this enough.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
Not fair to call it voice acting, but the children do say "Michael" every time you rescue one, which I imagine will be instantly memorable for those who have played this a lot when they were young. I have mixed thoughts about the sound design. Some actions sound good, like the sparkle of the magic or Michael saying "wooo" when you jump-punch, but then you got the bad swooshing sound that plays whenever you check windows, doors, bushes and so on. Overall it's not too bad, not that great either.
What is great however is the soundtrack. It's a 16 bit remix of some of Michael Jackson's most popular songs and whether you like the beats or not will make or break this for you. I think his most popular songs are timeless classics, so naturally I enjoyed this quite a lot. My only issue was that there was no Thriller during the graveyard level (zombies and Michael even did the dance) but apparently there were licensing issues there.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
The design of Michael Jackson and enemies is great and the game has plenty of differently and nicely designed levels from a graphical standpoint.
ATMOSPHERE
Mixing beats from Michael Jackson songs alongside a graveyard level with zombies and Michael doing the Thriller dance is great and puts you in a great mood, even if the song Thriller itself is not licensed. Levels also have unique themes which I enjoyed, even if they didn't always feel like they suit Michael Jackson.
CONTENT
The overall package here is fun but there isn't a lot of variety. You don't gain any new abilities, there are no power up items, special moves are discouraged due to draining your health, mission objectives are always the same and most of the playing time you accrue comes from trial and error. As I said, the content overall is fun though, so I'll assume that most of you will enjoy a couple hours with it.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
This just gets progressively worse as more and more and more and more enemies are thrown at you, but your abilities never improve to properly tackle them on. Instead you just wildly shoot left and right and hope you get them all before your health runs out. Don't even think about using special items because that's basically suicide.
On a smaller scale, making it extremely hard to even figure out where to look for the children, making you go all the way to the boss fight whenever you die during one and making you run around the entire level if you miss a single child are some more annoyances with how this game is designed. Not good.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
The way they've added a bunch of Michael Jackson animation and dance moves, the dance he does with the enemies, the remix of his songs and designing the game to his likeness overall is pretty well done, however it doesn't really translate to other games.
REPLAYABILITY
No abilities to collect/find, no secrets apart from one if you somehow manage to catch a shooting star (check it out on YT if you don't want to play this game, it's pretty nice), no randomizing of hiding spots for children (though some of you might prefer this) and terrible level design in later chapters means a replay is only advisable if you really want to try and beat your high score.
PLAYABILITY
It works well from start to finish.
OVERALL
I liked the core gameplay here, even if its is feature-limited. Playing this to that great soundtrack was great fun for the first few hours but once I got into the latter stages of the graveyard chapter, it just got more and more annoying to play. Ultimately that makes it an average game for its time overall.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
This game was a big topic back in the day, with multiple magazines putting Michael Jackson on their covers.
- Andy Eddy for VGCE, Issue 19 (Aug 90): "Updated cartridges were constantly provided to Jackson, and his suggestions were then passed on to the programmers" | Not an 'opinion' but certainly awesome to hear Jackson being so involved in the creation of this game
- Andromeda for GamePro, Issue 13 (Aug 90): "The animation is smooth, realistic and eye-popping."
This is the 6th Spider-Man game I've played in chronological order as part of a challenge I'm doing. Let me quickly recap: I've played 80 games between 1990 and 1992 before playing this game. 5 of those 80 were Spider-Man games. Three of those Spider-Man games make for the Top 3 Worst Games I've played as part of this challenge. None of the 5 games I'd consider giving anything above 1.5 stars.
Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge, developed by Software Creations and published by 'I'll get the Spider-Man license just to absolutely shit on it' Acclaim Entertainment, released in November 1992 and calls itself an Action-Platformer. While doing so, it's playing fast and loose with the term 'Action', as from the get-go, you realize two things.
First, as per usual, the controls are horrible. That said, the game has the best controls out of all 6 Spider-Man games I've played in this time period, which says more about the state of Spider-Man games than it does about this game. Using the web is possible here, but most of the time you'll have a lower body part touch a platform and fall to your death, as while airborne, you can't activate the web. It's the same handicap that Spider-Man has, as everyone knows.
Second, after a little while, you realize what the actual goal of the first level. Collect some collectable items in some random order that your "Spider senses" direct you towards. This means you just end up awkwardly climbing up and down walls waiting for the Spider sense to trigger once you're close enough, then you run up to the collectable, collect it and go to the next one until the exit opens. Wow.
Perhaps this helps to distract you from the graphics, which, for an SNES (!) game, look horrendous, though again, probably make it the 2nd best looking Spider-Man just behind Spider-Man vs the Kingpin on the Genesis.
The awful controls will dawn on you once you get to the second stage. As per usual, I'm saddened by the state of the license, as continuously releasing god-awful games sounds harder than Acclaim Entertainment and their development studios make it look.
Luckily, there is another Spider-Man game releasing pretty soon in 1993.
(This is the 81st game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge, developed by Software Creations and published by 'I'll get the Spider-Man license just to absolutely shit on it' Acclaim Entertainment, released in November 1992 and calls itself an Action-Platformer. While doing so, it's playing fast and loose with the term 'Action', as from the get-go, you realize two things.
First, as per usual, the controls are horrible. That said, the game has the best controls out of all 6 Spider-Man games I've played in this time period, which says more about the state of Spider-Man games than it does about this game. Using the web is possible here, but most of the time you'll have a lower body part touch a platform and fall to your death, as while airborne, you can't activate the web. It's the same handicap that Spider-Man has, as everyone knows.
Second, after a little while, you realize what the actual goal of the first level. Collect some collectable items in some random order that your "Spider senses" direct you towards. This means you just end up awkwardly climbing up and down walls waiting for the Spider sense to trigger once you're close enough, then you run up to the collectable, collect it and go to the next one until the exit opens. Wow.
Perhaps this helps to distract you from the graphics, which, for an SNES (!) game, look horrendous, though again, probably make it the 2nd best looking Spider-Man just behind Spider-Man vs the Kingpin on the Genesis.
The awful controls will dawn on you once you get to the second stage. As per usual, I'm saddened by the state of the license, as continuously releasing god-awful games sounds harder than Acclaim Entertainment and their development studios make it look.
Luckily, there is another Spider-Man game releasing pretty soon in 1993.
(This is the 81st game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
We are in March 26, 1990. The more popular Amazing-Spider Man game of the same year was still four months away, but developer Oxford Digital Enterprises pounced and released their version first for the Commodore 64 and Amiga, before porting it to most notably the Atari ST later. Considering that the other game released for a handheld device only (the Game Boy), there wasn't really any competition between both games, so this narrative I just created is probably incorrect.
But here it is, The Amazing Spider-Man, published by Paragon Software (NA, Empire Software for EU) and being so far inferior to the Game Boy game that even the description of it on Grouvee reads "Not to be confused with the Game Boy title released in the same year". Or how about the Marvel Fandom Wiki having a page for the Game Boy game, but no mention of this one.
To keep it short, the plot in this game revolves around Mysterio, who kidnaps Mary Jane. That's it. There is a comic book style presentation of the story and then there is one happy ending image at the end, but that's it. You didn't play these platformers for their stories though, so what was gameplay like? Well you were controlling fat Spider-Man.
With that, let's dive into each aspect of my reviewing system one by one, starting with, very briefly, the story.
STORYTELLING: Again, you didn't play these games for their story, even though games like Ninja Gaiden obviously did at least make an effort in that regard during this time (the sequel released only two weeks after this Spider-Man game). We do rate story(telling) though, so let's see. As mentioned, the beginning of the game, at least in some versions (the Atari version didn't even have these from what I've seen), shows us three slides of images designed like in a comic book, where we see Mysterio kidnapping Mary Jane and Peter Parker being angry. That's pretty much it. Environmental storytelling is pretty much non existent throughout, there is little sense to be made with the sheer randomness with which assets were used, most even being unassociated with Spider-Man (there are a lot of R2D2s running around in this game).
GAMEPLAY: When I say "fat" Spider-Man, I mean it. The first image of gameplay you see is Spider-Man hunched forward like he's either been playing too many video games and ruined his posture or gained a ton of weight or he has significant back problems. Moving forward reveals even worse truths. Spider-Man walks as if he is carrying a bag filled with 200kg of sand and when he jumps, he does levitate for a good 3 seconds, but only jumps up a few inches overall. When he falls down, he often lands flat on his face and walks around sniffing the floor for a good few feet before you can manage to make him stand upright again. When he climbs walls, he doesn't climb up or down like a spider, but more like a cat, using both arms simultaneously first, followed by both of his legs to push himself forward.
Long story short, the animations are very bad, funnily so. The slow movement just makes it worse, because funny bad is always manageable, but boring bad is just a slow death to the players enjoyment. I often look at gameplay online after I finish playing and pretty much always do I find hundreds of nostalgic comments that range from "this was my childhood game" to "this is one of the greatest games ever made", and while some of the former was present with this game as well, most did acknowledge that this game is actually just not good. Doesn't mean the memories weren't precious of course.
Progressing in this game is done by climbing in a very slow pace, by using your web to fly over enemies and by activating buttons that allow you to progress forward. If you position yourself correctly, you can even shoot your web to access buttons that are otherwise inaccessible. Enemies in this game are skeletons, rats, R2D2s and basic humans, among others. Rats for example follow you around, while most of the others have a set route which they follow. Most enemies don't bump into you, but they rather just walk past you, and every second that you are in contact drains your health. Your health bar is displayed as a standing giant Spider-Man to the right of the screen. His body starts turning into a skeleton with each percent of health that you lose, starting from his feet all the way to to the top of his head. Once he is a full skeleton, the game ends.
There are some OK ideas here, but overall it is just not fun.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE: There is no voice acting, but in the Amiga version, there is the oddest remix of a male and female voice saying Spider-Man, making me feel glad that no actual voice acting is in the game. Well, there is the "ugh ugh ugh" sound when you or enemies take damage, which just sounds unsettling.
I didn't figure out a way to turn off the music and only display sound effects, but I have seen plenty of videos with that kind of alignment. For me, the music played nonstop and it was just one track being put on repeat. Music in this generation of video games was pretty catchy most of the time and this was certainly OK, but not something I would want to listen to outside of this game. Plus some variation would have been nice.
Sound in this game is abysmal. The sound of the web, the sound when you step onto a platform and the annoying click it makes at the end, the aforementioned damage noise, the awful sound of doors opening and no actual sound for a lot of the moving platforms, enemies and effects (which I guess I should be glad for) mean that the overall sound design is just very poor.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN: There are just a bunch of random assets used and placed to create levels that make sense from a level design standpoint, but little sense from an artistic standpoint, let alone from a Spider-Man universe standpoint. Not much to like here either.
ATMOSPHERE: The incoherent art design and world building, an average singular track vs. poor sound design (if you use music, you can't really hear the sounds, so pick your poison, though I'd choose the music) and a game that is not a looker even for its time and you got a game that is bereft of atmosphere.
CONTENT: Once you get past the slow animations, the poor controls and everything else, the puzzles in this game are actually interesting enough and the game does offer a challenge to those looking for one. There isn't that much variety in what this game offers though, it's a lot of buttons pressing to unlock other buttons to press, which open up new locations or make your enemies fall to their deaths.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN: This isn't actually that bad. The game misses some variety, there isn't really anything to unlock, but there are puzzles present and some that require some brain power to solve. There is also some good interconnectivity here and there, meaning a previously inaccessible area can be unlocked as you progress, leading you back to a previous room, where a previously "non-pressable" button can now be pressed to progress elsewhere. It's not always intuitive, it's repetitive but it's probably the best part about this game.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION: Apart from the web swinging, which is 'unique' but in a bad way, there is nothing here that stands out.
REPLAYABILITY: If you do enjoy this game, there is of course the added incentive of beating your high scores and your times. There isn't much leeway in how you can complete this game, there isn't that much creative space for that, but you can always try to be quicker and receive less damage I guess.
PLAYABILITY: The game works well, the only issue I had was that sometimes I would clip into a level below the one I was on and the game would glitch out for a second. There is even a clip of someone glitching his way from the early stages all the way to the final level, if you want to check that out.
OVERALL: Definitely the worst game of this challenge so far and will probably find its way into the Top 5 Worst Games of the Year by the time I finish 1990. Or I've been relatively lucky with the first 4 games and this is what a good chunk of 1990 will look like. I doubt that though. Don't play this game if you're looking for a fun platformer, there are hundreds of better options out there in this time frame.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME:
- Nothing. I couldn't find a single magazine that reviewed this game at the time. I did find the Game Boy in every single one though.
But here it is, The Amazing Spider-Man, published by Paragon Software (NA, Empire Software for EU) and being so far inferior to the Game Boy game that even the description of it on Grouvee reads "Not to be confused with the Game Boy title released in the same year". Or how about the Marvel Fandom Wiki having a page for the Game Boy game, but no mention of this one.
To keep it short, the plot in this game revolves around Mysterio, who kidnaps Mary Jane. That's it. There is a comic book style presentation of the story and then there is one happy ending image at the end, but that's it. You didn't play these platformers for their stories though, so what was gameplay like? Well you were controlling fat Spider-Man.
With that, let's dive into each aspect of my reviewing system one by one, starting with, very briefly, the story.
STORYTELLING: Again, you didn't play these games for their story, even though games like Ninja Gaiden obviously did at least make an effort in that regard during this time (the sequel released only two weeks after this Spider-Man game). We do rate story(telling) though, so let's see. As mentioned, the beginning of the game, at least in some versions (the Atari version didn't even have these from what I've seen), shows us three slides of images designed like in a comic book, where we see Mysterio kidnapping Mary Jane and Peter Parker being angry. That's pretty much it. Environmental storytelling is pretty much non existent throughout, there is little sense to be made with the sheer randomness with which assets were used, most even being unassociated with Spider-Man (there are a lot of R2D2s running around in this game).
GAMEPLAY: When I say "fat" Spider-Man, I mean it. The first image of gameplay you see is Spider-Man hunched forward like he's either been playing too many video games and ruined his posture or gained a ton of weight or he has significant back problems. Moving forward reveals even worse truths. Spider-Man walks as if he is carrying a bag filled with 200kg of sand and when he jumps, he does levitate for a good 3 seconds, but only jumps up a few inches overall. When he falls down, he often lands flat on his face and walks around sniffing the floor for a good few feet before you can manage to make him stand upright again. When he climbs walls, he doesn't climb up or down like a spider, but more like a cat, using both arms simultaneously first, followed by both of his legs to push himself forward.
Long story short, the animations are very bad, funnily so. The slow movement just makes it worse, because funny bad is always manageable, but boring bad is just a slow death to the players enjoyment. I often look at gameplay online after I finish playing and pretty much always do I find hundreds of nostalgic comments that range from "this was my childhood game" to "this is one of the greatest games ever made", and while some of the former was present with this game as well, most did acknowledge that this game is actually just not good. Doesn't mean the memories weren't precious of course.
Progressing in this game is done by climbing in a very slow pace, by using your web to fly over enemies and by activating buttons that allow you to progress forward. If you position yourself correctly, you can even shoot your web to access buttons that are otherwise inaccessible. Enemies in this game are skeletons, rats, R2D2s and basic humans, among others. Rats for example follow you around, while most of the others have a set route which they follow. Most enemies don't bump into you, but they rather just walk past you, and every second that you are in contact drains your health. Your health bar is displayed as a standing giant Spider-Man to the right of the screen. His body starts turning into a skeleton with each percent of health that you lose, starting from his feet all the way to to the top of his head. Once he is a full skeleton, the game ends.
There are some OK ideas here, but overall it is just not fun.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE: There is no voice acting, but in the Amiga version, there is the oddest remix of a male and female voice saying Spider-Man, making me feel glad that no actual voice acting is in the game. Well, there is the "ugh ugh ugh" sound when you or enemies take damage, which just sounds unsettling.
I didn't figure out a way to turn off the music and only display sound effects, but I have seen plenty of videos with that kind of alignment. For me, the music played nonstop and it was just one track being put on repeat. Music in this generation of video games was pretty catchy most of the time and this was certainly OK, but not something I would want to listen to outside of this game. Plus some variation would have been nice.
Sound in this game is abysmal. The sound of the web, the sound when you step onto a platform and the annoying click it makes at the end, the aforementioned damage noise, the awful sound of doors opening and no actual sound for a lot of the moving platforms, enemies and effects (which I guess I should be glad for) mean that the overall sound design is just very poor.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN: There are just a bunch of random assets used and placed to create levels that make sense from a level design standpoint, but little sense from an artistic standpoint, let alone from a Spider-Man universe standpoint. Not much to like here either.
ATMOSPHERE: The incoherent art design and world building, an average singular track vs. poor sound design (if you use music, you can't really hear the sounds, so pick your poison, though I'd choose the music) and a game that is not a looker even for its time and you got a game that is bereft of atmosphere.
CONTENT: Once you get past the slow animations, the poor controls and everything else, the puzzles in this game are actually interesting enough and the game does offer a challenge to those looking for one. There isn't that much variety in what this game offers though, it's a lot of buttons pressing to unlock other buttons to press, which open up new locations or make your enemies fall to their deaths.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN: This isn't actually that bad. The game misses some variety, there isn't really anything to unlock, but there are puzzles present and some that require some brain power to solve. There is also some good interconnectivity here and there, meaning a previously inaccessible area can be unlocked as you progress, leading you back to a previous room, where a previously "non-pressable" button can now be pressed to progress elsewhere. It's not always intuitive, it's repetitive but it's probably the best part about this game.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION: Apart from the web swinging, which is 'unique' but in a bad way, there is nothing here that stands out.
REPLAYABILITY: If you do enjoy this game, there is of course the added incentive of beating your high scores and your times. There isn't much leeway in how you can complete this game, there isn't that much creative space for that, but you can always try to be quicker and receive less damage I guess.
PLAYABILITY: The game works well, the only issue I had was that sometimes I would clip into a level below the one I was on and the game would glitch out for a second. There is even a clip of someone glitching his way from the early stages all the way to the final level, if you want to check that out.
OVERALL: Definitely the worst game of this challenge so far and will probably find its way into the Top 5 Worst Games of the Year by the time I finish 1990. Or I've been relatively lucky with the first 4 games and this is what a good chunk of 1990 will look like. I doubt that though. Don't play this game if you're looking for a fun platformer, there are hundreds of better options out there in this time frame.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME:
- Nothing. I couldn't find a single magazine that reviewed this game at the time. I did find the Game Boy in every single one though.