Is Batman Returns Underrated?
Batman Returns is a side-scrolling action game developed by Aspect and released on the
Sega Master System back in 1992.
These days Aspect is most known for developing some beloved Game Gear Sonic titles like Triple
Trouble and Sonic Chaos.
But their handy work on Batman Returns predates those games.
However, despite Aspect’s 8-bit pedigree, Batman Returns for the Master System was met
with mixed reviews.
Mean Machines Magazine scored the game a 7 out of 10 stating, “In what appears as a
rushed effort, Batman Returns fails on this particular console proving itself inferior
to its Mega Drive and Game Gear team members.
In all, a real disappointment.”
Video Games Magazine gave the game a 5.1 out of 10 noting, “On the Master System, Batman
Returns provides us with an average performance.
Both the graphics and music are mediocre…
Despite better control, Batman on the Master System is worse off than the all-powerful
Game Gear version.”
Finally, Sega Master Force scored the game a 5.4 out of 10 proclaiming, “Batman's latest
could have been something special.
Instead it's a below average platform romp.”
So is Batman Returns for the Master System really this mediocre?
Let’s take a look.
Before I get started I should note Batman Returns was also released on the Game Gear
in Europe, Japan, and the United States.
This Master System version was a European exclusive.
Additionally, the Game Gear version contained some cutscenes detailing a basic plot.
This Master System version, contains no opening cutscenes whatsoever.
So with that, let’s jump right into Stage 1.
Despite not following the plot of Batman Returns, the stages due match the set-pieces presented
in the film.
The first one takes place in Gotham City.
The street lights are even decorated with blinking Christmas ornaments and there are
Oswald Cobblepot posters on the walls.
With the familiar surroundings comes an interesting take on the caped crusader.
Batman has a limited moveset in this adventure.
The first button allows him to throw unlimited batarangs which can take out all enemies with
a single strike.
The second button allows Batman to jump, while pressing it a second time sends out the grappling
hook.
Holding the jump button will allow Batman to glide thanks to the cape.
While simple, the basic moveset does a decent job working within the confines of the controller
without relying on cumbersome d-pad combinations.
Despite the simplicity, the grappling hook is the star of the show here.
With it, Batman can reach higher platforms as well as swing across gaps.
Later on you’ll discover it can be used as a weapon , but this generally isn’t required
in the first half of the game.
While the grappling hook is the main focus of the gameplay mechanics, the power-ups focus
on beefing up the batarang.
Grey and Yellow power-ups increase the weapon’s speed and distance, making it easier to dispatch
enemies across the screen.
The orange power-up is the most interesting, adding either a life or a hit point depending
on how you look at it.
You see, Batman dies in just a single hit.
There is no-life bar, just death.
But he resumes the adventure right where he left off, rather than restarting at the beginning
of a level or a checkpoint.
The player can continue the adventure almost uninterrupted until the meter in the lower
right reaches zero, then it’s game over.
Thankfully, there are unlimited continues which restarts the player back to the beginning
of a stage and not the title screen.
With the moveset and power-ups out of the way, let’s move onto the structure of the
game.
Stage 1 is actually divided into two parts.
After making it to the end of the first, the second part is then presented, before finally
arriving at a boss.
The first stage does a decent job presenting most of the enemies the player will face in
the safety of a relatively hazard free environment.
Some enemies will lunge when Batman is near, others will roll, some are packing heat, these
guys explode, and some drop bombs.
You’ll notice none are overly threatening with the most primitive of artificial intelligence,
but it’s still nice the game displays their behavior in these open worlds as they’ll
be placed in trickier locations later on.
Stage 1 also does a nice job forcing the player to utilize the grappling hook without offering
tutorials.
Early on, the player cannot jump over these crates as Batman’s jump height is limited.
However, the platforms gently guide new players up to a spot where it becomes clear a grapple
assisting leap is necessary.
It’s a thoughtful touch and worth mentioning.
With the gameplay basics out of the way, let’s move onto the boss.
Generally speaking, these are weak.
As you can see, the background goes black, yet the boss is tiny, negating the need for
sprite saving techniques.
The attack pattern is primitive at best and minimal trial and error is needed to identify
when it’s time to strike.
It is worth noting these are easier with the Batarang powered-up, allowing the player to
strike from a safe distance.
If you die though, the Batarang resets to slow with limited range, increasing the difficulty
of the bosses.
After cruising the streets of Gotham City, Batman makes his way through Shreck's Department
Store.
These stages put an emphasis on using the grappling hook to traverse the stages.
Thinner floors can be jumped through, either up or down, where the thicker floors cannot.
Using this knowledge the player needs to traverse the level which is like a labyrinth of sorts.
Towards the end another gimmick is presented, where a chandelier falls from the celiling
creating a fire pit to be avoided.
The second part of the stage adds in some tricky grapple jumps over a pit of fire.
But as I noted before, Batman respawns right where he left off with a forgiving invincibility
period.
The rest of Shrek’s consists of hitting enemies as they appear through doors, simple
stuff.
Speaking of simple stuff, the second boss fight is against Catwoman.
Though this is disappointing.
As you can see, her pattern is extremely simple and there is an obvious safe spot on the screen.
All the player needs to do is strike Catwomen when she is near, dodge her lone whip attack,
and repeat the process until she exits the scene.
Stage 3 brings us to the rooftops.
These are like a mix of the Gotham City streets and it’s multiple paths, and the reliance
of the grappling hook for travel like found in Shreck's Department Store.
I will say it isn’t always clear when something will block the player from proceeding, and
when something can be walked passed, but with a little experimentation it’s easy to learn
the rules of the stage.
New enemies are also introduced, like these guys that fire diagonal rockets.
There is also a ninja like character that drops diagonally from the top of the screen.
She’s also the most annoying enemy found in the game and I felt like there wasn’t
enough time to react.
Instead, I usually died, which annoyingly resets the batarang when I don’t feel like
there was much I could do to avoid her.
This brings us to the third boss, which is a statue, I think.
I have to be honest, the pattern meant to be followed here isn’t clear to me.
The boss moves too fast for normal avoidance maneuvers.
Instead just spamming the batarang and sacrificing two lives seemed to be the least aggravating
strategy.
It’s hardly satisfying, but effective nonetheless.
From here Batman makes his way to the sewers.
There are two things that make these two levels interesting.
First, almost all progress is made on floating platforms, either jumping up or down on various
sewer pipes.
Like before, thin pipes can be jumped through while fatter ones are impenetrable.
Second, little penguins will appear from time to time and launch rockets at Batman.
These represent a decent challenge, and while their movement is predictable, I did find
aligning a good batarang shot to destroy them often proved tougher than it appeared.
Another thing I really enjoyed was the location of all of the power-ups.
These are placed in strategic spots, requiring the player to use the grappling hook to get
into position, then jump, and grapple hook a second time without the benefit of landing,
to free the power-up from it’s little nook.
It’s worth going after these as the skills learned here will be invaluable later on.
Finally, Batman arrives at the fifth and final stage, Penguin’s lair.
Up until now, the first four stages were broken into two parts.
This fifth stage however, is twice as large with four separate areas.
The difficulty here definitely reaches a peak as well.
The first area introduces water on the ground acting as a conveyer of sorts, making the
timing of certain enemies trickier, as well as landing.
If one has mastered the grappling hook there are also plenty of extra power-ups and an
alternate path through the area.
The second part is where the game finally puts the player to the test.
In fact, it is this area that prevented me from reviewing this game last year.
Those double grapple jumps I mentioned earlier become mandatory here.
The player needs to swing off platforms, grappling onto a falling barrel, hoist themselves up,
and then jump up to the next platform to move forward.
There are a dozen or so of these jumps and unless the player has mastered the mechanics,
they can expect to fall, and die, a lot.
Clear this and the third area offers a reprieve.
There are plenty of grapple jumps and some brutal enemy placement, but there are no bottomless
pits to fall through, meaning the punishment for failure isn’t too bad.
Yet another enemy is also introduced, a spinning female who launches rockets.
Like the previous non-rocket variety, she can surprise an unsuspecting player, but since
Batman is far lower on the screen in these sections, there is more time to react.
Make it through this obstacle and the fourth area is revealed.
At first this seems like another barrel nightmare.
Thankfully these just need to be cleared horizontally, and not vertically, making them far more tame.
If you manage to clear the four areas of the fifth stage, the final boss is then revealed.
While the bosses up to this point have been of the disappointing variety, the Penguin
rises to the acceptable category.
For starters, he has three forms.
In the first form, he roams back and forth across the screen with his umbrella dropping
bombs.
Like the Catwomen fight, there is a safe spot on the screen to camp.
Even better, the grappling hook as a weapon mechanic I noted at the beginning of the review
can be put to good use here.
The second form amps things up.
The Penguin will appear in random locations around the screen and launch three projectiles
at Batman.
I actually found this to be near impossible at first.
However with enough persistence I was able to spot a specific pattern allowing a brief
window to get in a hit.
Perseverance is the name of the game here.
Finally, the Penguin will give it one last go in the duck mobile.
Again, without giving too much away, he will first launch a two rocket attack at Batman,
which be navigated with basic pattern recognition.
If the duck moves in close enough, Batman can get in a risk-free attack.
About half-way through the fight, the Penguin adds a third rocket to his attack, which can
again be navigated around with basic pattern recognition.
Once you figure out the attack patterns and Penguin’s weakness, the final boss is actually
pretty easy.
I will say it took me quite a few continues, going through the stage 5 gauntlet before
getting another chance, but learning the patterns and exploiting the game was a satisfying conclusion
to the adventure.
Weirdly enough, after beating the game a closing cut scene is presented, despite there being
not cutscenes prior to this point.
Then of course, the credits roll.
Graphically, Batman Returns is a good looking Master System game.
First, Batman looks great with plenty of detail.
The animations are spot on, with stiff walking reminiscent of the film.
The batarang throw, jumping, and grappling animations all look nice.
As a whole, Batman’s moves are fluid, and as a whole the animation stacks up well for
an 8-bit title.
The enemies all look nice too.
They are brightly colored, and stand out against the 5 different backgrounds which is a plus.
I will say their animations are far more limited, but still, their art direction matches the
world created by Tim Burton.
The levels themselves, are a bit more generic.
While I do like the little touches in some areas, like the Christmas lights and posters
on Gotham City Streets, and the little mall trees in Shreck’s Department Store, at times
the backgrounds and set-pieces feel extremely basic.
Batman Returns had an awesome art deco vibe, and Batman Returns on the Master System fails
at capturing that vibe.
Batman Returns on the Super Nintendo for example, was much more successful at capturing the
feel of the film.
I also like how the game is virtually free from flickering, other than a couple of boss
encounters.
The reason for this is there just aren’t many enemies on the screen at once, topping
out at just a couple.
The developers did a nice job limiting the amount of sprites on the screen on a given
scanline, reducing unwanted graphical issues.
Still, even with the consideration in mind, the game does slow down a lot.
I’m not sure if it will show up in the footage, but it’s impossible not to notice while
playing.
The audio on the other hand, is quite good.
I often complain developers didn’t do a good job utilizing the sound capabilities
of the Master System resulting in a lot of simplistic high pitched music lacking the
depth found on the NES.
Batman Returns however, sounds terrific, with a nice blend of square wave notes and percussion
noise creating a rich soundtrack.
The compositions are also excellent, with slow melodies building into exciting choruses.
It’s all very dramatic and fits the action perfectly.
The sound effects are decent, with subtle jumping and grappling notes, and a pleasant
crashing sound when defeating enemies.
None of the effects will blow you away, but they serve their purpose and never overshadow
the excellent soundtrack, which is nice.
So, with all of that out of the way, we arrive back to the question asked at the beginning
of the video.
Is Batman Returns for the Master System underrated?
First, one cannot deny Batman Returns has some flaws.
The most obvious defect are the enemies, which exhibit little intelligence or challenge whatsoever.
If you’re lucky, one might fire a rocket, perform a slide kick, or roll, but that’
it.
This lacking A.I.
carries over into the bosses.
Again, these don’t seem to react to Batman at all, instead following a preset pattern
void of any thought.
Once the patterns are learned, they can be defeated quickly and efficiently each and
everytime.
For a game revolving around Batman, who himself is a crime fighting superhero, this might
be disappointing for some.
While the controls are adequate, I wouldn’t exactly call them perfect.
My biggest gripe is Batman takes a moment to land, identified by the knees bending when
he hits the ground.
During this period, through brief, the player has no control.
You have to wait for this animation to be completed before continuing on with moving
or jumping.
It’s a small issue for sure, and some may call it a nitpick, but this small inclusion
makes the controls feel slightly stiff.
It impacts the gameplay as well, as you can’t recover from a missed jump against Catwoman
for example.
I want to jump a second time to avoid her whip attack, but I can’t, I have to wait.
Additionally, the learning curve with the grappling hook is steep.
Expect to miss, a lot.
The timing window for connecting the grappling hook is very picky.
It’s precise for sure and once you get it down, swinging across Gotham City becomes
second nature.
But don’t expect to get a feel for it right away, it just isn’t that smooth.
Combine the easy enemies, lame bosses, stiff controls, and demanding grappling mechanic
with the generic backgrounds lacking an art deco style, and Batman Returns for the Master
System might initially seem, average.
But while Batman Returns doesn’t make the best first impression, the game’s brilliance
really starts to shine through as the hours tick by.
The level design is king here.
Even as early as the first screen you can see the developers had meticulously laid out
every bad guy, every item, and every platform.
The first enemy doesn’t surprise the player, it’s staring right at Batman, forcing the
player to deal with it.
There is a power-up on a high ledge, but no obvious way to get there.
Start messing with the grappling hook and you’ll discover the street lamps are not
background objects, but necessary for vertical platforming.
This attention to detail is carried throughout the 12 areas spanning 5 stages.
There is a platform preventing Batman from walking into a dropping chandelier.
There is an enemy and power-up in an impossible to reach place, letting the player know to
check back up there when they reach the otherside.
Dropping enemies make a sound before falling, giving the player an opportunity to jump back.
There are little gameplay touches as well, like how Batman doesn’t change directions
while in the air, allowing him to use the batarang to reach secret power-ups.
And of course the power-ups are used as training devices, encouraging the player to experiment
and learn techniques required in later stages.
From beginning to end the level design in Batman Returns is excellent.
Everything has a purpose and it makes for an engaging experience that never gets too
hard too fast, nor does it ever get easy and boring.
The pacing is great and the difficulty curve nearly perfect.
The perfect pace is enhanced with the instant spawning.
With no start-backs or check-points, the player is allowed to stay immersed in the tasks at
hand, rather than plod through previously cleared areas adding needless padding.
I also dig how the player is rewarded for proficient play, offering the fully powered
batarang for a job well done.
It adds a bit to the replay value, challenging the player to make perfect runs.
Also adding to the replay value are the second routes.
The first four stages offer a normal route, which I’ve featured throughout this video,
and a second route for seasoned players.
This second route cranks the difficulty up to 11.
Bottomless pits are everywhere making the grapple hook mandatory for all areas.
Enemy locations are made more challenging, increasing the dexterity and reflexes required
for progression.
Hovering with the cape goes from being an afterthought to a necessary tool, platforms
are smaller demanding more precision, and new timing based obstacles are added, demanding
better pattern recognition abilities from the player.
These 4 alternate routes are an awesome addition to the game and really allowed the developers
to show off their level design chops.
I certainly wouldn’t recommend anyone start on the second route, but they absolutely add
replay value for those who have mastered the main quest.
So yeah, Batman Returns is way underrated.
The gameplay is like a nice mix of Shinobi and Spider-man, which is about spot on for
a superhero who has mastered martial arts.
The grappling hook mechanic has an easy to learn, tough to master quality to it that
makes the game easy to get into, and immensely satisfying once you start conquering the game’s
tough challenges.
While the controls could be a little tighter, and the art style a little less generic, what
Batman Returns lacks in style, it more than makes up for with substance.