Batman Returns (1992)

Batman Returns is a 1993 progressive fighting game.Konami, the producer and distributor of the game, have done a great job.The story of the game is as follows.It tells the story of the film.The gameplay is as follows.in this game, which consists of 7 sections, you are trying to kill the enemies and cross the section.The music of the game is beautiful.If you are not too obsessed with graphics and you like retro games, this game is for you.My rating for the game: 10/10 (y) Good games to everyone 🙂

The PC version is probably the most interesting because it's not an action game. It's a point and click adventure that basically anticipates what Telltale Games would try to do again almost thirty years later: a Batman video game that focuses on the "best detective in the world" side of the character. The game follows quite well the plot of the movie but also adds some interesting stuff to give more substance to the world and options to the gameplay. You have to plan your day as a caped crusader by choosing the armor and the gadgets for your belt and roaming around investigating crime scenes, finding clues and picking up things you will need to review and elaborate with the multifunction computer in the batcave. The fighting is managed kinda like an RTS: you pick from the gadgets you prepared and tell Batman what to do, but then the engine takes care of it. Some elements are quite smart and overall it's a nice approach, even though it can be clunky in terms of interface and execution. Visually it's nice, with some lovely backgrounds and the occasional well made animation, and the music is a decent chiptune rendition of the Danny Elfman score. I also liked the fact that you can miss some stuff, make mistakes in your investigation and ultimately get to a bunch of different endings: one of them follows the movie plot, then there's a couple of bad endings with a triumphant Penguin, and if you manage to give all the correct evidence to commissioner Gordon, you get the "best" ending, with Max Shreck going to jail while Catwoman and Batman go on humping happily ever after.

The Amiga version is an atrocious mess and it's only fair that you can't even choose that platform here on Grouvee. The only positive is how it tries to follow the plot of the movie and reproduce many important scenes. But it's terrible, clearly the worst Batman Returns game. And considering how the game based on the first movie was a nice, successful and very important title for the Amiga Platform, it's really a pity.

This is really a bizarre, tiny thing. If you can tolerate the (I'm assuming) unintentionally funny walk animation for Batman, the visuals are quite lovely, with some amazingly nice touches in the backgrounds. But the gameplay is a fully masochistic experience. You spend the whole game doing the same move that seems to work better than everything else (kneeling and punching) and you hope for the best. Thank God for save states.

This is a very tough game but I honestly prefer it to the Mega Drive/Mega CD Version. First of all, the soundtrack is quite good and makes great use of the very distinctive Master System/Game Gear sound. But that's not surprising, considering Yuzo Koshiro worked on it. Visually speaking, it's far from the best Master System games but there's some style and here and there you can see surprisingly good animations (Catwoman jumping around, for example). And the gameplay is demanding but quite fun, both in the platforming and the fighting components. Plus, the two routes choice for every single stage is a nice idea. The Game Gear version suffers from the usual issues, namely the small screen and zoomed in camera. But it's got a nice interactive cutscene at the beginning of the game that is bizarrely missing from the Master System version and that decently sets up the plot (which starts from the midway point of the movie, like in the Mega Drive/Mega CD version). Ah, I love the Batmobile sprinting away from the title screen when you press start on the Master System version!

This makes good use of the format with some nice upgrades from the regular Mega Drive version: chiptunes music was fine but it's replaced by a very good CD quality score (even though it's a bit out of context: it's a pity they didn't license Danny Elfman's stuff); there are completely new and lovely cutscenes instead of the ones made with the game engine; the batmobile/batboat levels are graphically impressive and decent fun, even though they can be quite hard. The rest is the same mediocre game from the cartridge version, a shitty platform/action game with very little interesting to offer. The Mega Drive game based on the first Batman movie from Tim Burton clearly wasn't a masterpiece but compare to this it kinda feels like it was. I find bizarre the decision to start the plot from the midway point of the movie but what can I say?