MERCHANDING! One of my favorite things about this game is that the publishers, in a bit of Spaceballs-ian marketing strategy, appended ‘The Video Game’ to the title of … the video game. I suppose if they had just printed ‘Batman’ on the box (along side the prominent Game Boy logo), it might not have been crystal clear what was actually inside the box. But this way when you gave Grandma your Christmas wishlist in 1990, and explicitly told her that more than anything this holiday season, you were hoping for Batman: The Video Game, you could be reasonably sure she wouldn’t inadvertently get you Batman: The Bubble Bath or some such (Grandmas amirite … all the same, you better show some gratitude young man). And that’s all thanks to the magic of MERCHANDISING!
So yeah, what we have here is obviously a licensed Batman Game Boy title based on the original blockbuster Tim Burton film released in 1989. Sunsoft also released Batman: The Video Game for NES a few months earlier, but the Game Boy version of the game is a different animal entirely. So really for the sake of 100% accuracy, it’s possible they should have called this one “Batman: The Game Boy Video Game” in order to avoid confusion with other versions of the game. (Okay I’ll stop milking that now.) This version of the game is missing the iconic (and fantastic) wall jump found in the NES title, and it treats the source material a bit more … loosely. You know how Batman is an absolute pistol-packing vigilante, gunning down each and every criminal foolish enough to step into his line of fire? You don’t remember that part!? Well, I don’t remember that part either, but the developers must know some bit of character lore that we missed, because that’s Batman’s in-game approach here. So anyway, I started blasting.
That said, displaying fundamental misunderstanding of the representative source material is nothing new in the madcap realm of licensed titles from this era (oh … hello 90% of all Superman games), so I’m sure we can look past the fact that this game clearly features Frank Castle dressed as Batman. And once we do look past that, we find a relatively solid, diminutive run-and-gun platformer. There’s nothing here that really stands out as being phenomenally well executed, but conversely there aren’t any conspicuous failings either. So a workmanlike effort, if you will.
From a mechanical perspective, Batman consists primarily of on foot run-and-gun platforming levels. These operate almost exactly how you might expect, and are somewhat similar to those in the NES release. Batman guns down Joker’s minions across notable locations depicted in the 1989 film, including Axis Chemicals, the streets of Gotham City, the Flugalheim Museum and the Bell Tower (naturally). Along the way Batman picks up different variations of his sidearm, swapping out his short-range base pistol for a long-range version, a waveform shot, and of course a Batarang gun. He can only carry one pistol at a time though, and of course the game will sometimes attempt to give you ‘the weaker weapon at the wrong time’, so careful management of your weapon powers-ups is important. The platforming is solid, with no real surprises other than Batman’s jumps often felt a bit drifty to me, making precision sections a bit more difficult. The boss fights have a fairly high degree of bullet sponge factor, but with manageable levels of difficulty overall.
Batman temporarily switches play-style three-quarters of the way through the game with a couple of side scrolling shoot’em up levels in which you pilot the Batwing. These were really some of the highlights of the game for me. Among other things, they feature some interesting mechanics where you can fire both forward and backward, meaning you are consequently swarmed with enemies coming from either direction at any given time. The Game Boy isn’t really known for having a deep library of quality shoot’em ups (though there are certainly some hidden gems to be found), so it was cool to find an obscure secret treasure hidden in this unassuming Batman release. And for that matter, how often do we get to see the Batwing featured in Batman video games? We need more of that!
From a gameplay perspective, I really can’t level much criticism at Batman: The Game Boy Video Game. It’s a short, solidly middle of the road platform shooter that also encapsulates a couple of pretty great shoot’em up levels. It may not win any prizes as the prettiest Batman game out there, even if we limit our scope to only those Batgames appearing on Game Boy. Even then though, the graphical presentation is just another example where the game is ‘good enough’. I wouldn’t say there’s a deep trove of replay potential here, but it’s certainly worth a look if you enjoy the character, and/or this style of platform shooter. Final verdict: 7.5 BatGats out of 10.
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