Anyone who grew up with an NES in their house knows that 99 out of 100 times, any game based on a movie is going to suck. Still, there are always the rare, wonderful occasions where the trend is broken and the movie game is actually well-made and fun to play. Sunsoft’s NES adaptation of Batman is one of the first examples of those games.
Batman both closely follows the movie and has nothing to do with it. The levels are ostensibly based on settings in the film, and the game has several great-looking 8-bit cutscenes with images straight from the movie. It also has level designs, enemies, and weapons taken straight from Ninja Gaiden and Mega Man.
Even though you play Batman, you use several different guns ranging from a basic forward-firing pistol to a wavy spread shot. I don’t remember Batman playing with guns in the movie, nor do I remember him fighting armies of evil robots and commandos while navigating conveyor belts and flame-throwers. It’s not really true to the action of the movie, and that makes it way more awesome. If you took out everything Batman in the game, you’d still have an excellent side-scrolling action title with loads of variety and very tight controls.
And you need the tight controls, because Batman is Nintendo Hard. If you squint, you could easily pretend you’re playing Ninja Gaiden. Limited life, aggressive enemies, and difficult jumps make Batman come perilously close to being controller-snappingly frustrating. It’s not a cheap sort of frustrating, though; the excellent design and gameplay mechanics make every level you beat feel rewarding.
Unfortunately, like so many licensed games, the NES version of Batman isn’t available on the Virtual Console. If you want to wear the Dark Knight’s 8-bit cowl, you’ll have to look for a used cartridge. Still, with Batman: Arkham Asylum
