[SNES] The Adventures of Batman & Robin

[Ryon]

This is one of my favorites

Made by Konami in 1994 was based on Batman: The Animated Series (which, by the way, was a revolutionary cartoon at the time) and one of the three games released with the same name in the same year, but each with it's own styles and made by different companies

The Story

Each level is like a mini-TV episode, with a title image just like the cartoon, a quick animated intro talking about what's happening and soon Batman can pick his equipment to bring to the mission.

There are lots of non-playable characters from the series, like Commissioner Gordon, the reporter Summer Gleeson, Alfred, Robin and the classic villains like The Joker, Clayface and many others.

The Game

It's a 2D action game where the player guides Batman until he reaches the villain. But all the levels are very different from each other, from traditional platforms with enemies, chasing Catwoman across the city, a Batmobile level, a labyrinth and even a boss rush.

Batman got a myriad of bat-gadgets, like smoke bombs, batrangs, grapplers and shurikens, as expected from the Dark Knight. He also got many moves from rolling on the floor, wall jumping and throwing. There are many moments where you'll need to act fast and have quick reflexes, like jumping into a moving airship or escaping from spikes while the wall closes.

There are many elements straight from the TV, like some puzzles from the Riddler's level and certain equipments are vital to some levels.

There are two modes: Easy and Hard, but as expected if you beat the Easy mode the game tells you to try the Hard one, but the ending isn't much different. And the Easy Mode can be hard enough specially at the Labyrinth.

The Graphics

The TV series was revolutionary because of it's high quality, both in animation, sound and script, so the game couldn't be different: each level is unique, with backgrounds that goes from a amusement park, museums, ballrooms with beautiful reflexions, a run at Gotham's rooftops and back alleys, there's always something to see and the game makes good use from the hardware effects.

The enemies got lots of frames, with a fair number of attacks and many different ones, each according to the level.

It's easy to recognize the villains and each one is very nicely characterized. The Man-Bat is grotesque, Poison Ivy got lots of her plants with her and so on.

Batman himself is wonderful: he got beautiful fluid animations, his cape is nice to see and even his running sprites are very detailed. The controls are quite precise, so it's incredibly fun to control him.

Sound

As expected, there's no sounds beside random grunts and some minor sounds, but they did a good job: it's easy to recognize Joker's laughter and the sounds of each boss. But the enemies got quite generic sounds.

The musics are quite close to the ones at the series, varying according to the background and the moments, fitting quite well.

What about the Genesis version?

This version was made by Clokwork Tortoise and is a run 'n' gun like Contra, with two player mode (you can pick between Batman or Robin). Some areas are side-scrolling shooter, and there are four of them. It's a very hard game, with some nice special effects but an awful music.

It tries so hard to be like Gunstar Heroes, but it fails miserably. Avoid it.

Conclusion

It's one of the best Batman games and a very good SNes game, it's worth playing. The only flaw is the game is sorta short: only eight levels long. But each one of them is unique with great variety. Any gamer should try it at least once.

[raremew]

And i only one question, Why did robin leave Batman? Now batman dont need a sidekick!

[Ryon]

because batman loves little girls (batgirl)

[raremew]

O.O creepy...when you said little girls..

[Ryon]

[raremew]

creepy...lol

[Ultiɱℯciɑ]

that was my text, right? Would you mind posting images from the SNes version? Then got completely different graphics, it's even mildly offensive http://mugenfreeforall.com/public/style_emoticons//tongue.png

[Ryon]

the images you had, "could not be found or were deleted" by the user... YOU.

[Ultiɱℯciɑ]

Yup! I'm a big small meanie!

[Ryon]

no way. those 2 pictures the 1 in my top post, and the 1 in your post above mine. can not be form the same game.

[Ultiɱℯciɑ]

They aren't.

As I wrote, some other guys did a completely different game for Genesis. And it sucks. A lot.