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[RAIDEN1]

Video by Kim Justice about the 1995 released Batman Forever game developed by Probe Software, all these years I never knew they adapted the Mortal Kombat 2 engine for it:

 

[digoutyoursoul]

Hated it

 

[RoboFu]

It could have been pretty good but it seems they blew all their time and budget on filming real actors aka mortal kombat so everything else is half baked. No enemy variety, janky controls, bad hit detection. Basic bland levels. It was pretty bad even back in the day.

 

[Soltype]

Best thing about the game was the commercial. It's been almost 30 years and I still remember it. The arcade game was much better, such a weird game though.

 

[Hohenheim]

Looks like a hot pile of shit.

 

[diffusionx]

if you want a 16-bit Batman beat em up, play the Konami game. This was the nadir of Acclaim licensed games which is saying a lot.

 

[Badlucktroll]

Just play this one

 

[Krappadizzle]

I remember renting it in the Genesis and really struggling to just get through the environment even in the first level.

Graphics were pretty good though.

 

[rabbity-thing]

This is one of the first games I remember disliking. Being at an age where one starts to be more critical of the media they consume is a magical time in one's youth. This and Maximum Carnage where such huge disappointments and yet one of those two titles seems to have become shockingly well remembered. Both titles are straight up garbage. Thankfully, Batman Forever was a rental.

 

[havoc00]

This is one of the first games I remember disliking. Being at an age where one starts to be more critical of the media they consume is a magical time in one's youth. This and Maximum Carnage where such huge disappointments and yet one of those two titles seems to have become shockingly well remembered. Both titles are straight up garbage. Thankfully, Batman Forever was a rental.

I remember liking Maximum Carnage after renting it

 

[TheGodfather07]

It's awful but the music is burnt into my brain forever. I remember being a kid just going back and forth not knowing what the fuck to do with that music looping over and over.

 

[cash_longfellow]

Very.

 

[amigastar]

The only Batman game i've played and liked was Batman Returns for the SNES, now that was a good brawler.
Edit: No actually another Batman game i've liked was The Adventures of Batman & Robin also on SNES.

 

[Syphon Filter]

adventures of batman and robin is the goat.

 

[Badlucktroll]

I remember liking Maximum Carnage after renting it

I remember this liking this after renting it, then getting bored and depressed after playing for a while

 

[Northeastmonk]

My parents bought me this when I asked for MK3. Idk why my mom thought this was a better gift. I remember having to press Select to use the grapple. The game has some dark aesthetics and the music is catchy. It played super janky.

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

This was one of the games I got from a hand me down Genesis and a batch of games, including Batman Forever.

I wanted to like it because it looked neat but the controls were a nightmare.

What's weird is this was like 96 or 97 and it already made me nostalgic for watching the movie in 1995, just a single year or two was a long, long period of times when you're only 6 or 7, I swear the 90s were like that though where every year was distinctly different from the other, unlike today where it all bleeds together.

 

[Ozzie666]

I seem to recall the Arcade version was very different than what appeared on 16 bit machines. Not entirely sure on the 32 bit machines conversions.

 

[baphomet]

I mean, there's not some Mortal Kombat engine to use, but they used their experience porting the console versions of MK1/2 to rip it off.

 

[cireza]

Awful game, thankfully there were other Batman games that were much better.

 

[Ozzie666]

Awful game, thankfully there were other Batman games that were much better.

Is this where we throw down SNES vs GENESIS, which 16-bit batman game is best? our own episode of Console Wars.

Are we doin' this?

 

[Techies]

Guess I was the only one who liked it. Remember going back to the pamphlet for all the special moves and finding all the hidden special areas.

Then again my list of games was kind of limited and I was forced to play on black and white tv

 

[SCB3]

press Select to use the grapple

Which not only did the game not tell you you even have, but there is at least 2 levels where the Exit is hidden by scenery so you have keep spamming the grapple to get up

 

[cireza]

Is this where we throw down SNES vs GENESIS, which 16-bit batman game is best? our own episode of Console Wars.

Are we doin' this?

I'd happily share games I enjoyed on SEGA consoles without feeling any need to downplay whatever existed on Nintendo consoles.

Here are my two picks :

Batman Returns on Game Gear and Master System (actually had the MS game as a kid) :

This is such an excellent 8 bit game for SEGA consoles, highly recommended. The Game Gear versions seems to have been the lead for development, but they still did a very decent job a converting it for the Master System, with various adjustments and different level layout. The game plays really well, looks good and has a very good soundtrack. It also offers two paths for each stage, which means you can at least play it two times in order to experience everything.

My second pick is Batman & Robin on the SEGA-CD :

This game is 100% a racing game using the ASIC chip from the SEGA-CD. It is incredibly well made, and makes an excellent use of the scaling capabilities. The amount and size of the stuff being scaled is unprecedented on home consoles, entire buildings, tons of vehicles. This is really super impressive. Great usage of the limited color palette as well, with a very good art direction. The game plays very well on top of this, although the difficulty is really high. There are also videos from the cartoon that are cleverly encoded to mitigate the low number of colors available. Excellent game.

 

[Kokoloko85]

TThis and Maximum Carnage where such huge disappointments and yet one of those two titles seems to have become shockingly well remembered. Both titles are straight up garbage. Thankfully, Batman Forever was a rental.

Maximum Carnage was fun. As was the Death and Return of Superman

 

[IAmRei]

I dont recall the game is good, although as kid, i like BF back then. I was not even fan of mk as well. So it is not much annoyed me. In the contrary, batman return game is awesome for me.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Bad game, I bought it on sale back then. The arcade version released on 32-bit is also bad but I liked it more than this one.

The best one is the oddball Batman and Robin for Genesis. Its more like a shoot em up/shinobi hybrid. Its very hard but it does some excellent blast processing things and the soundtrack is absolutely fucking perfect. I have it on my MD Mini and its one of my most played games on there. Hard as balls though.

 

[nkarafo]

The GameBoy port is literally the worst looking GameBoy game there is. I would go as far to say it's probably the worst looking game ever made.

I mean, you would probably say this about some random, crappy Atari 2600 game or something but that's mostly because these games look very simplistic. Batman Forever on the GameBoy looks like a garbled mess. I understand pre-rendered/digitized graphics from 16bit consoles don't port well on the GameBoy but here it looks like something went completely wrong when they stored whatever assets they made in the ROM chip and they said fuck it, we will release it as is.

Feast for the eyes:

By comparison, here's how Batman Return of the Joker looks on the same console:

 

[GymWolf]

Atmosphere and music were great from what i remember and i loved the MK type of graphic, i never passed the second mission so i just played a lot in the combat training room.

 

[N30RYU]

BAD-MAN

 

[drganon]

Never played it, but did play batman returns for the genesis. Had very stiff controls. Music was pretty cool though.

 

[SportsFan581]

Video by Kim Justice about the 1995 released Batman Forever game developed by Probe Software, all these years I never knew they adapted the Mortal Kombat 2 engine for it:

I had fun with this one, but it certainly had its issues. It was a solid co-op game as well.

Relatively difficult to finish since there was no save function or passwords, it was a long game for the time.

 

[MarkMe2525]

I routinely disagree with many of these videos dunking on old games. I tried to play this when I first got my mega everdrive for Genesis, hot lousy trash.

The GameBoy port is literally the worst looking GameBoy game there is. I would go as far to say it's probably the worst looking game ever made.

I mean, you would probably say this about some random, crappy Atari 2600 game or something but that's mostly because these games look very simplistic. Batman Forever on the GameBoy looks like a garbled mess. I understand pre-rendered/digitized graphics from 16bit consoles don't port well on the GameBoy but here it looks like something went completely wrong when they stored whatever assets they made in the ROM chip and they said fuck it, we will release it as is.

Feast for the eyes:

By comparison, here's how Batman Return of the Joker looks on the same console:

That looks so bad. I fired this up before on my Miyoo Mini and seeing these makes me want to revisit, so that I may atone for my sins.

 

[RAIDEN1]

The GameBoy port is literally the worst looking GameBoy game there is. I would go as far to say it's probably the worst looking game ever made.

I mean, you would probably say this about some random, crappy Atari 2600 game or something but that's mostly because these games look very simplistic. Batman Forever on the GameBoy looks like a garbled mess. I understand pre-rendered/digitized graphics from 16bit consoles don't port well on the GameBoy but here it looks like something went completely wrong when they stored whatever assets they made in the ROM chip and they said fuck it, we will release it as is.

Feast for the eyes:

By comparison, here's how Batman Return of the Joker looks on the same console:

I don't get the point, of investing time and resources into something knowing that it will be a disaster but still releasing it anyway, what were Akklaim smoking?

 

[cireza]

I don't get the point, of investing time and resources into something knowing that it will be a disaster but still releasing it anyway, what were Akklaim smoking?

This was the adaptation of a big movie back then, of course a ton of parents were going to buy this without even looking at how it runs.

 

[Neon Xenon]

As someone who played the the SNES version of Batman Forever as a kid (only on rental, thankfully), I can verify: This shit is trash. It's funny looking back and realizing that the "HOLD ON" screens that this game had were my very first experience with a loading screen in a game, and even when I was younger, I could tell that the whole game was fundamentally flawed. The novelty of "Oh, this plays like Mortal Kombat" wore off very quickly, and the gameplay felt more like a chore than anything else.

This was an informative video. I'm not surprised at all that there was a lot of ambition behind the game during development and that none of it paid off. I suppose that maybe the ideas the game had could have worked out on better hardware, but it's still a licensed game at the end of the day. Seeing this again does make me want to check out Batman Forever: The Arcade Game, which is less ambitious, but at the very least actually seems like fun in comparison.

 

[ReBurn]

I remember renting this for SNES and thinking that it was Mortal Kombat but Batman. I took it back to the video store that night and they let me swap it for a different game.

 

[Ozzie666]

I'd happily share games I enjoyed on SEGA consoles without feeling any need to downplay whatever existed on Nintendo consoles.

Here are my two picks :

Batman Returns on Game Gear and Master System (actually had the MS game as a kid) :

This is such an excellent 8 bit game for SEGA consoles, highly recommended. The Game Gear versions seems to have been the lead for development, but they still did a very decent job a converting it for the Master System, with various adjustments and different level layout. The game plays really well, looks good and has a very good soundtrack. It also offers two paths for each stage, which means you can at least play it two times in order to experience everything.

My second pick is Batman & Robin on the SEGA-CD :

This game is 100% a racing game using the ASIC chip from the SEGA-CD. It is incredibly well made, and makes an excellent use of the scaling capabilities. The amount and size of the stuff being scaled is unprecedented on home consoles, entire buildings, tons of vehicles. This is really super impressive. Great usage of the limited color palette as well, with a very good art direction. The game plays very well on top of this, although the difficulty is really high. There are also videos from the cartoon that are cleverly encoded to mitigate the low number of colors available. Excellent game.

Adventures of Batman Robin, I only ever played the cartridge version. Is this the same game just enhanced? becuae it was a techinical marvel and difficult. Great game, I was totally unaware there was a CD version of this. I enjoyed the game play more than the SNES version. Now I need to check this out.

 

[cireza]

Adventures of Batman Robin, I only ever played the cartridge version. Is this the same game just enhanced? becuae it was a techinical marvel and difficult. Great game, I was totally unaware there was a CD version of this. I enjoyed the game play more than the SNES version. Now I need to check this out.

This is an entirely different game, worth checking.

 

[Mephisto40]

You should try Batman Returns on the Amiga if you think this is bad

 

[Damian black]

Adventures of Batman Robin, I only ever played the cartridge version. Is this the same game just enhanced? becuae it was a techinical marvel and difficult. Great game, I was totally unaware there was a CD version of this. I enjoyed the game play more than the SNES version. Now I need to check this out.

I think it is just a glorified racing game with nice cutscenes in between.

But yeah Batman Forever was ass. One of the few games I ever regret buying.