Batman Returns (Sega Master System Review)

Batman Returns
Developed by Aspect
First Released March, 1992
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

If not for the jank and the one-hit kills, this would be one of the better action games on the Sega Master System. No joke.

Batman Returns on the Master System has more in common with Bionic Commando than the Caped Crusader. It’s also one of the jankiest games I’ve played. Collision is really bad, especially in the final boss battle. However, as bad as it is for Batman, it’s even worse for the enemies. I was startled when enemies went into their blinking death animation as soon as I scrolled onto their part of the screen. The moment they were rendered, they dropped dead. It was perplexing. I thought this was the first time in my gaming life an enemy died from looking at me. But, it wasn’t that. Get this: when you throw the batarang off screen, then scroll the screen over, if an enemy was within the path of off screen batarang, they will die the moment you see them. Yea, really. It’s as if the game wants you to know you got ’em. I’ve been playing video games my whole life and never seen anything like that before.

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Besides the jank, Batman Returns is a lot better than I figured it would be. There’s only one attack: batarangs. They’re satisfying enough, but it’s a Batman game, and having only one type of attack is a bit weak. There’s no punching and no other gadgets. It’s all batarangs, all the time. It also has teeny tiny sprites. I nearly did a spit take when I entered the second boss arena and saw Catwoman. It was just so underwhelming! On the other hand, the levels are almost mazes that you have to navigate with your grappling hook. This is where the Bionic Commando comparisons come into effect. Getting the hang of how it works has a bit of a learning curve to it, and the physics involved are weird. If you pull yourself up to a solid surface and jump, you will float in place for as long as the normal height of the jump would be before gravity remembers its advantage over you and starts pulling you down. And yes, this is very easy to exploit.

In the final level, you have to perform a LOT of “last pixel” jumping where you get yourself right to the edge before jumping. You can use your grappling hook on these barrels, which helps, but the gaps between platforms would have led to TONS of busy work if I hadn’t lost my patience and started rewinding instead of climbing back up. Thankfully, there’s no timer on levels.

If you want to play Batman Returns straight, you have to deal with the issue of one-hit kills, which is an issue given that collision isn’t 100% spot on. Also, the game has a tiny little problem with cheap enemy placement. You can mostly adapt to this by using common sense. For example: don’t use your grappling hook by anything resembling a door, because enemies will come out of it as soon as you hop up onto the platform, and any contact means death. But, sometimes it really is as simple as just placing an enemy on an unreachable ledge for the purposes of maximum annoyance. The final level had a big problem with this. However, Batman Returns is both generous with respawns AND with extra lives. They’re scattered all over the place. The other items increase the distance your batarang can travel, or allegedly increase your movement speed. If I was getting faster, I didn’t notice. I’ll generously call Batman Returns “deliberately paced.”

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After one stage, I was certain Batman Returns would get a NO! At one point, I walked into a parked vehicle that looked like it was part of the background. It wasn’t animated. It wasn’t moving. It was doing NOTHING, and yet, I died upon contact with it. I blew a gasket when it happened, but after pressing on (you have to blow it up with the batarang) I found the level design really won me over. Levels are laid out like mazes, and while the enemies can be cheap, they’re one-hit kills too. As a short, quick exploration game with a fun method of combat (I dig boomerangs in games), I really actually thought Batman Returns on the Master System was okay. It’s nothing special, and it never really feels like a proper Batman game. But, I had a decent enough time with it.
Verdict: YES!