It’s pretty awful whatever platform you had. The main problem it had was using the Mortal Kombat game engine for something other than a straight-up fighting game. You could pick up literally any Batman game from the 16bit or 8bit era and it will be better than this.
Is that basically the same as the version on Game Gear? I've only played it on Game Gear and NES. The NES version was okay I thought but personally I enjoyed the Game Gear one a lot more.
Apparently the Game Gear version is very similar, but focuses more on “action over platforming” according to Sega Retro. I’ve never played that version myself. From screenshots it looks superficially similar but has different programmers. I’m sure it’s great.
I think my Aunt saw how much we played Batman Returns when she visited so she got us Batman and Robin for Christmas. Unfortunately it wasn't the same at all.
Acclaim/Midway would do the same thing just a few years later with Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero, which is somehow even worse than Batman Forever.
Trying to make a side-scrolling action game out of a one-on-one fighting game engine seems like such an outwardly bad idea that it’s hard to believe it was tried twice.
The thing is I don’t think it’s an inherently *bad* idea. You get the fighting mechanics straight out of the box, you’ve just got to code a competent game around that. Both of those games failed, although I will give them some kudos for trying something ambitious. Not much though.
> Die Hard Trilogy are basically this
What?
There's nothing fighting game about Die Hard Trilogy. Die Hard 1 is a action third person shooting game. 2 is a on rails shooter. 3 is a driving game.
Mythologies: Sub-Zero is definitely not worse than Batman Forever lol it's actually somewhat playable once you get used to it, and it has some neat 2 and 1/2 D visuals.
Batman Forever is unplayable crap with atrocious controls. Like shooting your grappling hook up was Up + Start or something, if I remember right. And the level design made no sense, there were places to drop down to or go up that weren't made clear at all.
Batman Forever is a straight up F game, 1/10, etc.
I remember playing this game and getting to a part where you have to jump down a hole. You'd expect to be able to simply push down, maybe in combination with the jump button. But oh, that's right, there is no fucking jump button, it's up. So I try every combination imaginable, and guess what? It's down and R. Yeah, R! That's not even one of the main buttons! And the R button has to be tapped slightly before you press down.
And sometimes there isn't even a hole to tell you where you're able to do that. Why is everything so cryptic?!
Lmfaoooo when I was a little kid I remember playing this with my father and we couldn’t figure out the part where you had to use the grappling hook in the elevator my mother tried it as a joke and was button mashing and figured out it was the fucking select button lmao
This was the very first game I ever pre-ordered.
This was back before Software Etc. had a computerized system for pre-orders, and literally stuck a copy of your receipt of down payment in a giant, ratty three-ring binder, and fished it out when the game arrived to charge you the difference. Wild shit.
I was so hyped for this. I was ten years old and was high off of Jim Carrey’s miracle run the year before (Ace Ventura, The Mask, Dumb and Dumber), so the idea of him in a Batman movie seemed like a half-court, boomshakalaka helicopter dunk. I saw Forever, like, five times that summer, and assumed that, in video game form, Batman Forever would be the greatest thing I could possibly experience.
I don’t think I had ever been so disappointed by anything in my young life. I couldn’t even beat the first level due to a complicated series of button presses required to drop down a hole (like, down and A and C, or something absurd) which is never explained in-game or in-manual. Even at the time, it was ugly, a really poor example of pre-rendered sprites on 16-bit hardware, and it sounded like shit, at least on Genesis. The music in that opening level sounds like something you’d hear in the waiting room if your dentist was Leisure Suit Larry.
I hate this fucking game, and that’s from someone who was there and was all-in on the Batman Forever hype train. I still laugh when I think back to how I was struggling to wrap my kid brain around the game not just being sub-par, but being so bad it made me question my interest in both Batman and video games.
The start of your last paragraph made me laugh out loud. I was also on Batman Forever mania that summer (the Happy Meal cups!), but didn’t get the SNES version until the late ‘90’s.
There was big controversy at the time she played batgirl because of how overweight she was - the secret; she wasn’t. 90’s perception of body types would never hold up today.
Had this on Genesis. I remember it being pretty hard, but also visually kind of interesting in an ugly way.
Not a good game, but kid me kind of sort of liked it and played it because I didn't have a ton of games to choose from. Back then, I just played what I had even if deep down I knew it was shit lol.
this games sucks, license should never have gone to acclaim. this should have been made by Konami like the other batman games. I can recommend the batman forever arcade game for Saturn or PSX (saturn version is considered superior)
While I agree the game is bad indeed, I personally spent quite a lot of time with it. I was really fond of MK Mythologies: Sub-Zero on PS1, but never had the console. I only had Mega drive, and Batman Forever is as close as you can get on Sega console. Later there was an unofficial version of MKM:Sub-Zero for Sega, but it was even worse than Batman Forever.
THERE'S FOUR FACE BUTTONS
LIKE, THAT'S NOT ENOUGH?
WERE THEY TRYING TO RUIN THIS GAME, JUST FLAT OUT FUCK IT UP?
WELL THEY DID. BATMAN FOREVER: IT SUCKED BACK THEN AND IT SUCKS FOREVER
It's not good, but you can do worse. A lot of people didn't have the manual and had no idea how to grapple up or jump down a floor. It may be more common knowledge now thanks to AVGN and others, but I remember playground kids getting mad at the time. It must have been $10 or something because we all had it.
it was definitely seen as bad back then, so this one isn't just AVGN. idk how it is now though. To be honest i kind of want to play it just because, but i doubt its too easy to find.
I sort of have a soft spot for it because I played it a ton as a kid, but even back then, I much preferred the Batman Returns snes game.
Versus mode was cool if you could play with a friend, cause it was basically Mortal Kombat with Batman (and without blood). Cheats made it better cause you could use any character or power up.
I couldn't drop down either. I bought an episode of gamepro magazine specifically because I was told that it has a walkthrough of the game. This not only was wrong , but it started my love for gamepro magazine
There's worse. But it's not good. I guess it was an attempt to mix beat'em up with using Batman gadgets and tools and stuff (like the Arkham games later did very well) but they didn't do a good job of it, and the combat is just annoying with the Mortal Kombat moveset.
The sidescrollers based on Batman: The Animated Series visually and the regular old Batman beat'em ups like Batman Returns were just way better. Even the NES game was already more fun in terms of combat and platforming (even if the weapons and enemies were a bit NES-random).
There's a hack of the Genesis version that takes out the puzzles and climbing, making into more of a straight beat em up. Still not a very good game, but at least it's playable, unlike the regular game.
Well it's made by acclaim
You know how people see Ubisoft and open world and just assume it's a terrible piece of shit?
Well if it was a licensed game and acclaim made it, it was almost guaranteed to be a pile of crap
I had this for Gens and often rented it for SNES (for some reason) I guess I do have a soft spot for it but it's got lots of problems -
The SNES version had the "Hold on" loading screens where pretty annoying.
It's very easy to get lost or not know what to jump on/grapple, this was a serious problem in the circus level when you're timed. So serious that iirc if you timed out here the game was over regardless of lives. Sometimes the scenes are too dark so you may miss things.
It was nice having the different gadgets but there was no way to know how to do them without the instruction booklet and even then they weren't that great. I remember Batman's smoke pellet and Robin's sonic flash made enemies disoriented for like half a second, didn't get the point of them. There were secret "blueprint" gadgets but you needed a magazine to know how to do them.
In the gens version I'd encounter an occasional glitch (maybe intentional) where and enemy would do a move and drain your health to nothing/kill you which was frustrating.
That all said I did have fun times with it and I even found a Co-op speed run of the game which means obviously 2 people to a degree really like this game. Here it is - https://youtu.be/bJDMRdy56ek?si=IH8in35wjl-WpQqt
I never for the life of me could figure out the gadgets and I owned the game! The hold on screen was annoying lol almost as much as resident evil survivors opening door segments! Oh great memories!!
Totally have a soft spot. Specifically the Genesis version! Had it as a kid and played it so much, never got passed the circus level with the clowns until I was much much older. I know this game gets shit on, but I’m a huge sucker for the movie and the game.
Rented this for Sega Genesis. As OllyDee mentioned, it seemed like it was jumping on the Mortal Kombat/digitized real life actor sprites trend. I remember not liking it at all, and it didn't help that I strongly disliked the movie as well.
[Batman Forever (Genesis) Playthrough longplay retro video game (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct1X2xgGFjo)
The graphics are slightly better than I remember. Maybe if this was based on the first Batman film I'd like it a lot more. At the time though, I though the digitized actor graphics looked tacky compared to the more colorful and "fun" graphics of games like Genesis' The Adventures of Batman & Robin.
Top Batman games for me:
1. NES Batman
2. Sega Genesis Batman
3. NES Batman: Return of the Joker
4. Atari Arcade Batman: The Movie
5. SNES Batman Returns
6. Sega Genesis Adventures of Batman & Robin
Batman Forever paled in comparison to all these games, at least for me.
I played it on Genesis, but it was the first time as a kid that I realized a game could be bad. I loved the movie, so occasionally I replayed it hoping it wasn't really that bad, but it's atrocious
It kind of played similar to the Atari Batman arcade game or even the Sega Genesis Batman movie game. However, those games came out in '89 and '90. By '95 16-Bit games had come a long way in just 4 years, so the standards were higher. The platforming in Batman Forever was so simplistic and un-fun compared to the PC-Engine's Dracula X, Genesis' Bloodlines, or even the first NES Batman game.
It relied solely on the digitized graphics as a selling point and it felt like everything else was neglected (gameplay, level design, etc).
Which is crazy to me cause as a kid I thought the graphics looked terrible. Sure, it looked more like the actors, but I thought standard pixelart of other games, like Sonic or Mario, looked far better
It’s quaint at first with its digitized Mortal Kombat aesthetics but quickly it becomes unbelievably obtuse and frustrating in controls and level design.
Yes, it is truly terrible. I've loved some bad games. Surely, every lesser game has its contingency of fans who put up with it for one reason or another. But some games are objectively bad, and this is one of them.
I hate this game. I truly hate it. It was the only game that I at age 6 just couldn't play. I was always stuck on the first level, and everything my then 6 year old brain could come up with didn't work.
I had it on the Mega Drive and my nostalgia loves the game. I haven't revisited it in more than 15 years, though... So... Considering this post's replies, maybe I'll just keep it that way :)
Awful game. Paid $2 for it hoping it would be a "prettier" version of Batman on NES. Nope. It will be the sacrificial lame if there comes a time that I need a donor shell.
One of those things. You grow up with it, learn all the cryptic crap, get decent at it, then end up feel nostalgic for an objectively poor game 30 years later
I have a sealed copy of the Genesis version. Wife gave it to me for Christmas. Didn't have the heart to tell her it may be one of the worst games ever.
Is worse, it is a side scroller platform with the controls of mortal kombat, it is beyond awful to the point that doing the most basic thing like changing platforms require you to look a youtube guide, not joking, this game was a cash grab, so sorry for the kids that got this game.
I actually thought this game was fun for a long time, but upon reevaluation, I can say it's a very poorly-designed game. The Mortal Kombat-esque fighting system does not suit a beat-em-up, the gameplay is very unintuitive, and the combat just sucks. The only thing I can say that's positive is that the music is actually pretty good.
I actually do have nostalgia for this one. I was a huge Batman fan as a kid and I played the crap out of this game. Only beat it once, damn is it hard.
maybe it’s considered a bad game but i love the aesthetic and it has a really cool vibe. my favorite batman game though is adventures of batman and robin on snes.
I loved this game as a kid. Never beat it tho. N when I tried to replay it in an emulator the grapple didn't work for a stage so I was hard locked in the area
It's bad. It really is. However, I do have a soft spot for it. My best friend and I used to play it a lot, despite it's shittyness, back then I had fun playing it because I played it with him. Without him, I would've never cared about this game at all.
It sucks.
I had it as a kid, stuck in the country, the only games to play was Mario World, Mario RPG, NBA Jam, Addams Family Vlaues, Primal Rage, Krusty's Super Fun House, and this.
I had to try and force myself to like this game to avoid going insane, there's only so much Mario World I can play before I went a little nuts. But I just could not love it. The mechanics barely ever worked, the graphics were ugly, the music was bad. THERE WERE LOADING TIMES ON A SNES GAME, it's just the pits.
I have played worse. The only problem I had was several sounds. The hit sounds always reminds me of patting my belly. Besides odd sounds, I enjoyed the rest of the game. Every licensed superhero game has something that keeps me from saying this is a great game
I have a soft spot for the memories of loving Batman and playing it as a kid on genesis. That said, I could never get very far. When I retried as an adult, I figured maybe I was just a dumb kid who couldn’t figure it out. Nope. That game is just awful.
As bad as everyone said?
No, it's worse.
Batman Forever is easily one of the most aggressively awful movie adaptations of the 16-bit era. My friend and I rented this one weekend and regretted it instantly. It was so bad we actually went outside - talk about traumatic.
The only other rental I hated with such fury was probably Chakan: The Forever Man on the Genesis.
It's a terrible game. Graphics are awful. The voice samples in the Sega version are atrocius. The "gameplay" is whack (and it's biggest sin) -- like playing a platformer but with Mortal Kombat like movement. Got to the penultimate level and never bothered to finish it back in the day.
I'd rather play the Genesis Batman Returns 99 times out of 100, before playing this game (except to show off how awful it was).
It’s pretty awful whatever platform you had. The main problem it had was using the Mortal Kombat game engine for something other than a straight-up fighting game. You could pick up literally any Batman game from the 16bit or 8bit era and it will be better than this.
Like Batman returns
The Master System version is particularly good actually.
Is that basically the same as the version on Game Gear? I've only played it on Game Gear and NES. The NES version was okay I thought but personally I enjoyed the Game Gear one a lot more.
Apparently the Game Gear version is very similar, but focuses more on “action over platforming” according to Sega Retro. I’ve never played that version myself. From screenshots it looks superficially similar but has different programmers. I’m sure it’s great.
In particular, not as good as the NES version.
Oh the beat ‘em up? I’d say the Sega-produced game is better personally.
Of course you would.
Oh wow, what was that supposed to mean?
I think my Aunt saw how much we played Batman Returns when she visited so she got us Batman and Robin for Christmas. Unfortunately it wasn't the same at all.
That was awful
Or ABaR.
Which was basically Final Fight, right?
wdym?
The game engine for Batman Returns was the same as Final Fight
Acclaim/Midway would do the same thing just a few years later with Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero, which is somehow even worse than Batman Forever. Trying to make a side-scrolling action game out of a one-on-one fighting game engine seems like such an outwardly bad idea that it’s hard to believe it was tried twice.
Sometimes it works. There was a mode in Tekken 3 where you go around beating up mooks like in a Streets of Rage/Final Fight type of way.
Man I totally forgot about that
“Chicken!”
Tekken force? Flashes of death by degrees
The thing is I don’t think it’s an inherently *bad* idea. You get the fighting mechanics straight out of the box, you’ve just got to code a competent game around that. Both of those games failed, although I will give them some kudos for trying something ambitious. Not much though.
Games like Fighting Force and Die Hard Trilogy are basically this and didn't turn out awful.
> Die Hard Trilogy are basically this What? There's nothing fighting game about Die Hard Trilogy. Die Hard 1 is a action third person shooting game. 2 is a on rails shooter. 3 is a driving game.
Sorry, Die Hard Arcade*
Oh lol, I totally forgot about that game. It was pretty fun, you're right.
I liked MKM:Sub-Zero 😅😅😅
Mythologies: Sub-Zero is definitely not worse than Batman Forever lol it's actually somewhat playable once you get used to it, and it has some neat 2 and 1/2 D visuals. Batman Forever is unplayable crap with atrocious controls. Like shooting your grappling hook up was Up + Start or something, if I remember right. And the level design made no sense, there were places to drop down to or go up that weren't made clear at all. Batman Forever is a straight up F game, 1/10, etc.
Haha no way. I just watched a play through and you’re right: it’s like a continuous scrolling MK game.
It can’t be that bad. It has Ultimate Cinefusion technology.
I remember playing this game and getting to a part where you have to jump down a hole. You'd expect to be able to simply push down, maybe in combination with the jump button. But oh, that's right, there is no fucking jump button, it's up. So I try every combination imaginable, and guess what? It's down and R. Yeah, R! That's not even one of the main buttons! And the R button has to be tapped slightly before you press down. And sometimes there isn't even a hole to tell you where you're able to do that. Why is everything so cryptic?!
Lmfaoooo when I was a little kid I remember playing this with my father and we couldn’t figure out the part where you had to use the grappling hook in the elevator my mother tried it as a joke and was button mashing and figured out it was the fucking select button lmao
*Ultimatte®
This was the very first game I ever pre-ordered. This was back before Software Etc. had a computerized system for pre-orders, and literally stuck a copy of your receipt of down payment in a giant, ratty three-ring binder, and fished it out when the game arrived to charge you the difference. Wild shit. I was so hyped for this. I was ten years old and was high off of Jim Carrey’s miracle run the year before (Ace Ventura, The Mask, Dumb and Dumber), so the idea of him in a Batman movie seemed like a half-court, boomshakalaka helicopter dunk. I saw Forever, like, five times that summer, and assumed that, in video game form, Batman Forever would be the greatest thing I could possibly experience. I don’t think I had ever been so disappointed by anything in my young life. I couldn’t even beat the first level due to a complicated series of button presses required to drop down a hole (like, down and A and C, or something absurd) which is never explained in-game or in-manual. Even at the time, it was ugly, a really poor example of pre-rendered sprites on 16-bit hardware, and it sounded like shit, at least on Genesis. The music in that opening level sounds like something you’d hear in the waiting room if your dentist was Leisure Suit Larry. I hate this fucking game, and that’s from someone who was there and was all-in on the Batman Forever hype train. I still laugh when I think back to how I was struggling to wrap my kid brain around the game not just being sub-par, but being so bad it made me question my interest in both Batman and video games.
The start of your last paragraph made me laugh out loud. I was also on Batman Forever mania that summer (the Happy Meal cups!), but didn’t get the SNES version until the late ‘90’s.
[удалено]
Used to be??? Batgirl could still get it in 2024
I "recently" saw her in a Diary of A Wimpy Kid movie my son was watching. The movie was meh but I think she's still attractive.
There was big controversy at the time she played batgirl because of how overweight she was - the secret; she wasn’t. 90’s perception of body types would never hold up today.
Had this on Genesis. I remember it being pretty hard, but also visually kind of interesting in an ugly way. Not a good game, but kid me kind of sort of liked it and played it because I didn't have a ton of games to choose from. Back then, I just played what I had even if deep down I knew it was shit lol.
this games sucks, license should never have gone to acclaim. this should have been made by Konami like the other batman games. I can recommend the batman forever arcade game for Saturn or PSX (saturn version is considered superior)
While I agree the game is bad indeed, I personally spent quite a lot of time with it. I was really fond of MK Mythologies: Sub-Zero on PS1, but never had the console. I only had Mega drive, and Batman Forever is as close as you can get on Sega console. Later there was an unofficial version of MKM:Sub-Zero for Sega, but it was even worse than Batman Forever.
THERE'S FOUR FACE BUTTONS LIKE, THAT'S NOT ENOUGH? WERE THEY TRYING TO RUIN THIS GAME, JUST FLAT OUT FUCK IT UP? WELL THEY DID. BATMAN FOREVER: IT SUCKED BACK THEN AND IT SUCKS FOREVER
THIS IS FUCKED BEYOND BELIEF !!
The emphasis he puts on the "fucked" is so brutal, definitely one of my favourite Nerd moments, he sounds *genuinely* angry.
It's not good, but you can do worse. A lot of people didn't have the manual and had no idea how to grapple up or jump down a floor. It may be more common knowledge now thanks to AVGN and others, but I remember playground kids getting mad at the time. It must have been $10 or something because we all had it.
Even with the manual you'd be screwed since the manual didn't give you the correct controls and button inputs for moves.
I really enjoyed the game as a kid. Haters gonna hate.
I did too! Even though I don’t think I ever got past the second level…
I beat the bank at least twice. I vaguely remember the circus and getting there again. Never any further than that, though.
I don't know, but I'm going to assume it wasn't that good when I used to see it in my stores display case as a teen.... during the gamecube era.
I tried it once! It could have been a decent game if it did not have Mortal Kombat esque controls or mechanics as it does not work in a sidescroller.
I really hated the little of the SNES version I played However, I do really like Batman Forever on Game Boy
it was definitely seen as bad back then, so this one isn't just AVGN. idk how it is now though. To be honest i kind of want to play it just because, but i doubt its too easy to find.
I do remember going to a friends house and us trying valiantly to make progress. Frustrating game to say the least.
I played this back in the day, i had, at most, 20 games at the time. If i ranked all my games it would be below 15.
The arcade version was more a straight up brawler and somewhat decent.
I sort of have a soft spot for it because I played it a ton as a kid, but even back then, I much preferred the Batman Returns snes game. Versus mode was cool if you could play with a friend, cause it was basically Mortal Kombat with Batman (and without blood). Cheats made it better cause you could use any character or power up.
The movie or the game?
how about telling us both?
I couldn’t figure out how to drop through the platform on the first level.
I couldn't drop down either. I bought an episode of gamepro magazine specifically because I was told that it has a walkthrough of the game. This not only was wrong , but it started my love for gamepro magazine
There's worse. But it's not good. I guess it was an attempt to mix beat'em up with using Batman gadgets and tools and stuff (like the Arkham games later did very well) but they didn't do a good job of it, and the combat is just annoying with the Mortal Kombat moveset. The sidescrollers based on Batman: The Animated Series visually and the regular old Batman beat'em ups like Batman Returns were just way better. Even the NES game was already more fun in terms of combat and platforming (even if the weapons and enemies were a bit NES-random).
There's a hack of the Genesis version that takes out the puzzles and climbing, making into more of a straight beat em up. Still not a very good game, but at least it's playable, unlike the regular game.
They were contractually obligated to make a terrible game so it would nicely match the movie.
Well it's made by acclaim You know how people see Ubisoft and open world and just assume it's a terrible piece of shit? Well if it was a licensed game and acclaim made it, it was almost guaranteed to be a pile of crap
I remember enjoying it back in the day. Rented it a number of times and I think I completed it.
I just rem the same spot AVGN got pissed at. Pressing like select+Y or something stupid like that to grapple up. OST had some decent parts though.
There's a romhack called Batman Eternity for the Mega Drive/Genesis version that makes the game much more playable. It's by "BillyTime! Games".
I had this for Gens and often rented it for SNES (for some reason) I guess I do have a soft spot for it but it's got lots of problems - The SNES version had the "Hold on" loading screens where pretty annoying. It's very easy to get lost or not know what to jump on/grapple, this was a serious problem in the circus level when you're timed. So serious that iirc if you timed out here the game was over regardless of lives. Sometimes the scenes are too dark so you may miss things. It was nice having the different gadgets but there was no way to know how to do them without the instruction booklet and even then they weren't that great. I remember Batman's smoke pellet and Robin's sonic flash made enemies disoriented for like half a second, didn't get the point of them. There were secret "blueprint" gadgets but you needed a magazine to know how to do them. In the gens version I'd encounter an occasional glitch (maybe intentional) where and enemy would do a move and drain your health to nothing/kill you which was frustrating. That all said I did have fun times with it and I even found a Co-op speed run of the game which means obviously 2 people to a degree really like this game. Here it is - https://youtu.be/bJDMRdy56ek?si=IH8in35wjl-WpQqt
I never for the life of me could figure out the gadgets and I owned the game! The hold on screen was annoying lol almost as much as resident evil survivors opening door segments! Oh great memories!!
Totally have a soft spot. Specifically the Genesis version! Had it as a kid and played it so much, never got passed the circus level with the clowns until I was much much older. I know this game gets shit on, but I’m a huge sucker for the movie and the game.
The audacity of a video game to tell me to “Hold On” is something else…
Rented this for Sega Genesis. As OllyDee mentioned, it seemed like it was jumping on the Mortal Kombat/digitized real life actor sprites trend. I remember not liking it at all, and it didn't help that I strongly disliked the movie as well. [Batman Forever (Genesis) Playthrough longplay retro video game (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct1X2xgGFjo) The graphics are slightly better than I remember. Maybe if this was based on the first Batman film I'd like it a lot more. At the time though, I though the digitized actor graphics looked tacky compared to the more colorful and "fun" graphics of games like Genesis' The Adventures of Batman & Robin. Top Batman games for me: 1. NES Batman 2. Sega Genesis Batman 3. NES Batman: Return of the Joker 4. Atari Arcade Batman: The Movie 5. SNES Batman Returns 6. Sega Genesis Adventures of Batman & Robin Batman Forever paled in comparison to all these games, at least for me.
It was my first console game outside of Jurassic Park. At my grandma’s house since my parents didn’t believe.
I mastered this game. I love it.
I played it on Genesis, but it was the first time as a kid that I realized a game could be bad. I loved the movie, so occasionally I replayed it hoping it wasn't really that bad, but it's atrocious
It kind of played similar to the Atari Batman arcade game or even the Sega Genesis Batman movie game. However, those games came out in '89 and '90. By '95 16-Bit games had come a long way in just 4 years, so the standards were higher. The platforming in Batman Forever was so simplistic and un-fun compared to the PC-Engine's Dracula X, Genesis' Bloodlines, or even the first NES Batman game. It relied solely on the digitized graphics as a selling point and it felt like everything else was neglected (gameplay, level design, etc).
Which is crazy to me cause as a kid I thought the graphics looked terrible. Sure, it looked more like the actors, but I thought standard pixelart of other games, like Sonic or Mario, looked far better
Honestly, it's not worth playing. The Arkham games are so good - if you want to scratch a Batman itch, play those.
Tried so hard to like it. My brother and I playing as Batman and Robin was the dream, but is bad for many reasons.
It’s quaint at first with its digitized Mortal Kombat aesthetics but quickly it becomes unbelievably obtuse and frustrating in controls and level design.
No
Do not play this game, you have to push the select button to grapple random parts of the map that you will never find 😂😂😂
Wow I played the shit out of this game as a wee kid. Had no idea how to activate skills. Never managed to pass the circus level
It's truly terrible. I beat it many times when I was a kid. I know what I'm talking
Yes, it is truly terrible. I've loved some bad games. Surely, every lesser game has its contingency of fans who put up with it for one reason or another. But some games are objectively bad, and this is one of them.
It looked great at least.
I hate this game. I truly hate it. It was the only game that I at age 6 just couldn't play. I was always stuck on the first level, and everything my then 6 year old brain could come up with didn't work.
I think thats one where I couldn't jump down and got stuck in the first screen
"80 stages" I really want to know what thier definition of "stage" is. I rented it once and did not have a good time.
I loved it on Playstation. It's not good I guess, but my brother and I had a blast that week.
That's a different game, based on an arcade cabinet. It's actually pretty good.
Guess I'll have to fire this up then, figured it was just a paired down port.
I had it on the Mega Drive and my nostalgia loves the game. I haven't revisited it in more than 15 years, though... So... Considering this post's replies, maybe I'll just keep it that way :)
I remember paying $7.99 for it at GameStop back in 2002 and I still want my money back!
It's worse
I have it on ps1, me and my girlfriend really enjoy playing it. Especially with a fightstick!
That's a different game, based on an arcade cabinet. It's actually pretty good.
It’s horrible but it’s bad good in a weird way… like a good bad movie you know?
Awful game. Paid $2 for it hoping it would be a "prettier" version of Batman on NES. Nope. It will be the sacrificial lame if there comes a time that I need a donor shell.
I could never get past maybe the second or third level because I was supposed to do a thing and could never figure out what
The music was alright.
It’s very repetitive and some of the controls are obscure but I wouldn’t consider it a top 10 bad game of the era
It really was that terrible.
Ice to meet you botman. You won’t be sending me to the cooler! It’s pretty bad if I remember it being the one where select is the grappling hook
One of those things. You grow up with it, learn all the cryptic crap, get decent at it, then end up feel nostalgic for an objectively poor game 30 years later
I love the game... even though it drives me nuts
I loved the graphics, any digitised graphics made me forgive the gameplay, but I did not progress very far.
Yes, it's that terrible. I may have a soft spot for digitized graphics and the movie it's based on, but that's about it.
I have a sealed copy of the Genesis version. Wife gave it to me for Christmas. Didn't have the heart to tell her it may be one of the worst games ever.
Is worse, it is a side scroller platform with the controls of mortal kombat, it is beyond awful to the point that doing the most basic thing like changing platforms require you to look a youtube guide, not joking, this game was a cash grab, so sorry for the kids that got this game.
I actually thought this game was fun for a long time, but upon reevaluation, I can say it's a very poorly-designed game. The Mortal Kombat-esque fighting system does not suit a beat-em-up, the gameplay is very unintuitive, and the combat just sucks. The only thing I can say that's positive is that the music is actually pretty good.
Terrible game but I do have a soft spot for it. My brother and I would spend hours playing.
Once I got past the janky controls, I enjoyed it.
I actually do have nostalgia for this one. I was a huge Batman fan as a kid and I played the crap out of this game. Only beat it once, damn is it hard.
Honestly these seem like an easy answer, most show/movie adaptions are NOT good games, they're just made as a cash grab.
I loved it as a kid
maybe it’s considered a bad game but i love the aesthetic and it has a really cool vibe. my favorite batman game though is adventures of batman and robin on snes.
My jaw hit the floor when i saw this game on a snes cartridge had lengthy load times.
I loved this game as a kid. Never beat it tho. N when I tried to replay it in an emulator the grapple didn't work for a stage so I was hard locked in the area
Yes, at least. None at all.
It's bad. It really is. However, I do have a soft spot for it. My best friend and I used to play it a lot, despite it's shittyness, back then I had fun playing it because I played it with him. Without him, I would've never cared about this game at all.
I loved that game! First game I've ever played for the snes
Hm, I only just noticed the riddlers sleeves have little loops for the thumbs.
It sucks. I had it as a kid, stuck in the country, the only games to play was Mario World, Mario RPG, NBA Jam, Addams Family Vlaues, Primal Rage, Krusty's Super Fun House, and this. I had to try and force myself to like this game to avoid going insane, there's only so much Mario World I can play before I went a little nuts. But I just could not love it. The mechanics barely ever worked, the graphics were ugly, the music was bad. THERE WERE LOADING TIMES ON A SNES GAME, it's just the pits.
I have played worse. The only problem I had was several sounds. The hit sounds always reminds me of patting my belly. Besides odd sounds, I enjoyed the rest of the game. Every licensed superhero game has something that keeps me from saying this is a great game
Yes, its buttcheeks.
There is a reason some of these old games are rare - they were never reprinted due to lack of demand. Rarity does not equal quality.
I have a soft spot for the memories of loving Batman and playing it as a kid on genesis. That said, I could never get very far. When I retried as an adult, I figured maybe I was just a dumb kid who couldn’t figure it out. Nope. That game is just awful.
As bad as everyone said? No, it's worse. Batman Forever is easily one of the most aggressively awful movie adaptations of the 16-bit era. My friend and I rented this one weekend and regretted it instantly. It was so bad we actually went outside - talk about traumatic. The only other rental I hated with such fury was probably Chakan: The Forever Man on the Genesis.
Yes especially with the mortal Kombat esq. controls
It’s worse than the movie and that is a huge accomplishment.
This was one of those games AVGN was not too harsh on.
yes fuck that game
It's a terrible game. Graphics are awful. The voice samples in the Sega version are atrocius. The "gameplay" is whack (and it's biggest sin) -- like playing a platformer but with Mortal Kombat like movement. Got to the penultimate level and never bothered to finish it back in the day. I'd rather play the Genesis Batman Returns 99 times out of 100, before playing this game (except to show off how awful it was).