Bat-Octoberfest - Batman: Return of the Joker

Over the past week, The Joker has died no less than five times. He's understandably pissed and out for revenge. If you've got anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes, then you too can enjoy this NES oddity. Well, I don't know if enjoy is the right word. It's more like experiencing the surreal. You'll enter a universe where everything you've ever known about game-design becomes unknown. While you're struggling to find the answers, Sunsoft keeps changing the questions. Take it from me. By the end of the game, I didn't understand anything. If you've ever been of two minds about a product, then imagine being of twenty-two minds. Every concrete thought is continually spirited away, leaving me drained of energy and wandering in the darkness.

Anyway, The Joker must be stopped. That much is obvious. For this go-around, the Dark Night has an arm-cannon. Holding down the fire button performs some sort of charge-shot. There are multiple weapon pick-ups, but they're really only important for the boss battles. Batman also jumps and has two kinds of slides. One of the slides is performed by pressing down and jump. The other is performed by... just trying to move Bat-brain around. He slides across the ground like his boots are soaked in kitchen grease. Movement in general is surprisingly not great. Rather than spend the rest of the review harping about bad controls, I'll just mention that I used this romhack. Anyone interested in playing the game should install it immediately. It's guaranteed to save Batman's life.

Oh, and uh... just in case there's any confusion, this game does NOT play like Megaman. You might have noticed a handful of coincidences, but that's all they are. Return of the Joker features very short stages, often containing no more than a few enemies. They'll attack the instant they appear onscreen and are just as instantly eradicated by Batman's unnecessarily powerful weaponry. This dude is packing more heat than Uncle Fester from Fester's Quest, and for who? A few guys with knives? Enemy encounters are ridiculously one-sided yet designed in a way that the player is obligated to take damage, unless they've memorized exactly when they'll appear. 

Dying from too many knives to face doesn't happen particularly often, so multiple stages offer bottom-less pits or spiked ceilings, which outright erases anyone who gets caught in them. Some moving platforms and other traps will appear too. Just um... don't expect anything significant in terms of level-design. You know how in most games they'll introduce a mechanic or obstacle early on, then continually build upon it to create complex and difficult situations? That doesn't really happen here. You'll be introduced to - oh I don't know - conveyor belts, only for the stage to end half a minute later. The feeling of "Wait. That's it!?" is going to hit especially hard if you're the type who put in all that hard work beating Sunsoft's other better NES games. This isn't an easy game, but its attempts at difficulty don't feel earned either. Batman usually only dies because he's a large target and - if you didn't install the romhack - controls like he enjoys seeing the player's face contort into twisted rage.

During my play-through, I was treated to a silly moment. Early on, there are platforms that automatically move when anything lands on them. I destroyed an enemy flying above on of these platforms. A power-up dropped from their corpse and landed square on the platform, causing it to move and quickly disappear into the abyss. Platforms don't respawn after a set time or after scrolling them offscreen, so I just had to jump into the pit and try again with my next life. The penalties for death are often light, and passwords ensure only minutes of progress are ever lost. Still, I was left wondering what I did to deserve such disrespect.

When Batman reaches a boss, he gets struck with lightning and powers up. This grants him a life meter comparable in size to the villain he's facing. It's an impressive spectacle, but fights are quickly undone if you bring the right weapon. Using this tool-assisted-speedrun as your guide, you'll discover that standing in one spot and mashing the fire button at Takahashi Meijin speeds destroys every boss. I'll admit that the thought of trying to fight them on equal terms never occurred to me. What would be considered a "fair fight" anyway? Do I purposefully enter the fight with the worst possible weapon? Pshaw to that idea.

The nicest thing that I can say about Batman: Return of the Joker is that it's just plain weird. Besides looking and sounding fantastic, the game doesn't offer anything that I'd consider impressive. Its level-design is reminiscent of a multi-car pile-up. Difficulty balance might as well not exist. Don't even get me started on the fact that half the playtime is spent in auto-scrollers. I say all this, yet I can't say that I hate the game. There is an interesting air about it that piques my curiosity. 

Although, I still have one question:

What in the hell was Sunsoft doing? 

The very beginning of the game has gargoyles that are completely invincible until Batman gets close. They're never seen again. Later on, lasers that increase in power when someone is nearby are introduced, then quickly discarded. Some guy in a tiny helicopter shows up once and doesn't come back for revenge. Neither of the shmup stages end with a boss-fight. It's as if everything was thrown together at random, and trying to make sense of the result is a pointless endeavor.