Well, with a new GOOD Batman game out, I thought I’d make my first “Challenges from the Past” post about another good Batman game. That’s right, Batman on the NES, made by Sunsoft.

This is an NES classic for sure, and one of the few Batman games to have been good.

I was given a few challenges for this, so let’s talk about the game first, and the challenges after!

The Game
In the time of the NES, it wasn’t rare for a licensed game to be good, or even good enough to be considered a classic nowadays. Batman is one such game.

Presentation
Graphically it looks great. Detailed sprites, smooth animations on Batman, nice looking (though a bit bland) areas. But overall it looks awesome. The enemy design is a bit on the lame side most of the time, being mostly cliche stuff, but it works fine anyways.

The music is also very good. There’s only a few tracks, but almost all of them are enjoyable to listen to.

Gameplay
It has nice graphics and music, sure, but this is where the game truly shines. The controls are simple (of course, few NES games have complicated controls really). A jumps, B attacks. You start off with a basic punch, but by pressing Start you can switch to various gadgets/projectile weapons. You get a batarang, a gun that shoots missiles and a super shuriken of triple doom. Each projectile shares the same ammo, and each takes a different amount of ammo to use. Batarang takes 1, missile gun takes 2 and super shuriken takes 3. While the basic punch works nicely, the weapons can get you out of a tight spot, or completely prevent said tight spots from happening.

The other fun element is the jumping. If you press A while touching a wall, you cling to the wall for a second and wall jump. This is pretty basic, but the game complicates it by adding really tough jumps, some that require falling towards a trap, just to wall jump JUST at the right moment to get to the next platform, making sure not to hit a trap that’s overhead. Some jumps are close to impossible, and to this day some of them most people can’t do them without getting hit.

Combat is as simple as it gets, considering it’s a side-scroller. But it’s insanely fun. As is the platforming. Add in how challenging the game is, it’s definitely a classic NES title.

Challenges from the Past
For the first time: Videos on this site! Nothing fancy though, but I managed to record straight off my NES (no emulators here!!). Instead of just reporting my progress on each challenge, I’ll show you my attempts! Sadly I can’t record from my Genesis (version 1) since it has no composite outputs(unless i find how to get my capture card to see my RF connnection), but anything NES/N64 I can do it. (eventually i’ll try to make the videos more interesting >_<)

So here’s the challenges for Batman (given to me by the Save Points team). Note: I’m still a newb at this game and keep dying for stupid reasons.

Challenge 1: This one was given to me by Dave: get through the first stage, including the first boss, with only my fist.

A tough challenge, but it’s doable. It’s most doable for the whole game is you’re crazy enough, though some bosses will give you trouble. On my non-filmed attempt I reached the boss of the second level, but couldn’t beat it. Here I just plain sucked…

Challenge 2: This one was given to me by Wintrale: get as far as possible without picking up healing items! (yes, I know, I picked up a heart in the first part of level 2, but i jumped in the electricity to compensate)

That’s really tough, as you’ll only get some life back after dying, or killing a boss. The rest of the game is played normally(AKA weapons are available), so that helps a lot. On my non-filmed attempt I reached level 3, but that’s all I could manage. Here I kept making a bunch of stupid errors.

Challenge 3: This one was given to me by Victor: No-kill run(other than bosses)!

That’s insane. Not killing anything means you HAVE to take hits by certain enemies, and there’s no way, other than finishing each level, to get life back, and you can’t replinish your ammo(making the boss battles insanely hard). It’s probably possible, but I’d be hard-pressed to find someone who can do it. I can’t pass the 2 flying guys on level 1 part 2.

Overall
To this day this is one of the more challenging NES games out there, and rightfully so. You don’t exactly feel like Batman, but who cares, it’s a fun game.

Well worth the ~5$ the game goes for now(I got it for 3$).

Thank you jjgames.com for having the game in stock and for the low price

jobocan Challenges from the Past, Console, Games, NES, retro