Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (video game)
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 Seems like Kemco wants do to the Superman 64 of Batman games.
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Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (known as Batman of the Future: Return of the Joker in Europe) is a 2000 side-scrolling beat 'em up game released for the Game Boy Color, PlayStation and Nintendo 64 developed by Kemco and published by Ubi Soft. It was based on the movie of the same name, and the animated TV series Batman Beyond, which is a follow-up to Batman: The Animated Series, and The New Batman Adventures.
Plot
The game's plot is very similar to the film it's based on. Billionaire Bruce Wayne is now an old man and has retired from crime fighting and the last sighting of the caped crusader known as Batman occurred over twenty years ago. A street gang called the Jokerz terrorizes innocent citizens. Bruce allows athletic sixteen-year-old high school student Terry McGinnis to be the new Batman and to investigate this recent chaos.
Gameplay
The game is basically a beat 'em up where you control as the new Batman, Terry McGinnis. You can chose between four suits, the attack, defense, balanced, and nimble suits.
Why It's Beyond Sucks
- Horrible controls.
- Awful, overly repetitive music. The Nintendo 64 version's music is a short ten or fifteen second loop, and the music only changes for the last level.
- Terrible level design.
- Poor AI.
- Enemies only come in pairs.
- Most of the suits are useless, as the Shield attack from the defense suit actually does a very significant amount of damage and blocks enemy attacks at the same time. In fact, the manual even says to handicap yourself by not using this suit. The nimble suit is rarely used because you almost never need to glide or double jump in the game.
- The defense suit is the most powerful attacker, with the shield attack doing so much damage, when it should be most effective at only defense and the offense suit at offense power.
- Unbalanced combat. If you're not using the Defense Suit you constantly take cheap damage. If you are using the Defense Suit the shield bash makes it trivial to kill enemies; even bosses. Even the Joker himself is very easy to beat with this attack, and he is the final boss of the game.
- The cutscenes are just still images with text and with no audio or video clips or voice acting. Also, some cutscenes are not even from the movie. This occurs even on the PlayStation version of the game, where the system is easily capable of full motion video.
- A very creepy mug shot of Joker is seen in one of the cutscenes.
- These versions of the game are too short, at less than 40 minutes to beat! Even the Game Boy Color version is longer than these versions.
- For some reason, the Batarangs are called "Dark Knight Discus" in the game after picking up ammo for the projectile weapon. Since when was that weapon called that in any official Batman comics or publications? It could have been just called the Batarang in the game like it is normally called.
- Dark Knight Discus and Magnetic Nunchuck gadgets are virtually impossible to aim, as they travel in a straight line and the fixed camera angles make it difficult to tell where you are facing.
- It is impossible to avoid taking damage. Enemies will stop flinching to your attacks after roughly four hits, landing an unavoidable hit on you the next time you try to attack them. This is somewhat similar to Soul Fighter.
- Pressing L (N64 version) puts Batman into "stealth mode", which does absolutely nothing other than vastly reduce his movement speed.
Redeeming Qualities
- It at least tries to stay faithful to the movie but that's not saying much
- The Game Boy Color version while still not great is at least passable
- The PS1 version has better music
Reception
While the Game Boy Color version received mixed reviews, both the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 versions of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker received negative reviews from critics. Doug Perry of IGN rated both the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 versions 2.0/10 (Painful), lower than Superman for the Nintendo 64, which has a 3.4/10. Allen Maddrell of N64 Magazine rated it 16%. DX said that Kemco right along with Titus are like the anti-Rare of the Nintendo 64, instead of making great games, they've made horrible games that don't deserve to exist and rated the game "Rest in Piss".
Videos
Comments
- Action games
- Game Boy Color games
- PlayStation (console) games
- Nintendo 64 games
- Movie-based games
- Television-based games
- Beat 'em up games
- Games reviewed by DX
- Games reviewed by DLJadow
- Games reviewed by Stanburdman
- Batman games
- Superhero games
- Ubisoft
- DC games
- Games reviewed by Colônia Contra Ataca
- 2000s games
- Kemco games
- Games made in Japan
- Short length games
- Warner Bros. games
- Shovelware games
- Cash grabs
- Bad games
- Bad media