When you are discussing bad games, you have to understand that there are tiers just like there are with good ones.
Just like there's a big difference between an all-time classic like Super Mario World and a good-not-great game like Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, there's a big difference between Rocky and Bulwinkle and The Bouncer. The latter is a game with a handful of redeeming qualities that you could, in theory, play, you just wouldn't actually want to. The former is a barely functioning mess that's mere existence is enough to make a grown man cry. Also like good games, there is a certain level of consensus as to which games are considered terrible. Ask someone "what are the worst games of all time?" and you will surely get some level of variance in your answer. However, there are titles you will definitely here thrown out there more often than not: E.T., Rise of the Robots, BeBe's Kids, Action 52, on and on, etc., etc. Which brings us to today's subject, Batman Forever on the SNES and Sega Genesis. Based on the equally maligned 1995 movie starring (sigh) Val Kilmer as the caped crusader, Batman Forever is frequently mentioned among the aforementioned stinkers. But does it really deserve to be? Sometimes, you can tell a game is going to be atrocious just by looking at it, and BF certainly doesn't fit into that category. A quick 10 seconds playing the game won't immediately throw up any blatant red flags. So, is Batman Forever really that bad?
The short answer is "yes," but it's not quite bottom of the barrel bad. Comparing it to the titles we just discussed, it's far closer to The Bouncer than it is to Rocky and Bulwinkle. It's bad, but not so bad it makes you want to give up gaming as a hobby. As I said, bad games fit into tiers just like good ones do, and playing Batman Forever is more like being stuck in the third or fourth circle of Hell then it is the ninth. As to why, we have to start with how confusing it is. The game gets off to a promising start, with a cinematic and some text laying out the first scenario for the player. Two-Face has started an uprising at Arkham Asylum and it's up to you to stop it. Okay, sure. You start the game up, you get to fight an enemy, the controls feel okay (at least at first, we will get back to that later), you move on to the next screen...only to find you are at a dead end. I will never forget my first time playing this all those years ago and it seems that my experience with what happens next is relatively common.
You try punching and kicking walls, going through the doors in the background, backtracking, anything you can think of. Nothing. Eventually, you will start jumping, usually out of frustration or boredom, and get lucky enough to notice the hole in the ceiling. Okay, great, now how do you get up there? You try jumping, entering button combos, trying to pull off wall kicks and no matter how hard you try, you aren't getting up there. So, you press all the buttons, again and again, everything except Start and Select because why would you need those? Well, because select shoots a grappling hook, I guess there weren't any other buttons to use though why you need two punches and two kicks is still a bit of a mystery. Now that you've seen the grappling hook, you know it has to have something to do with getting up to the second floor. But you aren't out of the woods yet. Oh no. Try as you might, you can't get Batman to do anything but swing on the ceiling for like two seconds. Again, frustration sets in, buttons get mashed and finally, if you are lucky, you realize that pressing up and select at the same time will fire the grappling hook straight up. Now you just have to do this a bunch of times until you hit the pixel perfect position Batman needs to be in and voila! An hour and a half later you've finally cleared...the first screen of the game. I just spent a paragraph and a half discussing a single room that you come to 10 seconds into the game. Let that sink in. And I'm not the only person this happened to either. Everyone, and I mean everyone, I ever knew that played this game had a similar experience. Hell, the Angry Video Game Nerd even did a video about it. And then, a few screens later, you have to jump down. And how do you do that? Down and R. As much as the lack of direction is part of the problem, the biggest issue here really is the controls.
Wait, didn't I just say the controls weren't bad? Well, they aren't bad at first. They are generally responsive, Batman largely does what he is supposed to do when he is supposed to do it, which is more than you can say for most bad games. It will also feel very familiar very quickly, you have two punches, high and low, as well as two kicks. You move with the DPad and can perform a sweep or uppercut if you duck while attacking. Wait a minute, Batman Forever kind of plays like a combination of a platformer and a beat 'em up and that doesn't sound like the control scheme from any platformer or beat 'em up I've ever played. Yet it still sounds familiar...because Batman Forever shares its control scheme with Mortal Kombat. Yeah, this is where it becomes important to point out that this game was developed by Akklaim, the same company that was responsible for MK. I could probably write an entire post about why, but I'm going to just going to simplify things and say that the control scheme for a fighting game doesn't work well at all for a game like this. Our aforementioned issue with the grappling hook is just one of many examples as to why. Even when you deduce that select will fire your grappling hook, you still need to figure out how to shoot straight up. Common sense in a platformer would be to hold up and press the action button. But remember, we are dealing with a fighting game control scheme here. And how do you typically jump in fighting games? By pressing up. So basically, to get the grappling hook to work as intended, you need to hit select and up at the EXACT same time. Otherwise it won't work. In addition to being frustrating, it also misleads you into believing that the solution to your problem isn't actually the solution. Batman Forever is filled with stuff like this.
Unlike some bad games, where one or more major flaws completely ruin the game, Batman Forever is ruined by tons of small to moderate flaws that otherwise ruin the experience. The graphics are actually pretty solid, they are digitized just like in Mortal Kombat and offer a pretty solid example of the style at the time. Unfortunately, the levels are boring and the villains are all goofy stock actors that look like they didn't even come from the Batman Universe. I have no idea what the designers' infatuation was with having foreground objects, but they are absolutely everywhere. It feels like you can't go more than a few steps without walking behind something and getting hit. This also makes it difficult to determine when you need to go up or drop down, so you will often find yourself walking through levels and just randomly firing your grappling hook up. The story segments focus on Two-Face, but all of the clues and most of the enemy interaction in the game comes from the Riddler. That makes sense if you saw the movie, but it's still a little weird.
The combat is inconsistent and takes forever, it almost feels like every encounter is a round in a fighting game against a glitchy computer opponent. Sometimes they will just destroy you, other times they will walk into your never-ending stream of punches and die without putting up any resistance. It's especially bad when you are fighting two or more enemies, as the control scheme is designed for one-on-one fighting and not a beat em' up or platformer. The general gameplay is just dull, it isn't buggy or broken but it's still boring. The level design is terrible, the enemies are inconsistent, the jumping is a nightmare, it's just generally not very good. Also, and this is really aggravating, it has load times. Yes, a cartridge-based game has loading. When you move to a new room, you get a black screen that says "Hold On." Just, like, what?
That being said, there are some positives here. For one, it looks and feels like the movie. It does it's best to follow the plot, which couldn't be said for a lot of movie-based games at the time. It has a pretty good soundtrack and some level of gameplay variety. There is a 1 on 1 fighting mode, which is pretty limited but might be the most fun part of the game. I guess that makes sense, that's what the control scheme was designed for. It really does have some pretty cool cutscenes and there are a lot of bat gadgets to use. They aren't that easy to activate, but at least they are there. Look, I'm not trying to argue that this is a good game, because it isn't. There aren't that many positive aspects to Batman Forever, but they are there and that's more than you can say for some of the true bottom-of-the barrel crap that is out there. I can't think of anything positive about Rocky and Bulwinkle or Rise of the Robots and I can at least say there are good things here. I actually gave it a shot this time around, I legitimately tried to beat this game and gave it a few tries before I decided it wasn't worth it. Once you get past the game's bizarre design and realize that you have to play by its rules instead of your own, it's almost maybe playable.
So, was Batman Forever really that bad? Yes. But was it really THAT bad? No. It's probably in the bottom couple hundred games I've ever played, but there are plenty that are worse. I have actually covered a handful of them myself. Offhand, Rocky and Bulwinkle, Rise of the Robots and Celebrity Deathmatch are definitely worse, as are Antz: Extreme Racing and the Genesis Version of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Super Thunder Blade was probably a better game in theory, but a way worse experience. That puts Batman Forever on the level of stuff like The Bouncer and Ecco the Dolphin, games that have some redeeming quality. They may even have fans among some gamers. But while Batman Forever isn't a complete dumpster fire, it's at very least a small blaze in an office garbage can. At the end of the day, there's still a fire and it's still trash.
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