The Final Word game review

Batman II, Return of the Joker -- Sunsoft

The caped crusader has returned to defend the city of Gotham from his arch nemesis, the Joker, in Batman II, Return of the Joker, from Sunsoft. Fight through side-scrolling action scenes with a variety of weapons to reach your final confrontation. This exciting new action title is for play on the NES.

Ferrari Man
What happened to the first? This sequal certainly doesn't do it justice. Suffering from the boredom of only one enemy character on-screen at a time makes this game fail. However, it does display excellent graphics and great sound. Perhaps if gameplay were improved, this game would be a hit, but it wasn't. Overall, this game doesn't come across well.

????
Next... snore!

R.I.P.
Blah... Simply said, I was very unimpressed with this game. I have to wonder what the programmers who designed this game were thinking when they created Batman II. The animation is lack luster, the game control is poor, and whoever thought of making NES sprites this large must have been half asleep. The sprites flicker so much that there are times when your character is up to 50% missing from the screen when there are no enemies to be seen at all. The only saving grace here is great sound, and while paused the graphics look very sharp. I had hoped for much more.

Salamander
While Batman II, Return of the Joker was graphically stunning, overall I was very dissapointed with it. The sprites are definitely the largest I've ever seen on the Nintendo, and the graphics are leaps and bounds beyond other 8-bit titles; some levels even incorporate multi-speed scrolling. The soundtrack is excellent as well. However, the gameplay is horrendous. Not only lacking the fast-paced, punch-and-run, Ninja Gaiden feel of the first, Batman II, Return of the Joker lacks play control period! Even with rarely more than one enemy on-screen at a time, flicker and sprite dropping are a real annoyance as well. In addition, the game becomes particularly frustrating because when hit, your Batman character is paralyzed for several seconds, and continues to do whatever he was doing before he was hit; including slidding 30 feet across a patch of ice into a pit. Somehow, I just can't see the real caped crusader allowing himself to pathetically slide to his death. While I'd like to rate this game high because it graphically takes the NES to the limits, I have to rate it low because it just wasn't fun to play. Close guys, but no cigar...

>>>>> 50.5/100 <<<<<		Ferrari Man	????	R.I.P.	Salamander
Graphics		4.5	3.5	4.0	5.0
Sound		4.0	4.0	5.0	5.0
Gameplay/Control		2.0	0.5	1.0	1.0
Longevity/Playability		2.0	0.5	0.0	1.0
Overall		2.0	1.5	1.0	3.0
Total		14.5	10.0	11.0	15.0

Originally appeared Vol 1, Iss 2 (06-07/92)