Video Game / Batman (Sunsoft)

A series of Licensed Games published by Sunsoft, pitting Batman, the Caped Crusader of Gotham City, against his nemesis, The Joker.

Sunsoft developed six distinct games, listed here in order of release:

• Batman (Nintendo Entertainment System; 1989)
• Batman (Game Boy; 1990)
• Batman (Sega Genesis; 1990)
• Batman (PC Engine; 1990)
• Batman: Return of the Joker (Nintendo Entertainment System; 1991)
• Batman: Return of the Joker (Game Boy; 1992)

Of these six games, all but one were Platform Games; the Japan-exclusive PC Engine game turned into a Maze Game instead. The first four were all based on the contemporary Batman movie (which was independently adapted into a computer game by Ocean Software and an Arcade Game by Atari Games). All six games featured Batman's trademark Batarangs as either a primary or alternate weapon. (In Return of the Joker, Batman uncharacteristically carried a gun as his primary weapon.)

The NES version of Return of the Joker (whose graphics were advertised "as hot as 16-bit") was also ported to 16-bit consoles, with the title altered to Batman: Revenge of the Joker (presumably to avoid confusion with Batman Returns). Sunsoft outsourced both of these ports to American studios: the Sega Genesis version, released in 1992, was developed by Ringler Studios, and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System version, only a prototype of which was produced, was developed by ICOM Simulations.

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Tropes appearing in these games:

• Adaptational Alternate Ending: Batman directly kills the Joker in the end of the 1989 video game, throwing him off the tower.
• Adaptational Badass: Firebug goes from being a fairly minor villain with far less appearances than Firefly to the Joker's most powerful henchman.
• Adaptation Deviation: The opening of the first NES game states that Joker the "dark leader" of Gotham, plunging the city into a dark criminally fueled era of suffering, whereas in the movie as well as the source material, Joker is a formidable leader among the criminal underworld (even aptly nicknamed the "Clown Prince of Crime" in some Batman related media) and not the leader of the city.
• Auto-Scrolling Level: Batman: Return of the Joker for NES has auto-scrolling in Stages 1-2 (Roof Hopping while being bombarded by an airship), 4-1 (Traintop Battle) and 6-2 (tank battle). The Lift of Doom areas are also inescapable until the lift stops rising, either.
• Arm Cannon: In Return of the Joker, Batman uses an arm-mounted launcher as his main weapon.
• Batman Grabs a Gun: One of Batman's three available weapons is a pistol that fires rockets.
  • In Return of The Joker, Batman only uses guns.
• Batter Up!: The Game Boy version of Batman: Return of the Joker has a boss named Foul Ball who attacks by spinning a baseball bat around.
• Boring, but Practical: On the NES version, both the default fists and the Batarang. It is very easy to ignore the Batarang as a less effective weapon due to only using 1 ammo (out of 99) and low range, while the other weapons may seemingly appear to be Too Awesome to Use. However, all damage inflicted by Batman all do the same damage and same stun time to certain enemies. The Batarang hits multiple times, thus doing more continuous damage than the other 2 weapons per shot. The fists can also rapidly used.
  • The fists and the Batarang are most effective against the final 2 bosses. Using the Batarang against Firebug is the most effective way to beat him because of his very high health; you may run out of ammo with the other 2 weapons. The Joker is best fought close range due to his long gunshot that abnormally does 3 damage not hitting you up close.
• C-List Fodder: In the NES game the Joker is the only A-list member of Batman's Rogues Gallery to appear, with minor villains from the comics serving as other bosses and minions. Even then, they don't resemble their comic counterparts, such as K.G. Beast going from resembling a gimp to looking like a generic ninja and Killer Moth now wearing Power Armor.
• Character Portrait: Batman: Return of the Joker for the NES shows small character portraits of Batman and the boss in every boss stage.
• Clock Tower: Stage 5-1 of Batman for the NES takes place inside a clock tower with lots of spinning gears.
• Conspicuous Electric Obstacle:
  • Stage 2 in the original has electrified wires that emit electric bolts, acting as an obstacle.
  • Stage 2 in Return of the Joker features node pairs with electricity flowing in between them.
• Cores-and-Turrets Boss:
  • The second boss is a security system consisting of six turrets and two cores, one of them that is smaller and must be destroyed to gain access to larger core. The fourth boss consists of two cores on rails.
  • Fourth boss in Return Of The Joker consists of a core, aided by two turrets and drones.
• Crate Expectations: In Return of the Joker for the NES, you see your first crate as soon as you enter the first level. Crates in that game contain powerups.
• Deadly Droplets: Stage 2 on the original game features green acid droplets dripping down the ceilings.
• Defeat Equals Explosion: Enemies explode in flames when defeated.
• Down the Drain: Batman for the NES's Stages 3-1 and 3-2 (Underground Conduits I and II), part of Gotham City's Absurdly Spacious Sewer system.
• Dynamic Entry: Firebug in the original game appears at the top of the cathedral in an animation resembling a lightning strike. He then punches the shit out of you before beginning to hurl fireballs.
• Elevator Action Sequence: In Return of the Joker, there is an elevator section in 4-2 where Batman fights enemies on an elevator with conveyor belts.
• Falling Chandelier of Doom: In Batman for the Sega Genesis, the chandeliers in Flugelheim Museum serve as Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom.
• Flash of Pain: In the first game, the enemies flash orange for a brief period of time after getting damaged.
• Glass Cannon: Surprisingly, the Joker in the Genesis version. He can kill you in 2 to 4 hits, but has less hit points than the other bosses.
• Golden Super Mode: In Batman: Return of the Joker for the NES, Batman's Temporary Invincibility power causes his sprite to become golden and gain a a backpack that allows him to continually fire energy projectiles.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: Featured in Batman for the Sega Genesis and Return of the Joker for the Game Boy.
• Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: The first NES game is a shining example of this (with the exception of The Joker, who is incredibly frustrating).
  • Return of The Joker, too. The stages themselves will probably make you want to smash your controller, but every single one of the bosses has a simple and viable strategy to beat them.
• Hollywood Acid: The second stage has plenty of green acid that Batman must avoid.
• Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt:
  • Second stage of the first game features player-moving conveyor belts. They seem to be out of place and appearing over deadly stage hazards. Stage 4 also features small conveyor belts to a lesser extent.
  • In Revenge Of The Joker, conveyor belts appear in the fourth and seventh stage.
• Joker Immunity: From the Trope Namer himself; as in the film the game is based on, Batman throws the Joker out of the cathedral at the end of the first game. However, unlike in the film, the Joker survives the fall and becomes the Big Bad in Return of the Joker.
• The Lava Caves of New York: In Batman: Return of the Joker for the NES, part of stage 3-2 involves sailing across a lava pit on a small piece of land. This stage is supposed to be some underground mine in or near Gotham City.
• Level 1 Music Represents: The theme song to the Streets of Gotham (titled "Streets of Desolation") is by far the best known track in the first game, both because of its sheer coolness and the fact that the Nintendo Hard nature of the game means you'll be hearing it the most.
• Lift of Doom: Batman: Return of the Joker for the NES had this in Stage 4-2, unusually incorporating conveyor belts into the lift platforms.
• Lightning Can Do Anything/Power Glows : Right before a boss fight in Batman: Return of the Joker, Batman calls upon lightning to strike and empower him. He briefly glows gold as the lightning hits.
• Locomotive Level: In Return of the Joker, Stage 4-1 takes place on a freight train.
• Market-Based Title: The NES version of Return of the Joker was released in Japan as Dynamite Batman.
• Motion Parallax: The game's detailed, fluid animation is partly achieved by parallax scrolling layered in the background artwork.
• Nintendo Hard: Both of the games, but Return of the Joker is the tougher one.
• Orbiting Particle Shield: In Batman for the Game Boy, Batman can obtain up to four Batwings to circle around him and take out nearby enemies. He will lose them first if he takes hits.
• Post-Defeat Explosion Chain: Bosses tend to go down with a series of small explosions after being defeated.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: In the original NES game, The Joker is twice as tall as Batman and can summon lightning strikes. In the Sega Genesis version, instead of summoning a lightning strike, he instead launches a ball of lightning by slamming into the ground in the direction of the player, much like Terry Bogard's signature Power Geyser from Fatal Fury. His Magnum fires a large but slow bullet, though. In Return Of The Joker he is using a large machine.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: In the ending of Batman for the NES, Batman, just before directly throws Joker off the cathedral roof to his death, says to him:
  "I know you murdered my parents. Now you will dance with the devil in the pale moonlight!"
• Slow Laser: Ceiling turrets in the second boss of the original game and ceiling turrets in the seventh stage of Return Of The Joker fire slow-moving lasers.
• Spike Balls of Doom: The very first obstacles in Return Of The Joker are metal spikes on chain that try to slam the player. Free-floating spikeballs appear in the first flying stage and finally, metal spikes make a return in tank segment of the sixth stage.
• Stalactite Spite: In Return of the Joker, Rocks in Stage 3-2 and Spike balls in tank segment in the sixth stage wait for the player to approach before falling.
• Suddenly Blonde: In Batman for the NES, the cutscenes show a black-garbed Batman (as in the film), but the actual sprite during gameplay is a blue and purple Batman (largely for convenience's sake, since NES palettes usually reserved black as a background color).
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Averted. In the first NES game, Batman outright throws Joker off the cathedral to his death.
• Title: The Adaptation: The games based on the 1989 Batman movie were often packaged as Batman: The Video Game.
• Tornado Move: Third stage of Return of the Joker features enemies that attack the player using tornadoes.
• Turns Red: The final boss in Revenge of the Joker does this when his health drops below 180,000.
• Unavoidable Attack: The third boss in Revenge of the Joker has a bar at the top that slowly fills up with time, but decreases when the boss takes damage. If the bar fills completely, the weak point you're supposed to attack will drop a white ball on the floor that subsequently explodes, dealing massive damage to Batman regardless of where he is standing.
• Uncommon Time: In Return of the Joker, the Stage 2-1/5-1 theme is in 14/8 time signature.
• Unexpected Shmup Level:
  • The "Gotham City Street" stage in Batman for the Sega Genesis is nominally a Batmobile driving level, but it actually plays as a horizontal shooter. The later sky stage with the Batwing (also featured in the Game Boy version) is a more normally styled example, aside from the Monster Clown inflatables.
  • Batman: Return of the Joker for the NES also has two shooter stages (2-2 and 5-2) where Batman flies down horizontal tunnels in a Jet Pack.
  • Batman for Game Boy has two Batwing stages.
• Unexplained Recovery: The Joker survived his death at the NES Batman game, to become the Big Bad in Return of the Joker. Note that both Joker surviving AND Batman directly throwing the Joker out of the cathedral at the end of the first game violates movie canon.
  • The prototype version of Batman for NES has Batman refraining from murder (however justified it may be) and simply decks the Joker, leaving him alive for a sequel.
• Video Game Sliding: In Batman: Return of the Joker, Batman has a sliding move that's useful mostly for dodging projectiles. It's one of his quicker moves, but there's very little in the game that demands its use.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: In Return of the Joker, the penultimate boss of the game is The Joker commanding a small ship that fires deadly bubbles. When the machine is destroyed, he flies away with a jetpack, forcing Batman to chase him down into his lair in the final stage.
• Wall Jump: Featured in the first NES game and Return of the Joker for the Game Boy.

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