@@personavisceration371 Yeah I have a lot of nostalgia for this film because I was a kid when it came out but I think Tim Burton is a lot like Zack Snyder in that regard. You either get on board with the weird shit they do, or you're gonna have a bad time. Their styles are different but they both do have a very specific style
@@personavisceration371 they're more in tune to the comedic comic element of Batman like it was first made for. They all have their pros and cons, I like both styles but overall I like the comedic Burton take
I can't understand why the Sega CD never got any super scaler arcade port. Seeing Batman Returns car segments, I think it could do a very respectable port of Outrun, Thunderblade, maybe even Galaxy Force...
I asked myself the same thing, hell it applies even more for the saturn as that hardware could perfectly replicate super scalar at 60fps. I think it was a matter of sega not believing the home console market was the future: one of the engineers who designed the saturn stated that sega even late into 1994 considered the arcade their main business and the home console market more of a side industry.
In addition to the ever changing roadmap of 1994-96, I believe that this is the real reason why no one wanted to risk their hard earned money on new SEGA hardware after the expensive $300 addon. There was now no excuse for the company not to bring out limit pushers and perfect arcade ports. Instead, we saw and endless supply of s***y FMV games, lazy ports, and some of the worst that third parties could throw at us. IMHO, the criminally underused and Sega CD and the complete lack of advertising of its 3D prowess laid the foundation of ten years of utter failure by the arcade giant. I saved up all summer to buy this expensive behemoth only to get burned over and over and over again. That was the end of me.
I'm with you 100% on this one! I felt EXACTLY the same way about Batman Returns! I couldn't understand why it was so hard to capture the action and magic of the first Batman with superior hard and cd storage. The soundtrack and vehicle stages were the only redeeming qualities.
To me. Batman Returns on the SEGA CD was always one of those games that deserve a fan-remaster, fixing all of its technical problems & artistic decisions. It had the potential of being something memorable, especially w/the Batmobile levels' scaling & rotation fx. Perhaps a fan could take the time to fix it using GameMaker or similar software, so we can finally play & enjoy what could've been.
I think they should have just jettisoned the platforming part completely. That's time and money that could have been dedicated to acquiring the right music.
i guess Im asking randomly but does anyone know a trick to log back into an instagram account?? I was stupid forgot the account password. I would love any help you can give me!
@Kasen Ibrahim Thanks for your reply. I found the site through google and I'm in the hacking process now. Looks like it's gonna take a while so I will get back to you later with my results.
Power drift would still have needed to be drastically cut down, it used sprites for the roadway and the Sega Y-board (the ultimate development of their super scaler boards) had three 68000's and something like 1024 hardware sprites.
Hell, most of the PlayStation 1 games could've had a respectable demake for this arcade powerhouse. And in 1992, three full years before SONY had anything on the market and a four year lead on NINTENDO!
The physics in the Batmobile and Batskiboat sections deserve a bit more credit. All the collisions, explosions and jumps feel just right all the way through. It's so satisfying when perfectly knocking an enemy vehicle neatly into a building or tree while cornering. And also quite the spectacle when you're in the air from a jump and a bomb sends you flying even higher. I don't think anything matched how solid it all felt until Sega's Model 2 racing games. One of the few games that had me tilting the controller and leaning while playing despite it making no difference. Such a shame that the platforming is pretty much the opposite, with there being nothing natural to Batman's movement at all.
I always considered this to be two separate games with the option to combine them as one. The side scrolling levels were a chore to play. However the combat racing levels were absolutely incredible at the time. Graphically unmatched compared to other 16-bit console racers. The gameplay was tuned to perfection. I still have my copy and the cardboard box in excellent condition.
the Sega-CD's scaling and rotation was really nice, better than mode-7. Wish they made more games that used it. maybe we could have gotten better versions of Outrun? maybe even the later super scaler games?
I don't know how much money I've spent playing Sega's arcade superscalars; Outrun, Space Harrier, After Burner, Hang On, Enduro Racer, Super Monaco GP, Outrunners, Power Drift, Galaxy Force 2 etc...both in the arcade and numerous home ports. I would have definitely bough a Sega CD version.
Definitely. I always felt that by this point Sega had become a very Western oriented company, and they used the Mega CD as a way to try and shoehorn their way into and capitalise on the fledgling PC gaming scene, hence why we received so many sh*tty games on it instead of all the brilliant arcade Sega hits you mentioned, and more arcade classics like Final Fight.
@@markg5480 At the time they were fighting the PC-Engine in Japan who had introduced their CD-Rom attachment a year or 2 earlier and Nintendo was rumored to bring one out for their SNES/Super Famicom (that Sony deal that went bust and spawned the Playstation thereafter) That was the main reason for the Mega/Sega CDs existence. For some reason the western market gravitated towards these 'video' video games, instead of taking full advantage of the hardware. The divide in Sega between West and home market thinking definitely started during the 16 bit era.
@@lazarushernandez5827 The market gravitated towards that because of the rise of the PC as a gaming machine. This brought us early, grainy FMV games, and people were starry eyed and tongue tied when they saw video footage spliced with "gameplay" on a monitor. Sega of America had no idea where games were going and hopped onto this fad in the hope it would work out As we all know, it didn't. The Mega CD should have been filled with almost arcade perfect ports, as it was released pretty much smack ban in the middle of the SF2 explosion.
Go to the menu, select Driving Only, and prepare to enjoy a truly brilliant action driving game. The Batmobile and Batskiboat levels are absolute masterpieces. They are hard but hugely rewarding.
I will always remember this game. It truly showed off what the SCD could do! I remember having it hooked up one year for Christmas to show it off. We all had fun trying it but man it was tough ! Great games make you come back for more though. I never ever played to ho hum platform sections.lol
I still got my model 1 Sega CD and this game you got me wanting to break it out! Shame this could not get the same love The Terminator did when moved to the Sega CD.
@@SegaLordX Could you imagine a Tommy Tallarico soundtrack for this game? He did an awesome job with the Sega CD version of The Terminator and Earthworm Jim: Special Edition. On The Terminator for SCD, except for T1 theme, the rest of it was original music and he did an awesome job coming up with the original music for the game.
I was always hoping they would release a game that took advantage of the CD hardware -and- 32X when that came out. That’s why I bought it back then, waiting for the arcade masterpieces that never came. I also remember buying this game & experiencing everything Mel is saying here.
I’ve been a Batman fan my whole life! I was raised on the Adam West series in the 80’s and then (naturally) was a huge fan of the first two Tim Burton films! And that first BATMAN game on the Sega Genesis was epic!!! I can remember playing it countless nights and early mornings before school. The soundtrack was amazing too! I was also a fan of the NES version. That being said, I did get the sequel BATMAN RETURNS on the Genesis for Christmas the year it came out. And despite its difficulty I remember it fondly. At the time I didn’t know too much about video game companies using shitty difficulty tactics to hinder the rental market. It wasn’t anywhere as good as the prior games but I still appreciated it for what it was. Another game that people rake over the coals with similar scrutiny (but I actually liked) from my childhood was the NES movie tie-in PREDATOR. I guess the lesson here is that things were different for gamers in the 1980’s and early 90’s. Systems and titles were expensive, rare and highly sought after commodities. So when a kid got something like PREDATOR, BATMAN RETURNS or GHOSTBUSTERS 2 (another NES based Christmas present) we just played it despite their many, many, MANY faults! LOL! And in some cases, maybe even appreciated them after some time.
I loved the NES version, too. Sunsoft was on fire at the time. I never understood how they failed through the Genesis/SNES generation. 😕 I agree with EVERYTHING else you said also - things were different then.
@@CarlosXPhone Yeah', it was a different landscape back in the day in terms of the home console market. These days you almost never see movie tie-in's getting released! I'm sure it has something to do with their bad rep from years past. These days if a shitty game gets released they just patch it to hell and back or just drop the project and move on to the "next big thing." Things are drastically different now. Back in the day game developers worked on something until it was either done (the one's made with integrity anyways) or the funds / crunch time by the producers ran out. No patches, no remastering, no nothing! "Old school" shitty games just remained that way. Relics of their time. It's what makes retro gaming (true retro gaming!) so special to those of us who actually grew up during the heydays of these prolific systems. Video games (much like movies, books, music, etc.) can be "time capsules" of sorts to the era they came from. So to me even the "shitty games" kinda' serve their purpose. Naturally speaking I don't force myself to play a horrible game all the way through. But sometimes I just like to fire up titles like PREDATOR on the old NES to relive the memories of the late 80's! Those weird dark graphics, strange sprites and oddly haunting 8-Bit music send me back like no other! LOL!
Lord, please cover another childhood Sega CD favorite of mine - Stellar Fire!! That game scared the hell out of me but my dad would take care of the giant bosses for me.
Playing this as a kid introduced me to the movie which was pretty big at the time. Finished it a few times and I like how it had the same look and feel as the movie in its grittyness.
I’m super nostalgic about the Genesis version. Never made it past the icy sewers level though. The funny thing is I can’t tell you a reason why I like it besides nostalgia
For me, the Genesis version made me get so much better at trying to time jumps, kicks, punches and save all weapons until absolutely necessary. The game is such a challenge, and while definitely not fair, I appreciated the arduous task to a strange degree. Could have used a few more play testers nixing some of the stupid crap in Schrecks.
I'll never forget playing this game in college, firing up the Sprite scaling levels... with "battle" playing, fighting a boss while hitting a big hill and catching air... There was nothing else like this. :) Great review SLX keep it coming!
Some platform part gimmicks: ．Batman can easily PUNCH-down/KICK-down bullet & knife projectile. ．Minimize hard-to-avoided enemy's attack by "Touching" them. →(1/4Bar by Human ; 2/4 by Catwoman ; 3/4 by Boss & Gargoyle)
Absolutely love this game (driving sections only) and it's a game I still play to this day. Also, the soundtrack is utterly brilliant and it never leaves my audio playlist. I wrote to Spencer Nielsen years ago praising the soundtrack and he replied back thanking me for the kind words.
I remember seeing this game on display at a shopping mall kiosk many many years ago, and it was really impressive to see (the driving segments were on display on the television there, with a Mega Drive plus Sega CD combo to try it out. That same day I actually got Shining Force 2. Those were the days. The Sega CD should really have exploited the fact it could do more and better than its rivals with the combined hardware, but sadly that was rarely the case, and developers would just fill shelves with whatever they could in hopes it would sell during whatever holiday was coming up next.
I think they should have gave us some more of the first batman game with better graphics and enhanced game play and a dash of the automobile section on Sega cd. We Sega fans don't ask for much just wanted a decent batman returns game. Great review SLX!
This has quickly become one of my favorite channels and I've been binging it like crazy lately while working on my projects, and during meal breaks. On topic: this game is... not good. But the soundtrack is excellent and I've listened to it a lot over the years. You know what, I'll listen to it right now.
The soundtrack and driving sequences really were a thing of beauty to listen to and behold at the time...they still are considering the platform. When I think of this title, those are the 2 things that always come to mind. The side scrolling portion of the game is so unremarkable that I almost have to remind myself it's part of the game when I think back on it. If the side scrolling only resembled the SNES game more closely, mixed with the driving and soundtrack, then this would be one for the ages!
Yup, Genesis version, too. Super NES was clunky, but the tradeoff is the clear graphics. Flip the coin, Genesis had responsive control, kinda like Mortal Kombat where graphics were poor, but controls were better.
I used to love the continue screen with the Penguin saying "you don't think you can win, do you?" It really gave the whole driving game a very arcade machine like experience. Between this game and Soul Star (and Eternal Champs CftDS) I was glad to own the CDX and stuck with it. Batman Returns Genesis cartridge is not the best by any stretch, but i have found it to be quite suitable for reflex and memory testing as I've gotten older. A few Game Genie codes (unlimited homing attack) and you can get somewhere with it. Still, Sunsoft did a much better job with the previous Burton based Batman game.
I just started playing this and the driving sections are awesome. It is super fun. Playing it with emulation allows save states, so some of the frustration is reduced, but it is still very difficult.
I love the driving levels as well as the platforming levels. And the music on this version puts this game in my top ten list of favorite games ever. I like exploring the levels to get the best gadgets to deal with the enemies. And the enemies aren't that bad because their patterns never change even after 100 playthroughs. As long as you have the right gadget you can take enemies out pretty easily; for example the unicycle clowns in the collapsing building with angled floors in level 2, you have to duck and throw a batarang if they are driving upwards towards you, and you have to stand and throw a batarang if they are driving downwards towards you. And you can melee most of the jumping enemies pretty easily once you master ducking and kicking, or time your batarangs right. It really made me feel in control of how I choose to balance my melee vs. weapon attacks, which is exactly how I feel Batman would consider his options around every corner. All this really made exploring the levels worth stocking up on every gadget you can find. But those batskiboat levels feel like an actual never ending hell, as much as I love attempting it. I thought the driving levels were complete insanity at times, but they have nothing on the batskiboat levels. If the difficulty was dialed back just a little bit, and there were better hit boxes, this game could have been one of the best Batman games ever.
I have Batman Returns for the Mega Drive and for the Mega CD. Needless to say once I got the Mega CD port I never went back to the Mega Drive version! As a kid I actually enjoyed Batman Returns on Mega Drive and made a lot of allowances for it, well when you're a kid and only have access to a handful of games you do tend to overlook certain game's flaws.
I think some big issues with consoles in the 90's are that computer technology was advancing so fast, we were seeing computers double and triple in speed every year, consoles life spans were so short, and all had custom hardware, so it was extremely difficult to find people who knew the ins and outs of any one individual consoles ability, so it was very rare, if it ever actually happened, to get games that showed off a systems potential... having consoles move to powerPC and x86 really allowed developers to push hardware before the consoles end of life... i think this batman game is an example of people having a good idea, but not the time to really develop it.
I’ll never forget the first time I experienced the soundtrack on this game with a set of headphones on!! Mind blowing and became one of my favorite game soundtracks of all time! The vehicle combat sequences also blew me away played for days on end! Tough as Nails! Nope can’t play this anywhere anymore unless you have a functional Sega CD system hooked up but if not this is when & why emulation is so important or you’ll miss a gem like this one!! Thank goodness I can play it on my modded Genesis Mini today lol!
@@ninjacape Really not so sure about that tho. SegaCD is mostly smoke and mirrors; a few technical/visual breakthroughs here and there, but save for Lunar, nothing I would sink more than one hour into. N64 has plenty.
@@FrancoisRoy I’d rather play Snatcher, Lords of Thunder, Android assault, Flink, Shining Force, Popful Mail, Dark Wizard, Earthworm Jim(best version), Spider-Man, Sonic CD and so many more than most N64 games.
What I think would be totally awesome is to ditch the genesis side scroll & replace it with that Konami snes beat em up he briefly mentioned. Imagine that game combined with the car game! Perfect Batman returns!
God I love the driving game. Along with Core Design's 'Thunderhawk' It made me feel smug to own my MEGA CD here in the UK back then. It was good to see developers finally pushing graphics with it instead of FMV. And it almost justified the console purchase. Almost! Please could you do a feature on Thunderhawk CD (AH-3 Thunderstrike in the US) in the future?
Batman games have always been of higher quality on average than most other super hero games. Only other character who's games were just as good if not better was Spider-man
Bro I really like your content. I watched this one high as a kite and I realized you’re so ridiculous in your videos lmao. It’s so funny to me hearing your gripes be described so well. This video had me dying!
I'll never understand why so many games late in the life of the Sega Genesis insisted on having a color palette consisting of dithered green and purple coupled with a soundtrack composed with Tupperware.
I own this game and it's impressive, driving only of course. Explosions and rockets sound great, good music adds to the feel, but the difficulty is really hard. I had a lot of fun with Core Design games Thunder Hawk and Soul Star. Technically impressive, great games!
those driving stages and cinematics set this apart as a true cd game and i was always so jelly about this and it was something the snes would never be able to pull off, heck, even true 32 bit consoles couldn't easily do those stages, one of the best looking sega cd games, well done, well made and well looking, a winner in every way.
@@PKGangsta18 There were at least 13-14 games (out of 200+ titles) that used the ASIC-DSP or at least software scaling to create amazing 3D games. Other than Sonic CD's bonus stages, 99% of the general public would never see any of those amazing visual effects. The result was that kids like us would get mocked and ridiculed for getting scammed.
@MaxAbramson3 I surprisingly never got mocked. Even when I got a 32X. My friends flocked to my house to play the best home port of Mortal Kombat 1 (Sega CD. Load time aside) and a while later, Virtua Fighter (on 32X since no had a Saturn yet. Not for another year and a half or so). I knew the consoles were failures. But I got them both for their exclusive Sonic titles. Sonic CD and Knuckles Chaotix. I also got them a short time after their respected launches, so I ended up not paying full price for them at Funcoland. The Sega CD model 2 was only 100 bucks, and the 32X was 40 bucks when we got them :)
@@PKGangsta18 Yeah, I. Had the whole tower of power. Yet there were so few really good games that took advantage of that extra hardware, and that I think is what finally killed SEGA.
I do enjoy this Sega CD game, and seeing (and hearing!) the driving game live at the store in '93 is what prompted me to buy the Model-1 Sega CD hardware. I don't mind the challenge because it is beatable with practice, and besides there is a level-skip code. I don't think the platforming game is awful at all, but you do have to get used to how to play it 'correctly' to win - mostly picking up every weapon and using those with certain enemies and bosses. Its a fun platforming challenge to me.
The color choice was certainly because they were trying to capture the dark feeling of the Tim Burton film. The Genesis alway had issues due to the limited color pallet. Still. No excuse for the stilted game play and hitboxes. Then again, this was typical of movie licensed games around this period, with only a few exceptions. As you said, there was also the "rental difficulty." Shame.
The original Batman on the Genesis managed to captured the look of the film without looking dreadful. There really is no excuse for the artistic choices here.
The colours and graininess may have been due to a very misguided idea on how to make the game look like the comics, which often used purple instead of black, and screentone. The saddest part is that it looks like a lot of effort was put into the visual style as well, because the dithering is everywhere, consistently. I can't think of anything else sprite-based that looks like this.
@@Banderpop non-pixel comic style and digital Sprite games on the genesis/sega cd looked horrible and grainy. Due to lack of colors and palette of the genesis. Developers were unable to use correct color choices or used 3/4 less colors to render graphics which turned bad. Similar issue with sound effects and music as well. Using 3/4 or less performance of the system.
If I remember correctly, they hid that it included the same side scrolling content from the cartridge. Back then I thought it was just a driving game. Never owned Batman Returns CD. I picked up a sega CD used many years but never came across this game.
I've never beat the complete game, driving and side scrolling levels, ever. I would love to try again someday soon, just to see how patient I am and how far I can get.
Sega CD have gotten a lot harder to find now a days. I had a retro game store I use to go to all the time and even back then 5 years ago it was rare to see a Sega CD game there.
Yeah, it's unfortunate that not enough developers fully utilized the Sega CD hardware. Core design did a great job at taking advantage of it. I wish more homebrew developers would takle the SegaCD.
Konami could afford the rights to the Danny Elfman theme, there's no reason Sega shouldn't have done the same. You also saw this on the "Adventures of Batman and Robin", the SNES game got the proper soundtrack, while the Genesis got some weird house/trance stuff that did not fit the source material at all. Saw this yet again on that Driving game based on Batman: The Animated Series. Acquiring the source material music when releasing a game based on a licensed property is very important.
Bro, acquiring licenses to works is not cheap. Sonic 3 only does it because Michael Jackson wanted to do music for Sonic. Thus is why it was released in the state it was in.
@@SomeOrangeCat Right, but that's without using any work. Its just a franchise license, but a license with music, likeness, or other labor work like voice-overs - THOSE cost more. For example Modern Warfare Remastered released WITHOUT the old voice-overs. Let me ask you: Why do you think that is?
Glad I haven't played the Genesis version. Thanks for mentioning about it, Sega Lord X. I guess it's a game you don't like and everybody else likes. I don't know if you take requests but have you played Magical Pop'n on Super Famicom? I think it make a good review. Thought about reviewing it on my channel some day.
SLX - would love to see you do a review of Wonder Dog. This was one of my first Sega CD games and I feel like it is a pretty good game that gets overlooked. I wouldn't quite call it a hidden gem but it was decent fun. It was exclusive to the CD as well... No tarted up port of a cart game here.
Big fan of wonder dog and I agree. Game was a great start in the early days of the Sega CD. The sound track was just amazing especially the city level. Game also has a ton of secrets to find plus a few different routes to take in two levels. Side fact here but wonder dog came in two different color boxes the 1st was the green box and later the red box. The green box is a bit more rare.
@@buckroger6456 I have the red box but I had seen the green box one and thought my memory was playing tricks on me! Also the city soundtrack is up there with my favorite most memorable video game tracks of all time! So cool to hear even one other person who thought this was a good game .... It never shows up on any best-of lists or really gets mentioned at all but it was definitely one of the best Sega CD exclusives.
@@bca5251 I had a pretty sweet speaker setup as a kid and use to play the heck out of wonder dog and could never get enough of the city sound track music. When I got older and had my own cash I bought a surround sound system and was surprised by just how much bass that tune has. I really don't know why people over look that game some much. Just seems like most people either hate on the Sega CD and talk about the fmv games or they end up going for the most niche games while forgetting about some of its more regular games. Wonder Dog is one of the games that still gets me to fire up the Sega CD. Sure the controls aren't as good as I remember but the music, art, levels and sound effects still are. What's a trip is I always remembered the red box version of wonder dog and thought that was the only one. I ended up checking my box and found that the only red box I had was for road avenger and wonder dog was green. For me the 16bit days of gaming have always been my favorite. Heck the whole 90s in general for me is the golden age of gaming.
I do love 80s and 90s games. I love a lot of the Sega CD stuff too. I was super hyped when it came out and while it didn't get a ton of great exclusives it had enough that I liked to make it worth my while. Unfortunately my gen 1 SCD is long gone and my current gen 2 seems to be dying so I don't use it much.
@@bca5251 I was all in when I got a Sega CD the 1st year it came out on Christmas. Believe it or not but the Sega CD is easy to fix. The capacitors are the most common thing to go out on them over time along with the laser lens burning out.
Great video as always buddy. Your review summed it up for me as I hated this game as a kid. The driving section was decent but the platform game was a real stinker for me.
It's quite telling that you could choose to play the racing levels only. I tried the platform levels once and stuck to racing only after that. Loved Batman Returns CD.
Going to have to disagree with you about the genesis music for the game, I thought the music was pretty good. Also, for the driving portion, looks like they had someone that worked on the SNES game work on the driving sections for the Sega CD game. It plays just like the Batmobile level on Batman Returns SNES except no mode 7.
I looked up a couple of reviews from UK mags for the cartridge game. They weren't so hot on it. "Just about the least interesting job of a licence anyone could ever have made. Frustrating and hugely dull." (40%, MEGA, Dec 1992) "A gothic, visual treat with a distinctive graphic style that suffers at the hands of frustrating gameplay!" (77%, Mean Machines SEGA, Dec 1992) "A so-so platform game which does a fair job of capturing the atmosphere of the movie." (76%, MegaTech, Dec 1992) A score in the 70's was actually pretty bad for these mags.
I guess this game sums up my feeling for the Mega CD(I'm in Europe) I never owned the cartridge version of this game, but having something to akin a superscalar with CD audio in my own bedroom was jaw dropping, but the sheer difficulty made me put it away in frustration. So on one hand I knew the Mega CD could put the SNES to shame on every level, but for some reason Sega choose not to in the 'western' part of the world. And this fueled my disappointment I guess. Although I always stayed a Sega fan-boy, I also had the feeling they weren't doing all that they could or promised.
Yeah, I rented Returns for SNES after the reviews for it were very positive. Just a beat 'em up, but it was so, so 90's Konami slick. Another thing, and I'll say it again, Galaxy Force II could've worked on the Sega CD. Someone should try that now!
It's a shame that Sega left the pins on the VDP for a second 64K bank of VRAM unconnected. If they had been brought out to the expansion port then the Sega CD hardware the the VDP could have had a shared bank of 64K which would have allowed much faster framerates on scaling and rotation effects. ther main bottleneck with scaling and rotation was that there wasn't a direct way to get tiles from the scaling and rotation hardware in the Sega CD to the VDP's video ram. They had to be presented in cartridge ROM memory space and transferred from there to the VDP's VRAM by the Genesis's 68000. As well the VDP has pins for external color pallet memory that were also left unconnected to anything. If that had been connected to the expansion port the Sega CD could have increased the number of color pallets from 4 to 16. You still would have been stuck with 512 colors but more could have been used onscreen at once.
The only thing I wished it would have done is when your Batmobile got down to one or two bars, it would have split off and become the Batmissile. That's it
I've always felt Sega's biggest issue was that post-Genesis, it felt as though Sega thought they needed to innovate with hardware rather than focus of software/games. And they were releasing consoles and add-ons so frequently, and moving on so fast from one to next that developers never got adequate time to familaize themselves and learn through experience before Sega was pushing the next piece of hardware. For consoles with healthy life-cycles the best games always come toward the end of the generation because developers have master programming for it, and rather than spend time figuring things out, so to say, they can implement everything they've learned and make better games. They gimped themselves by making their own hardware obsolete before it coukd reach its potential. More could and should have been done with The Sega CD.
The driving levels were extremely impressive for the time. Probably the best Batman game involving vehicles until the Arkham series decades later. The sidescrolling/platforming levels frankly sucked though. Too bad you can't mix the SNES sidescrolling beat-em-up with the Sega CD driving levels, now THAT would've been amazing. At least the Sega CD version gave you new/decent music for the platform levels.
Hot damn.. the amount of content pumped out by this channel is incredible
Yea it’s pretty ridiculous
I agree.
Arkham knight of 90s 😅
Definitely my favourite pre-Nolan Batman film. Dark, cynical with a healthy dollop Of Michelle Pfeiffer to top it off
Why? It feels like it was written by an inept studio goon that hadn't read the source material, seen the previous film, or spoke to humans in general.
@@personavisceration371 Yeah I have a lot of nostalgia for this film because I was a kid when it came out but I think Tim Burton is a lot like Zack Snyder in that regard. You either get on board with the weird shit they do, or you're gonna have a bad time. Their styles are different but they both do have a very specific style
@@personavisceration371 Returns was written by the writer of Heathers.
Returns was the best Batman movie. Good god that Batmobile was bad ass.
@@personavisceration371 they're more in tune to the comedic comic element of Batman like it was first made for. They all have their pros and cons, I like both styles but overall I like the comedic Burton take
I can't understand why the Sega CD never got any super scaler arcade port. Seeing Batman Returns car segments, I think it could do a very respectable port of Outrun, Thunderblade, maybe even Galaxy Force...
I asked myself the same thing, hell it applies even more for the saturn as that hardware could perfectly replicate super scalar at 60fps. I think it was a matter of sega not believing the home console market was the future: one of the engineers who designed the saturn stated that sega even late into 1994 considered the arcade their main business and the home console market more of a side industry.
Would have loved a better version of Galaxy Force or Outrun.
Its so unbelievably frustrating in hindsight! I wish more sprite scaling ports had been attempted on the system so badly!
In addition to the ever changing roadmap of 1994-96, I believe that this is the real reason why no one wanted to risk their hard earned money on new SEGA hardware after the expensive $300 addon. There was now no excuse for the company not to bring out limit pushers and perfect arcade ports. Instead, we saw and endless supply of s***y FMV games, lazy ports, and some of the worst that third parties could throw at us.
IMHO, the criminally underused and Sega CD and the complete lack of advertising of its 3D prowess laid the foundation of ten years of utter failure by the arcade giant. I saved up all summer to buy this expensive behemoth only to get burned over and over and over again. That was the end of me.
@@MaxAbramson3 I was hoping the Dreamcast would bring them back to life. Too bad.
That soundtrack man, it's one of my all time favorites.
I'm with you 100% on this one! I felt EXACTLY the same way about Batman Returns! I couldn't understand why it was so hard to capture the action and magic of the first Batman with superior hard and cd storage. The soundtrack and vehicle stages were the only redeeming qualities.
To me. Batman Returns on the SEGA CD was always one of those games that deserve a fan-remaster, fixing all of its technical problems & artistic decisions. It had the potential of being something memorable, especially w/the Batmobile levels' scaling & rotation fx. Perhaps a fan could take the time to fix it using GameMaker or similar software, so we can finally play & enjoy what could've been.
Maybe you could take a crack at it 🐢
@@greenkoopa - Believe me, if I had the tech & time I once had, I probably would.
Has any time freed up? 😬
@@chuco915C - Unfortunately not. :(
@@Guernicaman no rush brotha haha
It always felt like Batman Returns could've been a classic with some level design and color palette tweaks. So close yet so far.
You’re right. A few tweaks and this really coulda been good. I’d love to see someone hack it.
So close yet so far. Pretty much sums up the Mega CD/Sega CD.
I think they should have just jettisoned the platforming part completely. That's time and money that could have been dedicated to acquiring the right music.
Just a wee bit more color and a slight bump in resolution, it would have been extra jaw-dropping. (the scaling engine).
Well at least the SNES version is considered a classic for a good reason. I strongly recommend you to try to play it with an emulator.
I friggin love this channel. Keep it up man and long live SEGA!!
i guess Im asking randomly but does anyone know a trick to log back into an instagram account??
I was stupid forgot the account password. I would love any help you can give me!
@Miles Ty Instablaster =)
@Kasen Ibrahim Thanks for your reply. I found the site through google and I'm in the hacking process now.
Looks like it's gonna take a while so I will get back to you later with my results.
@Kasen Ibrahim it worked and I now got access to my account again. Im so happy!
Thank you so much, you really help me out!
@Miles Ty No problem :)
After playing this game in 1993 I always hoped Sega would release outrun and power drift. This game proved it was completely possible.
Power drift would still have needed to be drastically cut down, it used sprites for the roadway and the Sega Y-board
(the ultimate development of their super scaler boards) had three 68000's and something like 1024 hardware sprites.
Hell, most of the PlayStation 1 games could've had a respectable demake for this arcade powerhouse. And in 1992, three full years before SONY had anything on the market and a four year lead on NINTENDO!
Still looks pretty awesome all these years later.
The physics in the Batmobile and Batskiboat sections deserve a bit more credit. All the collisions, explosions and jumps feel just right all the way through. It's so satisfying when perfectly knocking an enemy vehicle neatly into a building or tree while cornering. And also quite the spectacle when you're in the air from a jump and a bomb sends you flying even higher. I don't think anything matched how solid it all felt until Sega's Model 2 racing games. One of the few games that had me tilting the controller and leaning while playing despite it making no difference.
Such a shame that the platforming is pretty much the opposite, with there being nothing natural to Batman's movement at all.
I always considered this to be two separate games with the option to combine them as one. The side scrolling levels were a chore to play. However the combat racing levels were absolutely incredible at the time. Graphically unmatched compared to other 16-bit console racers. The gameplay was tuned to perfection. I still have my copy and the cardboard box in excellent condition.
the Sega-CD's scaling and rotation was really nice, better than mode-7. Wish they made more games that used it. maybe we could have gotten better versions of Outrun? maybe even the later super scaler games?
I don't know how much money I've spent playing Sega's arcade superscalars; Outrun, Space Harrier, After Burner, Hang On, Enduro Racer, Super Monaco GP, Outrunners, Power Drift, Galaxy Force 2 etc...both in the arcade and numerous home ports.
I would have definitely bough a Sega CD version.
@@lazarushernandez5827 dunno if its just us, but I def prefer the look of super scaler games to early polygon ones of the 32 bit era
Definitely. I always felt that by this point Sega had become a very Western oriented company, and they used the Mega CD as a way to try and shoehorn their way into and capitalise on the fledgling PC gaming scene, hence why we received so many sh*tty games on it instead of all the brilliant arcade Sega hits you mentioned, and more arcade classics like Final Fight.
@@markg5480 At the time they were fighting the PC-Engine in Japan who had introduced their CD-Rom attachment a year or 2 earlier and Nintendo was rumored to bring one out for their SNES/Super Famicom (that Sony deal that went bust and spawned the Playstation thereafter) That was the main reason for the Mega/Sega CDs existence.
For some reason the western market gravitated towards these 'video' video games, instead of taking full advantage of the hardware.
The divide in Sega between West and home market thinking definitely started during the 16 bit era.
@@lazarushernandez5827 The market gravitated towards that because of the rise of the PC as a gaming machine. This brought us early, grainy FMV games, and people were starry eyed and tongue tied when they saw video footage spliced with "gameplay" on a monitor.
Sega of America had no idea where games were going and hopped onto this fad in the hope it would work out As we all know, it didn't.
The Mega CD should have been filled with almost arcade perfect ports, as it was released pretty much smack ban in the middle of the SF2 explosion.
Go to the menu, select Driving Only, and prepare to enjoy a truly brilliant action driving game.
The Batmobile and Batskiboat levels are absolute masterpieces. They are hard but hugely rewarding.
Exactly what I did with this game. My favorite driving of all time.
Batski boat vs saw blades! You don't think you can win, do you?
I will always remember this game. It truly showed off what the SCD could do! I remember having it hooked up one year for Christmas to show it off. We all had fun trying it but man it was tough ! Great games make you come back for more though. I never ever played to ho hum platform sections.lol
I still got my model 1 Sega CD and this game you got me wanting to break it out! Shame this could not get the same love The Terminator did when moved to the Sega CD.
Sega shoulda got Virgin Games to do it for em.
@@SegaLordX I totally agree. It would have had a chance to be great.
I've got a model 2 genesis + CD unit. I totally want this game for it. Eternal Champions also.
@@SegaLordX Could you imagine a Tommy Tallarico soundtrack for this game? He did an awesome job with the Sega CD version of The Terminator and Earthworm Jim: Special Edition. On The Terminator for SCD, except for T1 theme, the rest of it was original music and he did an awesome job coming up with the original music for the game.
I was always hoping they would release a game that took advantage of the CD hardware -and- 32X when that came out. That’s why I bought it back then, waiting for the arcade masterpieces that never came. I also remember buying this game & experiencing everything Mel is saying here.
That was part of the promise we where given with the 32X but sadly never really got.
I used to drive my car listen to this and the Eternal Champions soundtracks
Sega touring car for me still today. Late for work?.pump up channel x or Anne Sinclair and drive like a madman!
oh man i remember the Sega CD commercials loved to show up the driving sections of this game, it does look great!
I’ve been a Batman fan my whole life! I was raised on the Adam West series in the 80’s and then (naturally) was a huge fan of the first two Tim Burton films!
And that first BATMAN game on the Sega Genesis was epic!!! I can remember playing it countless nights and early mornings before school. The soundtrack was amazing too! I was also a fan of the NES version.
That being said, I did get the sequel BATMAN RETURNS on the Genesis for Christmas the year it came out. And despite its difficulty I remember it fondly. At the time I didn’t know too much about video game companies using shitty difficulty tactics to hinder the rental market.
It wasn’t anywhere as good as the prior games but I still appreciated it for what it was. Another game that people rake over the coals with similar scrutiny (but I actually liked) from my childhood was the NES movie tie-in PREDATOR.
I guess the lesson here is that things were different for gamers in the 1980’s and early 90’s. Systems and titles were expensive, rare and highly sought after commodities. So when a kid got something like PREDATOR, BATMAN RETURNS or GHOSTBUSTERS 2 (another NES based Christmas present) we just played it despite their many, many, MANY faults! LOL! And in some cases, maybe even appreciated them after some time.
I loved the NES version, too. Sunsoft was on fire at the time. I never understood how they failed through the Genesis/SNES generation. 😕 I agree with EVERYTHING else you said also - things were different then.
@@CarlosXPhone Yeah', it was a different landscape back in the day in terms of the home console market. These days you almost never see movie tie-in's getting released! I'm sure it has something to do with their bad rep from years past.
These days if a shitty game gets released they just patch it to hell and back or just drop the project and move on to the "next big thing." Things are drastically different now.
Back in the day game developers worked on something until it was either done (the one's made with integrity anyways) or the funds / crunch time by the producers ran out. No patches, no remastering, no nothing! "Old school" shitty games just remained that way. Relics of their time.
It's what makes retro gaming (true retro gaming!) so special to those of us who actually grew up during the heydays of these prolific systems. Video games (much like movies, books, music, etc.) can be "time capsules" of sorts to the era they came from.
So to me even the "shitty games" kinda' serve their purpose. Naturally speaking I don't force myself to play a horrible game all the way through. But sometimes I just like to fire up titles like PREDATOR on the old NES to relive the memories of the late 80's! Those weird dark graphics, strange sprites and oddly haunting 8-Bit music send me back like no other! LOL!
Lord, please cover another childhood Sega CD favorite of mine - Stellar Fire!! That game scared the hell out of me but my dad would take care of the giant bosses for me.
I absolutely love this game, warts and all. Spencer Nielson's soundtrack is the essence of early 90s Sega CD for me. So much nostalgia.
Playing this as a kid introduced me to the movie which was pretty big at the time. Finished it a few times and I like how it had the same look and feel as the movie in its grittyness.
I’m super nostalgic about the Genesis version. Never made it past the icy sewers level though. The funny thing is I can’t tell you a reason why I like it besides nostalgia
For me, the Genesis version made me get so much better at trying to time jumps, kicks, punches and save all weapons until absolutely necessary. The game is such a challenge, and while definitely not fair, I appreciated the arduous task to a strange degree. Could have used a few more play testers nixing some of the stupid crap in Schrecks.
I'll never forget playing this game in college, firing up the Sprite scaling levels... with "battle" playing, fighting a boss while hitting a big hill and catching air...
There was nothing else like this. :)
Great review SLX keep it coming!
Dude your content always makes my day, even if it is about stuff I've never owned.
Some platform part gimmicks:
．Batman can easily PUNCH-down/KICK-down bullet & knife projectile.
．Minimize hard-to-avoided enemy's attack by "Touching" them. →(1/4Bar by Human ; 2/4 by Catwoman ; 3/4 by Boss & Gargoyle)
Absolutely love this game (driving sections only) and it's a game I still play to this day. Also, the soundtrack is utterly brilliant and it never leaves my audio playlist. I wrote to Spencer Nielsen years ago praising the soundtrack and he replied back thanking me for the kind words.
I remember seeing this game on display at a shopping mall kiosk many many years ago, and it was really impressive to see (the driving segments were on display on the television there, with a Mega Drive plus Sega CD combo to try it out. That same day I actually got Shining Force 2. Those were the days.
The Sega CD should really have exploited the fact it could do more and better than its rivals with the combined hardware, but sadly that was rarely the case, and developers would just fill shelves with whatever they could in hopes it would sell during whatever holiday was coming up next.
I think they should have gave us some more of the first batman game with better graphics and enhanced game play and a dash of the automobile section on Sega cd. We Sega fans don't ask for much just wanted a decent batman returns game. Great review SLX!
This has quickly become one of my favorite channels and I've been binging it like crazy lately while working on my projects, and during meal breaks.
On topic: this game is... not good. But the soundtrack is excellent and I've listened to it a lot over the years. You know what, I'll listen to it right now.
The soundtrack and driving sequences really were a thing of beauty to listen to and behold at the time...they still are considering the platform. When I think of this title, those are the 2 things that always come to mind. The side scrolling portion of the game is so unremarkable that I almost have to remind myself it's part of the game when I think back on it. If the side scrolling only resembled the SNES game more closely, mixed with the driving and soundtrack, then this would be one for the ages!
Man the music is outstanding in this one...also wasn't there a similar looking Batman & Robin game on the sega-cd too?
Yup, Genesis version, too. Super NES was clunky, but the tradeoff is the clear graphics. Flip the coin, Genesis had responsive control, kinda like Mortal Kombat where graphics were poor, but controls were better.
Yup, that sums it up! Thank goodness for the ability to play just the vehicle levels. 👍🎮
I used to love the continue screen with the Penguin saying "you don't think you can win, do you?" It really gave the whole driving game a very arcade machine like experience. Between this game and Soul Star (and Eternal Champs CftDS) I was glad to own the CDX and stuck with it. Batman Returns Genesis cartridge is not the best by any stretch, but i have found it to be quite suitable for reflex and memory testing as I've gotten older. A few Game Genie codes (unlimited homing attack) and you can get somewhere with it. Still, Sunsoft did a much better job with the previous Burton based Batman game.
I just started playing this and the driving sections are awesome. It is super fun. Playing it with emulation allows save states, so some of the frustration is reduced, but it is still very difficult.
I love the driving levels as well as the platforming levels. And the music on this version puts this game in my top ten list of favorite games ever. I like exploring the levels to get the best gadgets to deal with the enemies. And the enemies aren't that bad because their patterns never change even after 100 playthroughs. As long as you have the right gadget you can take enemies out pretty easily; for example the unicycle clowns in the collapsing building with angled floors in level 2, you have to duck and throw a batarang if they are driving upwards towards you, and you have to stand and throw a batarang if they are driving downwards towards you. And you can melee most of the jumping enemies pretty easily once you master ducking and kicking, or time your batarangs right. It really made me feel in control of how I choose to balance my melee vs. weapon attacks, which is exactly how I feel Batman would consider his options around every corner. All this really made exploring the levels worth stocking up on every gadget you can find. But those batskiboat levels feel like an actual never ending hell, as much as I love attempting it. I thought the driving levels were complete insanity at times, but they have nothing on the batskiboat levels. If the difficulty was dialed back just a little bit, and there were better hit boxes, this game could have been one of the best Batman games ever.
I have Batman Returns for the Mega Drive and for the Mega CD. Needless to say once I got the Mega CD port I never went back to the Mega Drive version! As a kid I actually enjoyed Batman Returns on Mega Drive and made a lot of allowances for it, well when you're a kid and only have access to a handful of games you do tend to overlook certain game's flaws.
I think some big issues with consoles in the 90's are that computer technology was advancing so fast, we were seeing computers double and triple in speed every year, consoles life spans were so short, and all had custom hardware, so it was extremely difficult to find people who knew the ins and outs of any one individual consoles ability, so it was very rare, if it ever actually happened, to get games that showed off a systems potential... having consoles move to powerPC and x86 really allowed developers to push hardware before the consoles end of life... i think this batman game is an example of people having a good idea, but not the time to really develop it.
I played this all night last night. It rocks. Underrated for the time.
The Master System/Game Gear version of Batman Returns was the best one out of all the Sega versions.
It's telling that magazines at the time hyperfocused on the driving segments. For ages I had no idea this game even had a platforming section. XD
I’ll never forget the first time I experienced the soundtrack on this game with a set of headphones on!! Mind blowing and became one of my favorite game soundtracks of all time! The vehicle combat sequences also blew me away played for days on end! Tough as Nails! Nope can’t play this anywhere anymore unless you have a functional Sega CD system hooked up but if not this is when & why emulation is so important or you’ll miss a gem like this one!! Thank goodness I can play it on my modded Genesis Mini today lol!
Lol I love my Sega mini for being able to emulate Snes, Nes, Dreamcast, Saturn and free games and save states.
Good reviews were due to Batman fever. It was rampant back then.
The Lunar series alone made the Sega CD worth owning IMO.
They were some great games.
Agreed. This is THE game(s) SNES RPG player me was jealous of back in the days.
SNESDrunk and a few of us were discussing how the Sega CD has more must play games than the Nintendo 64.
@@ninjacape Really not so sure about that tho. SegaCD is mostly smoke and mirrors; a few technical/visual breakthroughs here and there, but save for Lunar, nothing I would sink more than one hour into. N64 has plenty.
@@FrancoisRoy I’d rather play Snatcher, Lords of Thunder, Android assault, Flink, Shining Force, Popful Mail, Dark Wizard, Earthworm Jim(best version), Spider-Man, Sonic CD and so many more than most N64 games.
What I think would be totally awesome is to ditch the genesis side scroll & replace it with that Konami snes beat em up he briefly mentioned. Imagine that game combined with the car game! Perfect Batman returns!
& maybe throw in a few fmv cutscenes from the movie too! Perfect
Glad to find your channel, great content!
The music in the CD version is only second to the music in ThunderHawk which was amazing.
I play this on my MiSTer FPGA device. That Sega CD core plays like a dream.
God I love the driving game. Along with Core Design's 'Thunderhawk' It made me feel smug to own my MEGA CD here in the UK back then. It was good to see developers finally pushing graphics with it instead of FMV. And it almost justified the console purchase. Almost! Please could you do a feature on Thunderhawk CD (AH-3 Thunderstrike in the US) in the future?
Batman games have always been of higher quality on average than most other super hero games. Only other character who's games were just as good if not better was Spider-man
Incredible soundtrack by Spencer Nilsen [Sonic CD (US version), Ecco the Dolphin (Sega CD versions)], hope we can all agree on that.
One of the first games I bought for my SEGA CD back in '93.
Bro I really like your content. I watched this one high as a kite and I realized you’re so ridiculous in your videos lmao. It’s so funny to me hearing your gripes be described so well. This video had me dying!
I'll never understand why so many games late in the life of the Sega Genesis insisted on having a color palette consisting of dithered green and purple coupled with a soundtrack composed with Tupperware.
I own this game and it's impressive, driving only of course. Explosions and rockets sound great, good music adds to the feel, but the difficulty is really hard.
I had a lot of fun with Core Design games Thunder Hawk and Soul Star. Technically impressive, great games!
those driving stages and cinematics set this apart as a true cd game and i was always so jelly about this and it was something the snes would never be able to pull off, heck, even true 32 bit consoles couldn't easily do those stages, one of the best looking sega cd games, well done, well made and well looking, a winner in every way.
I believe 32-bit systems can do it easily with enough ram like the Saturn and n64 with the expansion paks if the system used disk media.
@@maroon9273 Explains why i said ''couldn't easily'' i guess.....
I'd love to hear the music of the Genesis version with decent samples, I still listen to it from time to time
Bro...the 3D driving levels were the shit!!!! 'Still got the disc.
Rivaled some of the PlayStation and Saturn games that we wouldn't see until three years later!
@MaxAbramson3 Especially when you got to the driving section in the sewers. That was some of the best hardware trickery of that era
@@PKGangsta18 There were at least 13-14 games (out of 200+ titles) that used the ASIC-DSP or at least software scaling to create amazing 3D games. Other than Sonic CD's bonus stages, 99% of the general public would never see any of those amazing visual effects. The result was that kids like us would get mocked and ridiculed for getting scammed.
@MaxAbramson3 I surprisingly never got mocked. Even when I got a 32X. My friends flocked to my house to play the best home port of Mortal Kombat 1 (Sega CD. Load time aside) and a while later, Virtua Fighter (on 32X since no had a Saturn yet. Not for another year and a half or so). I knew the consoles were failures. But I got them both for their exclusive Sonic titles. Sonic CD and Knuckles Chaotix.
I also got them a short time after their respected launches, so I ended up not paying full price for them at Funcoland. The Sega CD model 2 was only 100 bucks, and the 32X was 40 bucks when we got them :)
@@PKGangsta18 Yeah, I.
Had the whole tower of power. Yet there were so few really good games that took advantage of that extra hardware, and that I think is what finally killed SEGA.
I do enjoy this Sega CD game, and seeing (and hearing!) the driving game live at the store in '93 is what prompted me to buy the Model-1 Sega CD hardware. I don't mind the challenge because it is beatable with practice, and besides there is a level-skip code. I don't think the platforming game is awful at all, but you do have to get used to how to play it 'correctly' to win - mostly picking up every weapon and using those with certain enemies and bosses. Its a fun platforming challenge to me.
You should review Kid Chameleon.
A game i failed to finish for the past 26 years.
That game is just epic. Darn game took me forever to figure out what warps to take to get to the end boss.
Props on the amount of content you are always pushing out.
The color choice was certainly because they were trying to capture the dark feeling of the Tim Burton film. The Genesis alway had issues due to the limited color pallet. Still. No excuse for the stilted game play and hitboxes. Then again, this was typical of movie licensed games around this period, with only a few exceptions. As you said, there was also the "rental difficulty." Shame.
The original Batman on the Genesis managed to captured the look of the film without looking dreadful. There really is no excuse for the artistic choices here.
And so did the original Batman on the NES. Amazing looking and it captured the look of the film.
The colours and graininess may have been due to a very misguided idea on how to make the game look like the comics, which often used purple instead of black, and screentone. The saddest part is that it looks like a lot of effort was put into the visual style as well, because the dithering is everywhere, consistently. I can't think of anything else sprite-based that looks like this.
@@Banderpop non-pixel comic style and digital Sprite games on the genesis/sega cd looked horrible and grainy. Due to lack of colors and palette of the genesis. Developers were unable to use correct color choices or used 3/4 less colors to render graphics which turned bad. Similar issue with sound effects and music as well. Using 3/4 or less performance of the system.
Loved the driving stages and played the heck out of them. Never played the side scroller section.
If I remember correctly, they hid that it included the same side scrolling content from the cartridge. Back then I thought it was just a driving game. Never owned Batman Returns CD. I picked up a sega CD used many years but never came across this game.
I've never beat the complete game, driving and side scrolling levels, ever. I would love to try again someday soon, just to see how patient I am and how far I can get.
Nice breakdown , I love what the sega cd did , it’s a nice game , the team was legendary for its time . Especially Conceptually
top sega advertisements would be interesting to see. those ads where just pure in your face 90s goodness.
Hopefully some day I can find this game in the wild at my local retro store or at a Game Con.
Sega CD have gotten a lot harder to find now a days. I had a retro game store I use to go to all the time and even back then 5 years ago it was rare to see a Sega CD game there.
not gonna lie, the bat ski footage really made me duck my head left and right to try and avoid the obstacles
One of my favourites on mega cd. (Drivin only selected) Soul star is the other and thunderhawk. Avgn nerd shoulda looked at these!
Yeah, it's unfortunate that not enough developers fully utilized the Sega CD hardware. Core design did a great job at taking advantage of it. I wish more homebrew developers would takle the SegaCD.
This was the reason I got a sega cd, still have this game.
Konami could afford the rights to the Danny Elfman theme, there's no reason Sega shouldn't have done the same. You also saw this on the "Adventures of Batman and Robin", the SNES game got the proper soundtrack, while the Genesis got some weird house/trance stuff that did not fit the source material at all. Saw this yet again on that Driving game based on Batman: The Animated Series. Acquiring the source material music when releasing a game based on a licensed property is very important.
Bro, acquiring licenses to works is not cheap. Sonic 3 only does it because Michael Jackson wanted to do music for Sonic. Thus is why it was released in the state it was in.
@@CarlosXPhone Konami had less capital than Sega did, and they managed just fine.
@@SomeOrangeCat Right, but that's without using any work. Its just a franchise license, but a license with music, likeness, or other labor work like voice-overs - THOSE cost more. For example Modern Warfare Remastered released WITHOUT the old voice-overs. Let me ask you: Why do you think that is?
@@CarlosXPhone I'm talking about a central piece of music, not an entire voice over cast. Maybe stop excusing Sega's many faults.
@@SomeOrangeCat Not excusing them. I'm saying Sega got lucky with Sonic 3. Others have to pay up more for works related to music.
Ugh, THIS game. Right about how Sega first started truly fucking up
Glad I haven't played the Genesis version. Thanks for mentioning about it, Sega Lord X. I guess it's a game you don't like and everybody else likes.
I don't know if you take requests but have you played Magical Pop'n on Super Famicom? I think it make a good review. Thought about reviewing it on my channel some day.
The music actually sounds good. The game though is a far cry from snes konami one.
SLX - would love to see you do a review of Wonder Dog. This was one of my first Sega CD games and I feel like it is a pretty good game that gets overlooked. I wouldn't quite call it a hidden gem but it was decent fun. It was exclusive to the CD as well... No tarted up port of a cart game here.
Big fan of wonder dog and I agree. Game was a great start in the early days of the Sega CD. The sound track was just amazing especially the city level. Game also has a ton of secrets to find plus a few different routes to take in two levels.
Side fact here but wonder dog came in two different color boxes the 1st was the green box and later the red box. The green box is a bit more rare.
@@buckroger6456 I have the red box but I had seen the green box one and thought my memory was playing tricks on me! Also the city soundtrack is up there with my favorite most memorable video game tracks of all time!
So cool to hear even one other person who thought this was a good game .... It never shows up on any best-of lists or really gets mentioned at all but it was definitely one of the best Sega CD exclusives.
@@bca5251 I had a pretty sweet speaker setup as a kid and use to play the heck out of wonder dog and could never get enough of the city sound track music. When I got older and had my own cash I bought a surround sound system and was surprised by just how much bass that tune has.
I really don't know why people over look that game some much. Just seems like most people either hate on the Sega CD and talk about the fmv games or they end up going for the most niche games while forgetting about some of its more regular games.
Wonder Dog is one of the games that still gets me to fire up the Sega CD. Sure the controls aren't as good as I remember but the music, art, levels and sound effects still are. What's a trip is I always remembered the red box version of wonder dog and thought that was the only one. I ended up checking my box and found that the only red box I had was for road avenger and wonder dog was green.
For me the 16bit days of gaming have always been my favorite. Heck the whole 90s in general for me is the golden age of gaming.
I do love 80s and 90s games. I love a lot of the Sega CD stuff too. I was super hyped when it came out and while it didn't get a ton of great exclusives it had enough that I liked to make it worth my while.
Unfortunately my gen 1 SCD is long gone and my current gen 2 seems to be dying so I don't use it much.
@@bca5251 I was all in when I got a Sega CD the 1st year it came out on Christmas. Believe it or not but the Sega CD is easy to fix. The capacitors are the most common thing to go out on them over time along with the laser lens burning out.
Great video as always buddy. Your review summed it up for me as I hated this game as a kid. The driving section was decent but the platform game was a real stinker for me.
This channel is my go to for all things SEGA
It's quite telling that you could choose to play the racing levels only. I tried the platform levels once and stuck to racing only after that. Loved Batman Returns CD.
Going to have to disagree with you about the genesis music for the game, I thought the music was pretty good. Also, for the driving portion, looks like they had someone that worked on the SNES game work on the driving sections for the Sega CD game. It plays just like the Batmobile level on Batman Returns SNES except no mode 7.
Yes, Batman Returns for the Genesis has some phenomenal tracks.
Instead it has something much more impressive than Mode 7.
@@GameSack Yeah. pretty much. I wasn't implying it that mode 7 was better.
I looked up a couple of reviews from UK mags for the cartridge game. They weren't so hot on it.
"Just about the least interesting job of a licence anyone could ever have made. Frustrating and hugely dull." (40%, MEGA, Dec 1992)
"A gothic, visual treat with a distinctive graphic style that suffers at the hands of frustrating gameplay!" (77%, Mean Machines SEGA, Dec 1992)
"A so-so platform game which does a fair job of capturing the atmosphere of the movie." (76%, MegaTech, Dec 1992)
A score in the 70's was actually pretty bad for these mags.
It's a shame some companies don't go back and fix these old nearly unplayable titles . They could be great with a little bit of re-programming.
Great content man!!
I guess this game sums up my feeling for the Mega CD(I'm in Europe) I never owned the cartridge version of this game, but having something to akin a superscalar with CD audio in my own bedroom was jaw dropping, but the sheer difficulty made me put it away in frustration. So on one hand I knew the Mega CD could put the SNES to shame on every level, but for some reason Sega choose not to in the 'western' part of the world. And this fueled my disappointment I guess. Although I always stayed a Sega fan-boy, I also had the feeling they weren't doing all that they could or promised.
This shitty game had so much potential but instead it turned out to be the predecessor of Superman 64
Yeah, I rented Returns for SNES after the reviews for it were very positive. Just a beat 'em up, but it was so, so 90's Konami slick. Another thing, and I'll say it again, Galaxy Force II could've worked on the Sega CD. Someone should try that now!
Output off the charts! Love it!
Lol, had the SNES version and loved it.
It's a shame that Sega left the pins on the VDP for a second 64K bank of VRAM unconnected. If they had been brought out to the expansion port then the Sega CD hardware the the VDP could have had a shared bank of 64K which would have allowed much faster framerates on scaling and rotation effects. ther main bottleneck with scaling and rotation was that there wasn't a direct way to get tiles from the scaling and rotation hardware in the Sega CD to the VDP's video ram. They had to be presented in cartridge ROM memory space and transferred from there to the VDP's VRAM by the Genesis's 68000.
As well the VDP has pins for external color pallet memory that were also left unconnected to anything. If that had been connected to the expansion port the Sega CD could have increased the number of color pallets from 4 to 16. You still would have been stuck with 512 colors but more could have been used onscreen at once.
To finish the bat ski level I had to get a friend sit next to me call out the path rally style.
Long easy right maybe?
The only thing I wished it would have done is when your Batmobile got down to one or two bars, it would have split off and become the Batmissile. That's it
6:45 Alfred: Do a barrel roll!
Good video.. I 100% agree more scaling games would have been awesome. Maybe a Sonic racers back then would have been the answer to Mario Cart.
The music sounds great and the vehicle stages look really fun.
But man, that sidescrolling mess pulls it all down.
You basically summed it up when you mentioned Malibu Interactive. I don't think I've played a single game of theirs that was any good.
I've always felt Sega's biggest issue was that post-Genesis, it felt as though Sega thought they needed to innovate with hardware rather than focus of software/games.
And they were releasing consoles and add-ons so frequently, and moving on so fast from one to next that developers never got adequate time to familaize themselves and learn through experience before Sega was pushing the next piece of hardware.
For consoles with healthy life-cycles the best games always come toward the end of the generation because developers have master programming for it, and rather than spend time figuring things out, so to say, they can implement everything they've learned and make better games.
They gimped themselves by making their own hardware obsolete before it coukd reach its potential. More could and should have been done with The Sega CD.
The driving section proves to me the Sega cd should have been used to bring the super scaler games to the format, arcade perfect or close to it.
The driving levels were extremely impressive for the time. Probably the best Batman game involving vehicles until the Arkham series decades later. The sidescrolling/platforming levels frankly sucked though. Too bad you can't mix the SNES sidescrolling beat-em-up with the Sega CD driving levels, now THAT would've been amazing. At least the Sega CD version gave you new/decent music for the platform levels.
i remember playing the hell out of those driving levels.. to the point that i created my own steering wheel.