This year's holiday fixation is the NES release of Batman Returns by Konami.
Batman Returns on the SNES is one of the best beat 'em up experiences on the system, but this 1992 movie fell during a time when Konami still saw fit to craft a game for the NES. In fact, this January 1993 release was among the last batch of North American NES releases under the Konami publishing label before it hung up the platform for good with the 1994 release of TMNT Tournament Fighters.
The NES version of Batman Returns doesn't come close to giving you the experience of its SNES counterpart. Still, if you only had an NES at this point in time, this version is a solid consolation. Of course, games based on the movie were also published by SEGA for all of its systems, and there are also versions such as for the Lynx and Amiga, but the Nintendo versions were the ones coming out of Konami at the time.
Konami had built up some beat 'em up credibility on the NES with its Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles releases, and Batman Returns does feel like an evolution of TMNT III. The basic punch string Batman has feels a bit more satisfying than the weapon swipes of TMNT, and Batman has a beefier moveset that includes sliding, being able to block and having access to a few different special tools.
The combat isn't as visceral and fluid as what brawlers in the arcades or 16-bit systems provided, but the NES version of Batman Returns still remains focused on crowd control in its own way. This leads to some erratic enemy behaviors and some unruly hitboxes on some enemy attacks to provide the challenge, but the game is very generous in giving Batman invulnerability frames after being hit, providing a number of items for him to use and making his "desperation move" - the cape swing - one of his best moves, bar none. The game also has a handful of secrets baked into it that also aid a player who happens to be in the know about them.
If anything, though, this version of Batman Returns is probably one of Konami's best soundtracks on the NES that no one ever talks about. It has fantastic stage music and a great boss theme, but I would also imagine not many people have gone out their way to play this version of the game.
Also of interest to me, Batman Returns on NES structures itself uniquely. The game doesn't have a "lives" system, but instead Batman gets a 50% health refill at every 10,000 points and he can overcharge his health if the player can discover the health boxes hidden throughout the game. The player is given a freebie box by defeating the first boss, but the other two can only be obtained through specific conditions. If the player finds all three boxes, they then essentially have four full health meters to work with in the game.
The game also has multiple ending screens, and while it is typically thought players get the best ending by not continuing, a GameFAQs posting by MetHy shows the game is actually judging you all the way through. Every hit Batman takes from an enemy throughout the game adds to a counter, with any hit taken from The Penguin weighing in at 10x the value of a basic enemy. Outright dying adds more than 120x of that value to the counter.
At the end of the game, this counter determines one of four ending screens, and in theory, a player could still get the best ending if they continue once - possibly even a few times depending on other factors.
The NES version of Batman Returns is definitely its own thing instead of being a watered-down version of the Super Nintendo cart, and these hidden elements definitely show Konami put some thought into elements that keep the game interesting.
