Summary
Superhero games have had their ups and downs over the years, with many flops and memorable successes. Fans may struggle with loving the idea that they can get into the shoes of these larger-than-life characters, especially since many attempts to successfully put gamers in said footwear don’t feel right.
Batmangames haven’t always been at the forefront of the superhero gaming genre, but the Caped Crusader has been one of the biggest names in recent years representing DC in games. Fromthe infamousArkhamfranchiseto the other gaming appearances Bruce Wayne has made over the past few decades,Batmangames tend to offer riveting experiences for gamers to dive into, butnot all of them are easy.
Considering the joy that players found in the stealthy, story-focusedBatman Arkhamgames, it’s strange tothink back to 2003, a time when the most prominent game available forBatmanlovers wasRise of Sin Tzu, an action beat-em-up game that was based onThe New Batman Adventuresand featured many members of the voice cast from that series.
While the story was an interesting one, featuring an Asian Crime Lord who was brought to Arkham Asylum and began manipulating events around Gotham,Rise of Sin Tzumade for an enjoyable game, but most of the gameplay was action focused, and some of the controls took a lot of getting used to. This presented more of a challenge for gamers than they might have expected from a game based on the DC Animated Universe, which fans are still hoping to see again in the modern gaming sphere.
The second and arguably most popular of theArkhamgames is also considered the most challenging by many players.Arkham Citywas released in 2011 at the height of the superhero cinematic boom, and as a result, the game had a lot to accomplish. Not only did it need to be a satisfying sequel toArkham Asylumand deliver aneven larger open-world experience, but it also had to satisfy the cravings of superhero fans who didn’t have a lot of games in the genre to check out at the time.
Arkham Citywas an iconicBatmangaming experience, but it also came with a lot of gadgets that players would gain throughout, providing even more mechanics for players to familiarize themselves with and use in order to defeat the ever-larger number of enemies. With a fantastic sequence of boss fights that were all challenging in their own unique ways, players had a lot to get through, even just to complete the main story. And that’s not including all the fascinating extras and side quests available across the city. ThoughArkham Asylumis considered to be a fantasticBatmantitle, it is full of challenges that players may struggle with.
6Batman (1990)
GameFAQs Difficulty Score: 3.23/5
It is only natural for older games to have a little more challenge to them. At the time, games generally were quite short, so developers made each section of a game more difficult than the longer games of today need. The 1989Batmanfilm prompted multiple games based on it, and the 1990 one was a side-scrolling beat-em-up that remained quite faithful to the film.
Developed for the Sega Genesis, thisBatmangame was not quite as difficult to get through as some similar games of its time, but looking back on it now, gamers will find plenty of challenges in comparison with modern games as they try to make their way through the dark, brooding backgrounds inspired by the style and palette of the 1989 movie.
5Batman (1990 Arcade)
GameFAQs Difficulty Score: 3.24/5
Another old video game that was considered quite challenging even at the time was theBatmanarcade game.This 1990 arcade machinewas also based on the 1989 Tim BurtonBatmanfilm, and it is a beloved classic of its style. Even by the standards of arcade games, it’s also quite challenging.
Players had to deal with the traditional arcade beat-em-up style while chasing the Joker, cleaning up Gotham City, and moving through the vague plot points of the 1989 film. But as with any quarter-filled machine, this arcade game had many ways in which it could suddenly kill players off, making it one of the more challenging games featuring the Caped Crusader.
Another game based onThe New Batman Adventures,Batman: Vengeance, was released in 2001 and provided gamers with a shocking level of challenge. Batman was focused on investigating the apparent death of the Joker while dealing with other problems appearing around Gotham. It also featured surprisingly hard combat.
One of the few criticisms ofBatman: Vengeancewas against the reliance on combat, as the game didn’t introduce many mental elements, like theArkhamgames and otherBatmangames managed.Vengeancewas a combat-heavy experience, and on some systems, the combat was considered especially egregious in difficulty as the game progressed.
If the games based on the 1989Batmanfilm were challenging, they were nothing compared to the games based onTim Burton’s cinematicBatmanoutings.Batman Returnswas released alongside the sequel in 1992, developed separately by different companies for different systems, but it was the Sega CD version that produced the most heartbreaking challenges for gamers.
Not only did the Sega CD version have all the challenges of the Sega Genesis edition of the game, which loosely followed the story of theBatman Returnsmovie, but it also took advantage of the hardware’s capabilities to add exclusive racing-themed levels. This, in addition to all the combat-filled levels that were incredibly challenging (even for the early 90s) made for a memorably difficult game that remains one of the hardest for Sega systems.
2Batman Forever
GameFAQs Difficulty Score: 4.18/5
The Tim Burton films continued without him throughout the rest of the 1990s, and games based on each of them were bound to follow.Batman Foreverhasn’tstood the test of timelike the film, but as a game, it remains a great example of how brutally unforgiving a video game can be. This goes for whichever version of the game players attempt to take on, though the PC version was considered the most challenging of the lot.
Batman Foreverhad all the elements of a great fighting game, but it introduced many platforming elements that gave the controls a confusing nature. While some players were able to get to grips with it,Batman Foreverdoesn’t have a much better reputation today than the film it was based on.
The concept of aBatmangame is as old asThe Legend of Zeldafranchise. The firstBatmangame was developed in 1986 for basic PC models. Set in an isometric 3D universe, the game featured Batman attempting to collect the various pieces of the Batmobile to put it back together and save Robin.
Despite being aged, thisBatmangame is fairly interesting in that it introduced some early gaming features, such as aprecursor to the save system, and it was considered a classic at the time. Despite this, trying to play this 1986 game now is difficult as the style of video games has moved on a great deal, and the short length of the games at this time made it necessary for them to be challenging. If gamers somehow manage to find this game, they are sure to be in for a tough time.
