Review #817: Batman Beyond - Return of the Joker

 Batman sure had it rough, huh?

 The Arkham series was not just a fantastic game series, but also games that managed to get the Batman license right. But we're not here to talk about the good, we're here to talk about Ubisoft's Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, a horrible beat'em up that's inspired on the movie of the same name. But how bad can the game be? They misspell Nunchaku and the back cover's filled with lies. 10 gadgets? Where? There's the Staff, the... "Nun Chaku", the discus, the shield and the glider. That's 5. 5 batsuits? Standard, Offensive, Defensive and Nimble. That's 4. 16 stages? Oh no, no no no no no no. There are only 4 levels. 5 if you count the incredibly short Drake Lab stage.

 The game lasts little over an hour, and that's counting retries. You start off with 2 lives, and if you lose them you have to start back from the start of whichever stage you died in. There's no save feature, despite what the back of the game would have you believe(Another lie!), but at least the game is short enough. While it is a beat'em up, the final 3 stages have a lot of awful platforming that kills you instantly if you fall, which made an already bad game even worse. Between stages you get some very bad looking stills and some wonky text trying to convey the story of the film, but it's quite bad.

 Terry can punch, kick, block(he takes damage anyways) and jump. Before you get excited at the prospect of batsuits, know that they don't change Terry's appearance at all. You change suits by pressing select, pick your suit of choice and then pressing circle, which will make the game ask you "EXIT?" and you must actually pick YES in order to change into another suit. The standard suit's only feature is that it has access to the Discus, which can get some use, sometimes, the Staff, which has a single an area-clearing attack and the nunchaku that can be charged for a stronger single-hit attack. The offensive suit lowers some stats while increasing your attack damage, now you can perform proper punch and kick combos, instead of gadgets you get a spin-kick. The defensive suit lowers some stats but raises your defense, you get an impenetrable shield that nullifies any damage coming your way. The nimble suit enhances your speed at the cost of other stats and allows for either a double jump or a glide, as well as letting you roll and dodge around. Your suit of choice during those awful platforming sections.

 Gameplay is pretty dumb. Enemies only get into hitstun from your attacks sometimes which means you'll probably trade hits most of the time. But... there's one solutions. This is how you beat the game: Select the Defensive suit and then alternate between block and kick. It even works on bosses. Did I mention that this game is REALLY bad? Combat is overall pretty bland and lifeless, even when not using the defensive suit. At least the graphics manage to capture Bruce Timm's style pretty well.

 The game isn't broken or glitchy, but man is it lifeless! The music is bland, the combat is drab and there's very few, if any, moments of fun to be had with the game. At least it shouldn't rob you of more than an hour of your lifetime, but then again, there are plenty of other worthwhile things you could waste an hour on.
 2.0 out of 10