An enjoyable beat-em-up that delivers, but doesn't amaze.

User Rating: 7 | Batman Returns GG
The cape crusader appears in a side-scrolling beat-em-up title or the Game Gear. Based on the movie by the same name, you'll walk, duck, jump, and swing around buildings and platforms punching out bad guys and taking them out with your batarangs. With your batarangs you have the choice of long, medium, and short range attack. The shorter the range the stronger the attack.

In each stage you'll be able to take one of two paths. Although the layout of the levels for each path is different, I wasn't able to see any big differentiators in the world of strategy or difficulty level. They have the same bad guys along the way including fist-fighters, bomb throwers, suicide bombers, and chubby guys that roll and bounce around. No complaints though, because the doubling up on levels does add some re-playability.

Regardless of which path you take you'll still end up at the boss at the end which will either be the Penguin or Cat Woman. You'll also face off against each a more than once. I found them quite challenging by the end, especially considering how fast Cat Woman can get. You can save up your special attacks to help you out, but they don't seem to do a lot of damage against the bosses.

It looks good on the small screen, with everything easily distinguishable, and the sound passes. It doesn't really do anything wrong, but nothing really stands out to make the experience amazing. It doesn't rank up there with the best of brawlers, but it's a competent title in my Game Gear library.