Bat Boy

The reason the Mega Man series is revered by so many gamers is not because of the tight gameplay, great boss fights and challenging level designs. Sure, those elements do help to turn those early entries into legitimate classics, but the reason this franchise was able to stand out from the rest of the 8-bit pack is because every time you beat one of Dr. Wily’s evil robots, you earned his special ability. That’s exactly what happens in the new game Bat Boy, the sophomore effort from developer Sonzai Games. And that’s not the only lesson this throwback game learned from studying the classics, because this side-scrolling platformer manages to turn a simple concept into a fun and inventive platformer that not only gets the fundamentals right, but manages to actually add something new to the formula. Get that helmet and jockstrap ready, because this is my review of Bat Boy.

By day, Ryosuke is a regular kid with a love for playing baseball. However, by night, he and his athletic friends secretly do battle against crime and injustice. They don costumes and take on the bad guys using the skills they’ve learned both on the court and field, using everything from tennis and soccer balls to a good, old-fashioned football tackle. But these skills would prove to be no match for Lord Vicious, an interdimensional magician who brainwashes the sports-stars and forces them to compete in the Trials of Darkness. Thankfully, Bat Boy was able to use his slugger to defeat the brain-washing magic, sending him on an epic adventure to free his friends from Lord Vicious’ evil clutches.

This is such a fantastic setup, because it allows the developers a chance to construct levels and enemies that are based on each athlete’s preferred sport. Don’t take that to mean that the stages are as literal as a soccer pitch or tennis court, because the elements are not always that obvious. Instead what we get are fun hints at the sports and enemies that work the rules of the game into their attacks. Sometimes it’s as obvious as a bouncing bad guy that literally turns into a basketball, while other times you’ll get into an intense back-and-forth rally with a racqueted foe. I couldn’t way to see how they would twist and turn these sports into challenging platforming stages, and I was never disappointed.

A lot of what this game has going for it is the hero -- Bat Boy. From the moment you see him smash that magic back in Lord Vicious’ face, you know what kind of action hero this guy will be. The bat isn’t some boring sword, but rather a blunt object that sends the enemies flying. And when those bad guys send projectiles flying, Bat Boy will hit them right back into their smug faces. This gives you a sense of power right from the start, because you know that all you’ll need to defeat most attacks is a strong swing.

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What makes this bat so great is that it has a lot more uses than just smacking enemies around. For one thing, you can charge up and throw the bat, having it spin in the air for a few seconds. While this is great as a projectile attack, Bat Boy can also jump on the spinning bat to reach out-of-the-way platforms, something that becomes a big part of almost every stage. We can also bounce off of enemies and other objects by using the bat. It’s the kind of all-in-one style weapon that opens up the gameplay instead of limiting it. In that sense it reminded me a lot of Scrooge McDuck’s cane in Capcom’s DuckTales games. The game keeps finding inventive ways to use the bat.

The same goes for the special abilities you pick up along the way. Like I said at the top, each boss will relinquish a different sport-specific ability. Some of these power-ups are little more than standard dash or wall jump, only with a sports twist. Other moves will protect our hero in a bubble for a very short amount of time or throw basketball layups in order to defeat hard-to-reach bad guys. What I like about these moves is that you don’t have to choose between them, like in the Mega Man series. Here, each move is mapped to a different combination of buttons, such as down and jump or one of the shoulder buttons. The trick is that you’re limited by how many of these special moves you can perform between checkpoints, so you’ll need to choose wisely. Thankfully, you can buy upgrades that give you more health and special move points.

Because the unlockable abilities and level designs are so cool, it’s easy to gloss over how much fun the boss fights are. This is yet another part of Bat Boy that feels like it comes straight out of Mega Man. These one-on-one battles do a great job of giving each of your brainwashed friends a personality, and I love how each sport plays into their attacks. Better still, almost every boss has a second form that they’ll transform into halfway through the fight, allowing for even more cool sports-themed moves. I love that these bosses are challenging, but fair. No matter how hard they seemed at first, they aren’t frustrating. Defeating each boss comes down to memorizing their patterns and using your special moves at the right times, a staple of the 8-bit games Bat Boy is cribbing off of.

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That goes for the rest of the game, too. While there are certainly challenging levels, this game is nowhere near as hard as Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden or any of the other side-scrolling platformers we grew up with. What I really like is how the game finds new ways of being difficult. Every level has its own unique set of obstacles and challenges, often forcing you to play the game in a lot of different ways. The game is good about showing you something you’ve never seen before, all while blending it with hints of enemies and traps from 35-year-old games. This is the kind of throwback game that I love, because it evokes the spirit of the classics, all while bringing something new to the table.

If there’s anything bad to say about the game, it’s that it is over far too quickly. Even at four or five hours, I was left wanting more. It made me wish that Ryosuke had friends who played golf or went canoeing or lifted weights. Look, I don’t care if it’s wrestling or cup stacking, I just wanted to see more sports and more levels. I didn’t want the game to end, even if the conclusion is incredibly satisfying. This is the kind of game tailor made for sequels, and I would love to see Lord Vicious go after the Olympics or the X-Games.

Part of the reason why it’s so hard to find faults with this game is because Bat Boy gets all of the fundamentals right. It’s easy to play, has responsive controls, is overflowing with special moves and, most importantly, has a personality all its own. Yes, it has clearly been inspired by some of the greatest platformers of all time, but it never feels like an impersonation. Forget about Superman and the so-called Dark Knight, because Bat Boy is the hero the world needs right now.