Remembering Great Batman Games - The Adventures of Batman and Robin Retrospective [HGWI Episode 4]

After the release of the somewhat, in my opinion, disappointing Suicide Squad, I take a look at a game that has regularly hit best of lists, The Adventures of Batman and Robin for the Super Nintendo/Super Famicom. This game has a strange legacy, simultaneously being heralded as a great game, while not seeming to be a widely played title. I'm guilty of this myself, this being the first time I played it, and, WOW, am I glad I did.

In this lengthy retrospective, I take a look at all the ports, including the excellent Megadrive/Genesis version, dive into the history of the game, take a look at the magazines of the time for context, break the game down - level by level, and then, of course, I Wrank it.

Please be aware, YouTube has been particually aggressive with the bit crushing in this video. I render my videos with 90Mbps, well above the 70 suggested for 4K, to get the best possible render, but while the video before uploading looks great, when watching on YouTube, the compression artifacts are very heavy. I have tried different methods to reduce this, but this is the best I could do. I think it has to do with the dark colours the game uses, and if you have any suggestions to improve this, please E-mail me, or leave a comment, all suggestions are appreciated.

**********Time Stamps**********
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:12 Preface
00:16:28 Review
00:19:58 Amused to Death
00:26:05 No Green Peace
00:31:44 Foul Play
00:37:54 Tale of the Cat
00:40:25 Trouble in Transit
00:43:39 Perchance to Scream
00:47:36 Riddle Me This
00:54:54 The Gauntlet
00:58:07 Rating
01:01:06 Conclusion

**********Video Information**********
This video was made, using;
Adobe Premiere,
Adobe After Effects,
Corel PhotoPaint,
Retrotink 5x,
VA1 Asian Megadrive with a custom Triple Bypass installed, using RGB output,
Stock Super Famicom, using RGB output,
PAL Game Gear with Benn Venn LCD screen,
PAL & NTSC Mega CD
FK PAK Pro,
Mega Everdrive PRO,
Shure SM7B Microphone,
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2
Cloudlifter AMP
Editing PC;
Ryzen 9 7950x3d
ASUS ROG x670e Extreme
RTX 4090 24GB
128GB DDR5 RAM
AverMedia 4k Live Gamer

The settings I used for the Retrotink 5x can be found https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtakkJL84aY @wobblingpixels3921 is a must for Retrotink users.

I managed to get Mrs Wranker to reluctantly play the Megadrive version of the game for the video, so thank you for giving it your best (and dying on the first level)

************Bibliography and Credits***************
• My raw playthroughs used in this retrospective *SNES* - https://youtu.be/vtZr_AynDiw *Megadrive* - https://youtu.be/yJiS3sq33Ms
• Batman fandom - https://batman.fandom.com/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Batman_%26_Robin:_The_Video_Game
• Time lapse - @timecycleshoots833 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElbBCdu4NUI&ab_channel=TimecycleShoots
• John Burton @CodingSecrets https://www.youtube.com/@CodingSecrets
• Nintendo Power Issue 88 - https://archive.org/details/Nintendo_Power_Issue001-Issue127/Nintendo%20Power%20Issue%20068%20January%201995/page/n39/mode/2up?q=%22adventures+of+batman++robin%22&view=theater
• Computer and Video Games 156 - https://retrocdn.net/File:CVG_UK_156.pdf
• Sega Power Issue 70 - https://segaretro.org/File:SegaPower_UK_70.pdf
• Official Nintendo Magazine Issue 26 - https://archive.org/details/nintendo-magazine-system-uk-26-november-1994
• Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Batman_%26_Robin_(video_game)
• Batman Wiki - https://batmantheanimatedseries.fandom.com/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Batman_%26_Robin_(SNES)
• @AL82RetrogamingLongplays - Simpsons Arcade - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNpuIHbK3-I
• @NintendoComplete Batman: The Animated Series (Game Boy) @https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7EK9uajukw&ab_channel=NintendoComplete
• Poison Ivy - https://web.archive.org/save/https://websites.umich.edu/~sheroine/SuperheroineProject/PoisonIvy.html
• @AL82RetrogamingLongplays Batman Longplay (Amiga) [50 FPS] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGHLLh3iZwU&ab_channel=AL82RetrogamingLongplays
• @classicgaminguk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY5ZSH2DU4c&ab_channel=retrogamingpower

All music used in this video came from the game's OST .
All gameplay, unless stated, was captured by me on real hardware, using the original medium and console, with a RetroTink 5x. All media used, including clips from Wedding Crashers (2005), Austin Powers - International Man of Mystery (1997), Batman - The Animated Series, The Adventures of Batman and Robin, Batman (1989), Batman and Robin (1997), Batman Begins (2005), are within the guidelines of Section 107 of the US Copyright Act "for purpose of critique or review". All the media remains the intellectual property of the relevant copyright holders.