This second game in Batman movie games franchise on Sega Genesis was released in 1992.
Other two Batman games on Genesis have already a run published.
First one in 2007, second in 2012 and now five years has passed again...
Movie Features
  • Emulator used: Gens 11a
  • Takes damage to save time
  • Genre: Platform
Moving
Rope swinging is the fastest way to move.
Most of the time Batman is jumping though.
Three different jumps can be made:
1-6 frames small jump
7-9 frames medium jump
10+ frames long jump
Speed jumping in final parts of the game, in 5-2 and 5-3.
Jump a frame earlier to get a acceleration boost.
Gliding in air is only used to extend your jump distance.
Two vertical bars on right of weapon indicate how much "gas" you have left.
Walking is only done where you have time to spare.
Normal punch, flying punch, sidekick, crouching kick and kick while swinging are the melee options.
They work on some enemy projectiles too.
Utility belt weapons - they are actually in the order of efficiency
Batarang is boring long distance tool that does minimal damage.
Smoke bombs. well they are slow and ineffective. Couldn't find use for these.
Swarm of bats. A little slow but against Catwoman as effective as the next two weapons.
Rope weapon. Fast and effective.
Homing batarang. A little slower but can reach escaping enemies.
Boss memory adresses:
00FFFE5D - general boss hp, total hp of boss team
00FFDEF6 - statue left
00FFDF70 - statue right, machine at the final battle
00FFDFEA - clown 3 in circus
00FFE064 - clown 4 in circus
Level by level comments
ACT 1-1
I go with a little slower route collecting weapons for boss fights.
When Catwoman is defeated at the edge of the screen the time to fade out is shortened.
ACT 1-2
At 0:59 a head of a stone statue falls down to slow down movement a little. This doesn't always happen.
At 1:10 you have to break a piece from the second statue head to block the air vent.
I accidentally found out that throwing a batarang there also prevented Batman getting sucked to the air ventilation. That saved 4 frames.
ACT 1-3
Left statue normally releases a cog (1:22) that could hit me.
I was very lucky to find on my first try a movement pattern that prevented that happening.
I couldn't replicate that or didn't want to spend too much time finding how it happened.
Otherwise this part would be improvable by 10 frames (jumping over the first cog instead of dodging).
ACT 1-4
You have to pick batarangs at 1:45 or the bigbat weapon doesn't appear (1:47).
At 2:10, gargoyle statues. Normally you have to destroy two statues. Unless the other is off screen.
ACT 2-1
Motorist are manipulated by delaying some jumps by a few frames.
ACT 2-2
At 3:33, getting damaged gives a short moment of invulnerability that allows Batman to climb just high enough to reach the platform.
ACT 3-3
In circus the pillars between the "get-yourself-punched-to-the-face-cabinets" have explosives and health is a kind of issue here, so that limits the jumping.
ACT 4-2
At 7:50, the enemy whose over the head I swung, would turn and shoot two troublesome bullets if I landed in his sight,
so had to pick a little slower route that pays in the end.
ACT 5-1
At 8:23, avoiding getting hit is faster than going straight up.
ACT 5-2
Here I accidentally found a speedjump. If on a moving platform you jump one frame earlier you get a speed boost.
Rope swinging is still faster though.
At 8:43 a tall clown appears. If you're too fast it spawns in front of you. By slowing down just enough it spawns behind you.
At the end part of level I could have gone faster but then I needed a platform where to stand at the right end of screen to finish the level.
ACT 5-3
At the final fight, the machine has to destroyed before the Penquin can be defeated.
Finally, thanks to honorableJay, who started a discussion on Genesis board. Too bad he didn't have time to TAS this game. It was quite fun to do.

Fog: Judging.
Fog: I'm marking this as delayed, as to give the chance to the author to add additional inputs to achieve the good ending and possibly bring the tier up to Moons.
Fog: Received a response in the submission topic, which makes it seem like no further work will be done on this submission.
Anyhow, this submission was nicely executed with some interesting points throughout. However, there is one major sticking point that I feel needs to be addressed.
In the Genesis version of Batman Return, there are two possible endings which can occur after beating Penguin. These endings are obtainable during the playable final credits when facing off against Catwoman. The bad ending happens if you let Catwoman beat up Batman enough, he falls off the roof and gets picked up by his Batmobile. The good ending happens if Batman beats up Catwoman, eventually falling off the roof and getting eaten(?) by cats. This submission aims for the bad endings, thus ending the inputs after defeating Penguin. However, the current RTA World Record obtains the good ending, spending the extra 10 seconds or so to defeat Catwoman. This puts the submission in a weird position.
If we ignore the ending, the run is possibly entertaining enough to be considered for Moons. However, with the ending considered, it's clear that the goal of the run is to complete the game as fast as possible, without taking into consideration the entertainment value. Because of the lack of inputs after defeating Penguin, it makes the run feel rather incomplete and unfinished despite being the opposite. This also removes a lot of the entertainment factor from the overall submission. The run does reach the credits and the final ending screen (with the credits fight being, well, extra credit), so the run itself can't be rejected for not completing the game. We also have a lot of precedent concerning bad endings in TASes, but the vast majority of those games which do reach the bad ending are sitting in the Vault tier (with maybe one or two exceptions). Considering this along with everything else above, I don't find the run to be an exception to the trend.
Accepting to Vault.
sheela901: I will take care of the publication.


TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15564
Location: 127.0.0.1
This topic is for the purpose of discussing #5485: maTO's Genesis Batman Returns in 09:30.03
Stovent
He/Him
Publisher
Joined: 8/23/2016
Posts: 165
Location: France
[17:37:00]<TheCoreyBurton> It's N64 - it's ALWAYS bad news.
Mitjitsu
He/Him
Banned User
Joined: 4/24/2006
Posts: 2997
I remember this being a godly hard game. Thus I was never able to beat it back in the 90's. This game is long overdue, and I'm glad it eventually ended up on the Work Bench.
Skilled player (1457)
Joined: 11/26/2011
Posts: 656
Location: RU
Excellent TAS, very entertaining. Yes vote without doubts.
TASVideoAgent wrote:
First one in 2007, second in 2012 and now five years has passed again...
2007--2012--2017--2022-- Such a beautiful progression! It is good to know when the best moment for next submission of Batman game on Sega Genesis will come :)
I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Current projects: NES: Tetris "fastest 999999" (improvement, with r57shell) Genesis: Adventures of Batman & Robin (with Truncated); Pocahontas; Comix Zone (improvement); Mickey Mania (improvement); RoboCop versus The Terminator (improvement); Gargoyles (with feos)
Joined: 4/3/2005
Posts: 575
Location: Spain
I was going to vote yes, but the catwoman fight after input end was a letdown and makes the run look incomplete. I would have preferred to see a good ending.
No.
Former player
Joined: 6/30/2010
Posts: 1107
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
How does than ending even work, is Catwoman just optional?
Current project: Gex 3 any% Paused: Gex 64 any% There are no N64 emulators. Just SM64 emulators with hacky support for all the other games.
honorableJay
He/Him
Joined: 8/18/2008
Posts: 104
Location: Albany, NY
The final fight during the credits simply determines which ending you get. The good ending, by defeating Catwoman, has her fall off the roof. The bad ending, by losing, is Batman falling off. I do understand the reason the movie ends after Penguin since technically no more input is needed, but it does feel a bit empty without the fight being played out. The rest of the run is a treat, especially for those that played through the game.
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3572)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
I voted yes, since I was entertained (You had me at Batman). But I would much prefer to the good ending. It just one more fight, and we have to watch it for that long anyway, I'd rather see some action, not a lame intentional loss for the sake of lowering the input frames. Imo, this is moons material. I would strongly urge you to consider going for the best ending and entertaining your audience a little bit better.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Fog
Emulator Coder, Experienced player (641)
Joined: 4/5/2014
Posts: 459
adelikat wrote:
I voted yes, since I was entertained (You had me at Batman). But I would much prefer to the good ending. It just one more fight, and we have to watch it for that long anyway, I'd rather see some action, not a lame intentional loss for the sake of lowering the input frames. Imo, this is moons material. I would strongly urge you to consider going for the best ending and entertaining your audience a little bit better.
I agree with this, I will be marking the run as delayed for a few days to see if any response has been made. If no response is seen, I'll be judging this as a Vault tier submission.
Skilled player (1512)
Joined: 4/28/2005
Posts: 240
Location: Finland
I think Batman is exhausted. He has nothing left in tank against catwoman :(
Projects: Warlock, Ren & Stimpy (impr) / Generations Lost (impr.)
Skilled player (1457)
Joined: 11/26/2011
Posts: 656
Location: RU
Maybe i am alone, but i prefer current ending. There are no reasons to make the input longer for unnecessary fight. Batman already did his job - save town. Now he can die with a pure heart.
I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Current projects: NES: Tetris "fastest 999999" (improvement, with r57shell) Genesis: Adventures of Batman & Robin (with Truncated); Pocahontas; Comix Zone (improvement); Mickey Mania (improvement); RoboCop versus The Terminator (improvement); Gargoyles (with feos)
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
They/Them
Moderator
Joined: 8/3/2004
Posts: 15564
Location: 127.0.0.1
This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [3405] Genesis Batman Returns by maTO in 09:30.03