Darkman (Game Boy) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
138A playthrough of Ocean's 1992 license-based beat 'em up for the Nintendo Game Boy, Darkman.
Given how few beat 'em ups there are on the Game Boy, I have to admit that I am surprised at how rarely anyone mentions this game. It's based on the surprisingly good 1990 movie headed by Sam Raimi, and it plays quite a bit better than the (entirely different) Darkman games released on the NES and 8/16-bit computers the year before.
It's entirely unoriginal - Darkman is essentially Double Dragon with a new cast of characters, but in this case, being a clone isn't a bad thing. The game play is solid and there are a fair number of moves at your disposal (including a powerful jump attack that you can do on enemies lying on the ground), and the controls are responsive and largely mirror those in Double Dragon. A and B are punch and kick attacks, and change depending on which way you are facing: A always attacks to your right, and B always attacks to the left. Both pressed at the same time make Darkman jump. The levels also mirror a lot of conventions we saw in Double Dragon - it shifts fairly often between 2.5D (a la Final Fight, Streets of Rage) and the more platform-jumping centered 2D gameplay that made to many people rage in the NES version of Double Dragon 2.
The graphics are also fairly similar to the game's "inspirations," right down to the helicopter boss, but some of the set pieces are impressive for the Game Boy - especially the helicopter boss. It's pretty cool to see the city flying past as you duke it out. The elevator scene is also pretty eye-catching - enough so that you'll probably forget to roll your eyes at yet another beat 'em up with an elevator stage. The characters are large and well defined, and the stages have a surprising amount of detail in them, even if they tend to look a bit samey after awhile. The cinematics, on the other hand, look completely fantastic, even if they are only still shots.
The sound, on the other hand, is anything but typical. The music is some of Ocean's best on the Game Boy, and sounds far more like something you'd hear on the Commodore 64 than on a game machine at the time, and it thankfully avoids attempting to adapt Danny Elfman's movie score. I can only imagine what that might've turned out like. Even if you feel kind of meh about the game itself, the music does give you reason to play it just a bit longer - it's exceedingly well done.
Overall, if you loved Double Dragon, you'll find more of the same to love here. If you aren't a fan of Double Dragon, you won't be of Darkman either. It's much better than the massively panned yet still reasonably fun platformer on the NES, that's for sure.
And if seeing Ocean and beat 'em up in the same sentence scares you because you've played Lethal Weapon, worry not. Darkman is a huge step up from that lame excuse for a brawler, even without the photo of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover on the cartridge label. I mean, Liam Neeson cosplaying as a mummy is, if nothing else, a novelty, right?
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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