Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu
There’s a new villain for Batman to take down, but is he worth going after?
Tags: Batman: Rise of Sun Tzu Categories: Game Cube Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Dec 30th, 2003
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Batman: Rise of Sun Tzu (title page) | |||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| No | |||
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This is not the game I expected to play. Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu is not the adventure game that I was led to believe. Instead, what UbiSoft has presented us with is an arcade style fighter wrapped in an adventure story.
Batman (or Robin, Nightwing, & Batgirl) will fight their way through the various levels from one end to the other loaded with any number of miscellaneous thugs. Missions during each level include saving the various civilians that are being terrorized by said thugs, or protecting a certain area
The story is decent, and told in cutscene format, looking just like the animated series. Let’s segue into the audio for a moment here, since we’ve brought up the animated series the game is visually based on. The voice actors from the series reprise their roles (or soundalikes if the original was not available). This aids greatly in giving the license justice, as many longtime followers of Batman feel that the animated series kept fairly true to the Batman mythos.
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The rest of the audio and visual presentation are good as well. Technically, there really isn’t anything to complain about here. Music is good, framerate is good, clipping, character models, sound effects, all present and in place well. There isn’t anything to make the game stand out in either regard, but both audio and video in the game are solid, and you can’t ask for much more than that.
Well, except for some different gameplay.
See, Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu is an arcade brawler, not an adventure game. I wanted adventure. I wanted to take the “world’s greatest detective” through his most challenging ordeal yet. Instead I’m battling 40 thugs in an alley.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not what was advertised.
The fighting engine is good, with A doing the standard kick, B doing the punching, X grabbing an opponent, and various combos thereof. After each level, points are awarded, and further (more powerful) combos can be obtained.
The Z button allows the player to use a gadget (such as the Batarrang) and Y gives the ability to jump. The hero can do a dive as well using the R button, so really, there’s quite a bit here for the player.
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Players have a choice of Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, and of course, Batman. Each character has some slightly different moves, but the commands are all pretty much the same. The story for each character is also the same – same story, just plugging in a different hero. This is a bit odd, since one would have expected that Batman would be the only one to actually take down each of the villains, since he’s the hero in the cutscenes. It is possible however, to play the entire game without him. Go figure.
Players can also team up heroes in co-op play, which is something nice in a game like this. There aren’t enough games that gives players the opportunity for co-op fighting so that puts Batman: Rise of Sin-Tzu ahead of the pack.
Jumping back to the plot of the game, here we have the introduction of Sin Tzu, a foe of the same caliber as Batman in many respects. The Dark Knight doesn’t have many peers in this regard, so it’s neat to see a villain that can give ol’ Bats a run for his money. Again, it’s just under utilized in the gameplay mechanic of the game. If this were an Adventure game, the possibilities of what could happen are boundless. Instead, we have wave after wave of henchmen.
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Three other major villains appear in the game, each as bosses. Each are done well, but really, you don’t see them much since you’re busy level after level fighting off wave after wave of generic henchmen.
Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu is also kind of on the short side, with about 15 levels (I’m not 100% sure because I didn’t bother counting them), maybe less. This is made up for in the replay value of the co-op play and other modes.
There is a challenge mode, which has players fighting their way in various environments to either beat up a certain number of thugs, or survive the clock. There are even a couple of modes that pit players against each other here as well. The GameCube version of the game connects to the Game Boy Advance version to allow for certain unlockables as well.
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There’s more to the game as well. Players can taunt enemies, and bosses and taunt as well giving the generic thug a boost. Various items can be picked up and thrown. There are explosive barrels lying about (how careless) waiting for a batarrang to be used to explode it and take out the enemies around it.
All in all, as an arcade brawler goes, Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu isn’t a bad game. It recreates the look and feel of the animated series pretty well. I’m just not sure if this is the best use of the Batman license. Sure, he’s a great fighter, but one of the things about Batman is that he uses his head, and there’s no real opportunity to do that here.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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+ Fairly deep fighting system for a game of this type. + Great recreation of the animated series |
7.2 |
| What Doesn't | |
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- No adventure - Is this really the way to introduce what could be an excellent villain into the Batman universe? |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination, it just doesn't live up to the name Batman. | |
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Tags: Batman: Rise of Sun Tzu
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Dec 30th, 2003 and is filed under Game Cube Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
