
There’s something refreshing about playing a Mega Man-like action platformer in 2023. Instead of expansive open worlds to explore, you get a handful of themed stages to leap through. There’s no deep narrative or lore to invest in, yet the colourful cast of bad guys and allies draws you in all the same with their fun designs. Catchy chiptune scores get stuck in your head instead of epic orchestral arrangements. All of the above is true of Sonzai Game’s sports-themed Bat Boy; if you’ve played an action platformer before, you know what you’re in for, and that ain’t a bad thing.
Bat Boy’s opening cinematic introduces you to Ryosuke and his hero team of eight sporty friends, including his tennis-playing love interest Racket Girl and the macho (American) football player Mr. Blitzer. Inexplicably, a little gremlin man named Lord Vicious and his bodyguard lure the Super Sports Friends into a trap, brainwashing them to join in his games in another dimension. Ryosuke, wielding his trusty bat, manages to swat away the brainwashing magic before it can infect him, so it’s up to him to seek out and beat the possession out of his buddies as the titular Bat Boy, gaining his friends’ abilities along the way that will help him in his quest. Also along for the ride is Garou, a talking crow that doles out information and one-liners.

To save his friends, Bat Boy tackles 12 vivid and uniquely themed stages, most of them vaguely linked to the sport of the boss at the end of the level. Aquaria, for instance, lords over a sunshine-filled beach stage, though Starlet Twirl resides in a vibrant jungle where we couldn’t really find a connection to her baton twirling. There’s a handful of other levels that include platforming challenges, optional fights, and your genre standard final level split into two sections. All of them had some pretty catchy music that we never grew tired of; in fact, we made sure to crank the music volume up in the settings.
Unlike Mega Man, Bat Boy doesn’t have an immediate way to shoot foes. Instead, he whacks them with his bat. His other primary means of both offence and defence is batting enemy projectiles back at them. Early on, he learns to throw his bat at opponents (we’re pretty sure that’s an illegal move in baseball), and later he tosses tennis balls, basketballs, and more. Much like how Shovel Knight can bounce off foes with his shovel, Bat Boy also garners airtime if he whacks an opponent in the air, creating a fluid movement system that requires precise timing yet feels fair and satisfying.

While we enjoyed Bat Boy’s base moveset, we hardly used most of his friends’ abilities once we learned them. The Basketeer’s bouncing basketball attack, for instance, we forgot about, and we rarely found a use for Starlet Twirl’s Grappling Ribbon. On the other hand, Aquaria’s invincibility bubble saved us from striking out time and time again. These abilities share limited stamina, so we felt pressured into saving the uses to keep ourselves alive in the enemy-dense stages.
These enemies mostly consist of Pigzies, which are adorable little pig monsters dressed up in all manner of costumes: hockey Pigzies that skate around on slippery ice surfaces, samurai Pigzies that slash with their kendo swords, infuriating tennis-racket-wielding Pigzies that knock back any projectile without fail, and so forth. When a stage was absolutely filled with Pigzies and other critters, the sheer amount of baseballs and soccer balls thrown around can overwhelm. It was a good thing that we could increase Bat Boy’s health through finding optional hidden herbs throughout each stage

Without these health upgrades, we would have never been able to finish the game, and we consider ourselves quite experienced in 2D action platforming. This was because a couple of the levels threw absurd difficulty spikes our way, to the point where we failed upwards of 40 times in one stage and then cleared the subsequent stage in under five attempts. Checkpoints kept things from becoming too impossible, but as you’d expect, the final checkpoint before the boss of each stage required swatting and jumping through an absolute gauntlet of challenge.
Mr. Blitzer’s lava-themed stage, in particular, had us ready to chuck our bat out the window. After a lengthy sequence, the pre-checkpoint challenge required dodging a pig-nosed lava shark on a small raft with limited room to manoeuvre, before a horde of Chargin’ Chuck-like Pigzies rushed us. If we weren’t determined to see Bat Boy through for review purposes, this section might have stopped us from returning to finish.
That’s strike one. Strike two comes from a few bugs and glitches. These ranged from enemies and obstacles getting stuck in the environment, to being unable to resume play after opening the pause menu. The latter required us to close out of the game entirely, losing our checkpoint progress more than once before we remembered to open up the Home menu on the Switch instead.

Near the end of the game, Gooiji-like clones of Bat Boy mirror his movements until lured into the rain where they melt. However, as we tried and failed this difficult (but fair) section multiple times, the Gooiji Bat Boys eventually glitched out and stopped spawning altogether, negating an otherwise climatic challenge that led up to the second-to-last boss fight.
Conclusion
If you’re itching for some classic action platforming with a Mega Man flavour, Bat Boy will satisfy. It has a fun sports theme, some great tunes, and vibrant levels to navigate. As fans of that genre, we enjoyed most of our time with it outside of a few sudden spikes in difficulty and a handful of bugs – particularly one that lost us progress if we dared to use the pause menu. A patch or two post-launch might alleviate these issues, but in its current state, Bat Boy doesn’t hit a home run — though it doesn't quite strike out, either.
Comments 23
Is it just me, or does it look like they ripped color palettes straight from Shovel Knight?
Looks like something to maybe pickup in a sale someday when I have nothing else to play and need a retro fix
@Bret At least the cover art is better than Shovel Knight's cover art lol. Ngl game looks cool honestly!
@Bret Not only the colors.
I really enjoyed that Kraino game that came out recently, this seems to have a similar 'Shovel Knight inspired' aesthetic. Too bad it's not quite up to snuff.
If I want a fun, colorful MM esque rip off, I'll take Azure Striker and Whomp Em.
Not really a sporty person.
Too bad hearing about the difficulty spikes and hope they'll eventually be able to fix at least the game breaking bugs/glitches, but I might still be checking this out later (most likely on sale)!
You typically don't see a 6/10 from nintendolife. that's concerning.
This review is sort of a bummer. I was looking forward to this one, but I’ll toss it on the back burner for now and wait on the eventual deep sale, I suppose. I’d like a good retro fix, but I’ve got my hands full with Zelda anyway.
I’m still interested in this. Difficulty spikes may or may not be a problem. The glitches I expect will get patched. I’m going to keep building my retro style game collection, but I’ll wait a little while to see if they patch this one.
Bring back Ninja Baseball Bat Man instead!
@Bret NES palette?
I'm still really interested in this. Just hoping it gets patched.
@Guitario Maybe? The NES could display 64 colors per game, but I don't know if those colors were the same from game to game.
@Bret No, my first thought was Shovel Knight knockoff
eh im probably still going to get it, it appeals to me
@Waluigi451 agreed. Looks like this will be on my wish list but it will be a lot of fun. NES game homages grab my attention every time.
But was Bat Boy found in cave?
The only thing that made me leery about this game was the potential difficulty. The developer's last game, Smelter, was so infuriatingly difficult that i actually gave up on it about 3/4 through. If this game continues that tradition, I might have to pass on it...
The Mega Man formula is very beloved, that is for sure. If I played every Mega Man-alike that's out now I'd hardly have time to play anything else. Venture Kid, MetaGal, and many many more.
@Jop Except Shovel Knight didn't do that.
https://lospec.com/palette-list/nintendo-entertainment-system
https://lospec.com/palette-list/shovel-knight-nes
They should make a game about the OG Bat Boy!

I'm 8/12 levels through the game, and I'm personally having a blast! No glitches to speak of and the game hasn't been too difficult thus far, very fair. I really hope everyone gives it a chance, because it's really good and worth playing.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...