Batman: Dark Tomorrow

Gotham City is on the Verge of a Dark Tomorrow

NA release: 18th March 2003
JP release: 21st March 2003
EU release: 11th April 2003
Developer: Kemco
Publisher: Kemco
NGC Magazine Score: 15%
Mods Used: None

After the immensely dull Batman Beyond game, Kemco decided to go about their own way and secured the Batman license for themselves (this time based on the comics) in order to develop an ambitious open world Batman game as a GameCube exclusive. Late on in development, it became a multiplatform game and the studio hired to do the Xbox Port, HotGen, discovered a colossal problem: there were lots of cutscenes and an orchestrated soundtrack, but there was very little game, and not much budget left over. The game had no working camera and the AI was done via code running in a Game Boy Advance Emulator. HotGen had to help Kemco make something out of the empty shell so they could then fulfil their contract for an Xbox port.

The end result, is, as you can expect, is a colossal mess. The camera issue was never solved, so Dark Tomorrow has fixed cameras, with no thought put into where they are. They flip at random places (which alters Batman’s controls) and you often have to roam aimlessly until you get a camera angle where you can see what you need to progress. Quite often you’ll also hit loading screens without warning, which can actually be useful as enemies will vanish. This massively impacts both the combat and platforming, which is the entire game. What’s even stranger is there’s a first person camera for aiming and night vision, so it’s not a limitation of the game world.

The first part of the game shows you how much of a failure the game was. Batman has to navigate rooftops. He has two kinds of grapple, one that allows him to swing and one that helps with vertical movement. The swinging one is useless, so you have to use the vertical one, go up, do a bizarre jump that is very acrobatic but only moves Batman forward a tiny amount, and then repeat the process multiple times to get past small gaps. It’s so bad that this kind of grappling is never used again (and if you attempt to use it to get around elsewhere, you’ll get stuck).

The combat itself is also tedious. Enemies that get knocked down will get back up if you don’t handcuff them. Fine when dealing with the two, but a nightmare in large groups as they can interrupt your handcuff animation (which also features multiple jarring camera cuts). This means you have to knock down all enemies and then start handcuffing, although most times some start getting up before you can knock the others down, so you’ll just have to hope the AI decides to not attack you.

The cutscenes are impressively made, but lose a lot of impact because the player knows nothing about this interaction of Batman unless they were up to date with the comics of the time. Robin and an extremely creepy Batgirll appear randomly in cutscenes and it can be confusing when you don’t know the abilities of his current villains. The biggest example is Scarface, who is usually just a ventriloquist puppet that acts as a split personality of the person using it. In one cutscene, Batman decapitates Scarface and the puppet continues talking on his own. Oh, and then Batman shuts him up by throwing a fish in its mouth.

Each level is a boring mess of mazes and pathways obscured by the camera, with the ideal situation to try and run past everything. The best way to deal with bosses is to get lucky and if you manage to get to the end of the game, Ra’s al Ghul will set off nukes, destroying the world. You see, there’s a secret objective the game gives you zero hints about.

Early on in the game, you’re introduced to the ”Universal Gadget” and told it can unlock doors (although the first two locked doors you encounter, such as around the corner from this message, can’t be opened with the tool) and other things. Right near the end of the game is a computer you have to use it on that will disarm the nukes. That said, I think the world burning ending is definitely more fitting for the game. It’s a complete mess that’s painful to play, and I’d much rather play Batman Beyond on N64.

Worst

Like having the skin flayed from your fingertips, dunking you hand into pickling vinegar and then plunging your digits into a bag of salt, Batman: Dark Tomorrow is literally no fun. That it’s also arguably worse than Jimmy Neutron, GameCube’s current Worst Game, is a tragedy. At one time, this looked very promising indeed.
Jes Bickham, NGC Magazine #81

Remake or remaster?

The original concept had potential, but there’s not really a game here to fix. You may as well make something from scratch.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to get Batman: Dark Tomorrow.