Justice League Task Force Review: The 16-Bit DC Comics Fighting Game
Playing and reviewing classic games of yesteryear using original consoles and physical game copies. Have you played this one?
Game Title: Justice League Task Force
Developer: Sunsoft and Condor, Inc. (later known as Blizzard North)
Publisher: Acclaim
Release: 1995
Platforms: Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo (SNES is a different developer)
I’ve never been the biggest fighting game guy. I’ll partake in some Smash Bros. here and there and have been known to throw down in Mortal Kombat or Soul Calibur from time to time, but when it comes to technical 2D fighters that are all about memorizing moves, countering attacks, and really building up those callouses on your thumbs I’m at a bit of a loss.
Justice League Task Force then, on paper, isn’t button-masher friendly for people like me—but it caught my attention anyway. You can read my full review below, or watch it in the video above. It’s all my own footage and screenshots captured from my actual Sega Genesis (Model 2) via Hyperkin HDMI cable and El Gato HD60X capture card.
Case and Manual
First and foremost, it’s got great cover art. That piece communicates very clearly that all of these iconic characters you know are going to be in this game and they will be playable. Fortunately, it delivers on that promise. Looking at the back cover it’s clear it’s a fighting game for up to two players, rather than a beat ‘em up or action platformer, so generally speaking they did a great job on the case and artwork.
The manual is a different story, unfortunately. The fact it’s black and white isn’t awful considering the comic book roots, and it has some good background detail on the game’s storyline, but it’s not very useful beyond that. Each character has a move list displayed, but it only tells you how to do each move, not what each move actually does. That’s pretty annoying.
Nostalgia and Memories
I distinctly remember renting this game just one time from Blockbuster growing up because I had loved The Death and Return of Superman. As a big fan of other beat ‘em ups such as Streets of Rage and Golden Axe, having a dedicated Superman game in that same genre was amazing to me. I’d later go on to watch and love the Batman, Superman, and Justice League animated shows so that game was very formative for my interests.
Fast forward a while later to me browsing Blockbuster one Friday night and Justice League Task Force immediately caught my eye. A friend was coming over that evening so even though I usually didn’t play fighting games much, this was a perfect scenario and to our little kid minds, it was pretty spectacular.
Worth Your Time?
Justice League Task Force is a game I love to think about and look at, but not really play. Visually I love the large sprites and the detailed backgrounds, but it’s just so cumbersome and clunky to control. It seems like it’s going for an amalgamation of the floaty controls you get in Street Fighter II, but without the combat precision, mixed with big characters and very deliberate moves like in Eternal Champions, but without the oomph and spectacle.
I mean, this is a fighting game featuring characters that can defeat Gods and zip around the planet in a matter of seconds. They should feel powerful and larger than life, but they barely register as competent fighters, let alone the most powerful beings on Earth.
Capturing the feats and power of a superhero in a 16-bit video game back in 1995 isn’t easy, but they could have been a bit more creative here. Each character’s moveset is basically identical with slight variations. For example, The Flash throws tornadoes while Batman throws a batarang. Wonder Woman does a sliding kick and, you guessed it, so does Batman too. Superman can freeze you with his breath, and Green Arrow gets an ice arrow.
You get the idea. Once you’ve played one or two characters, you’ve played them all and the inputs are mostly identical across the board.
That’s not to mention the insane difficult as well. Even on ‘Easy’ it felt like I was playing a CPU hellbent on making sure I didn’t have a good time. It took me several matches to get the hang of things and the CPU is so aggressive you barely have time to breath. They’re very spammy and cheap with their moves as well, which makes it frustrating to try and fight fairly, or at least in a fun way.
That’s not to say that this is a game without merit. As I’ve explained I really do think the power of the IP cannot go overstated and visually it’s quite impressive, especially on the Sega Genesis. The character sprites are large and highly detailed with some great backgrounds as well. Levels like Batman’s Gotham have wonderful moody backdrops and Superman’s stage atop the Daily Planet building is extremely iconic.
I didn’t love the music nearly as much, though. I gravitated towards The Flash as my character of choice, but I frankly hated his song that played during levels. It sounded a bit like someone was dragging their entire face across a synthesizer and my ears were straight up not having a good time, at all.
Reception at Release
Justice League Task Force was not very well received when it originally came out and that reputation has more or less held strong ever since. This is a game that was released on the Sega Genesis and SNES in a world where the Sega Saturn was already out in Japan and North America, the PS1 was out in Japan and soon to be out in North America, and most of the world had moved on from not only this generation but this particular genre on these platforms.
Street Fighter II had already been out and available on home consoles like the SNES and Genesis for multiple years and looking at just the Genesis platform, even Eternal Champions had come and gone already.
Final Verdict
Justice League Task Force mostly resides in the bucket of licensed games that aren’t really notable beyond the IP they represent. Duking it out with the likes of Wonder Woman and Batman is fun in and of itself, especially considering the wonderfully large sprites and detailed pixel art, but beneath the surface is a fighting game that feels like it’s missing something.
Since I’m not a big fighting game aficionado or avid player, it’s hard for me to say that this game is particularly bad, but I’m not sure I’d recommend it unless you’re a big fan of the characters or a collector like myself.
Which other retro games would you like to see me review on original hardware? I have a large collection of over 700 games across a wide variety of systems (including Sega Genesis, Saturn, SNES, N64, GameCube, PS2, Xbox, and more) and I’m slowly collecting, playing, and reviewing every Sega Dreamcast game.
Have you played Justice League Task Force? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
Hey David! Just found your Substack today via your review every Dreamcast game project which sounds awesome. Looking forward to reading more of your work!
Justice League Task Force passed me by, somehow. If I knew when I was young that Batman was in a fighting game, I would have rented this, no question.