Teen Titans: Battle Blitz | a Review
originally published on 14/12/2024;
Hello everyone, I am the big hitter, G.E.M.Simov, a fellow who’s been a teen and a titan at various points in life, and I’m here to tell you about this one flash game called “Teen Titans: Battle Blitz”.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
Teen Titans Battle Blitz (TTBB) is a fighting game. Quite rudimentary, but a fighting game nonetheless. It features 10 total Characters, each with a different moveset (limited to 4 special combinations of buttons that act as special attacks and a set of ordinary attacks), while also sporting different sizes, which have a very particular effect on some attacks.
These 10 Characters are split into Heroes and Villains, with 5 of each variety. Heroes cannot fight Heroes, and Villains cannot fight Villains, as a result of which the Player is relatively restricted in only being able to fight 5 Characters, rather than 9 or even 10.
The way the game works is by thrusting the Player into a minimalistic menu that allows them to pick a Character to play as (by default one of the five Heroes), with a button present that allows them to switch to playing as one of the five Villain Characters. Aside from that, the Player has the option to click a button that shows off the controls for their currently selected Character (which selection occurs by clicking the portrait of the Character the Player wants to play, so long as they are in the appropriate “Play As” state). Said controls are the same with the exception of the aforementioned combos.
Then, the last option of the Player is to select an opponent - which happens in the same way selecting a Character to play as does, with the exception that each opponent must first be unlocked by beating the previous opponent as the currently selected Character. Afterwards, the Player selects the “Fight” option and is thrown into a fight.
The way a winner is decided is by having either the Player or the opponent win two rounds out of three possible. A round is won by either reducing the opponent’s Health to zero (depleting their health bar) or by having more health than the opponent when the 90-second timer expires.
Additionally, there is a score system (that has no function other than being there) which awards points to the Player whenever they strike the opponent while the opponent is not ducking. Different attacks award different quantities of points.
So, the fighting. The Player moves around with the Arrow Keys, in particular Left and Right, while the Up Arrow allows them to jump into the air, and the Down Arrow makes their Character duck, effectively making them block and reducing the amount of damage they take from attacks, while also preventing possible ‘staggers’ - which occur whenever the Character is hit while not ducking and temporarily lead to a short loss of control. Oddly enough, some Characters do not actually duck - they just change the way they look while they are ducking.
That is troublesome, because there are projectiles and relatively precise hitbox detection on certain moves, and height is important. There are short Characters who cannot be hit by certain moves, and are even harder to hit whenever they are ducking. Then there are tall characters who, whenever ducking, do not change their heights at all. Some attacks are completely useless against certain Characters, because said Characters are just too short.
The alternative is Characters who are just too big and cannot even be jumped over, or cannot be knocked down - which occurs following a successful, un-ducked combo attack. These oddities are interesting, if a bit unpleasant to contend with.
The main issues present here are that there is a great rigidity to the movement and a very pronounced lack of options. Aside from the attacks that can be performed while stationary - a Punch and a Kick - and the combos, there is only one other attack that can be used, and that is a jumping attack which can only be done at a certain elevation, thus rendering it quite situational.
The lack of options is very bothersome, because it restricts the Player to using only the combos - which, naturally, as with every fighting game out there (or most of them, at least), are monstrously clunky and unresponsive. The longer the string of inputs that needs to be performed, the less likely the Player is to be able to perform the combo successfully, thus resulting in the Player having, roughly, three or four moves that they can reliably use (and those include the Punch and Kick, those most basic attacks).
There is one other thing that the Player can affect, and that is the difficulty of the game. At the very start of it, the Player can pick one of three difficulties, with the thing that changes being how aggressive the opponent is (how often they attack), how much damage the opponent does and how much damage the opponent takes. Ultimately, this results in the Player just stacking the odds against themselves, as the opponent, being computer controlled, does not need to worry about inputs failing (thus failing combos).
Then again, if the change was limited to just how aggressive the AI was, the difficulty settings would be fine (or if there was an option to just change that, rather than damage numbers as well), however, due to the fact that they make the Player Character die in roughly four hits on the highest difficulty, I argue it is not an overall good implementation of difficulty settings.
Overall, the game is not bad, however it is not too good either. It is a bit of advertising that wound up being very neat, filling out a niche that was otherwise vacant, as a result of which it had some pull. It is fun for around an hour, until every Character has been tried, but after that it loses its luster. 2/3
Presentation
This game presents itself in a stellar fashion. Not only does it look good - courtesy of the phenomenal work done on the sprites that are in use - but it also features a very satisfactory tutorial, which not only fails to impose upon the Player, but also conveys all the information needed.
Granted, there are issues here and there - such as there being almost no hit-feedback whenever Characters land hits on one another, there is no music during fights, there is no in-depth explanation of mechanics, such as how damage is dealt relative to the actions of the Character being hit - but at the same time those are somewhat minor, considering this is a flash game.
Not only that, but they barely take away from the experience. Still, for a flash game it presents itself admirably, especially due to the fact that it sports a minimalist appearance - in the sense that it only has what the Player needs, with absolutely no additional menus and no additional clicks (though this is also a Gameplay related element). Thus, it is quite satisfactory overall. 2/3
Story
There is no story, aside from a little blurb about the villains attacking and the heroes needing to deal with them. 0/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the Legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? While I am tempted to say yes, due to the fact that this was one of THE fighting games back in the day, especially for children with frugal or poor parents, considering everything else was locked behind a console.
It was also a very good looking game, owed up to the use of well drawn sprites. However, it has a number of issues, and, ultimately, was not that fun even in the past. So NO, it does not get the point. 0/1
Conclusion
4/10. Teen Titans Battle Blitz is a silly little flash game that has a very neat appearance and a connection to the fabled Teen Titans property, but aside from that is not very entertaining. For those who have played it in their childhood, it has sentimental value, but for newcomers it is very middling and, at best, interesting to sample. I would not really recommend it to anyone aside from fans of Teen Titans.
In the bag of mediocrity it goes. Amazing how some things seems so precious when we know so little…