Ranking Every Video Game Joker From Worst To Best
Which iteration was a cut above the rest?
In the inundated landscape that is Batman media, there have been more villains than storylines. But despite the oversaturation of numerous adaptations, a multitude of new nemesis' being spawned over nearly 100 years of continuity and a vast amount of recreations of requisite plots, there remains one villain who has never been dethroned as the caped crusader's all-time arch nemesis.
Whether he goes by Jack Napier, Arthur Fleck of even Le Joker, it's not only arguable that he's the pinnacle of comic book villainy, it's debatable that he's bigger and more influential - if not more iconic - than the eponymous Batman which produced him. Both within the pages of the comic and in terms of the brilliant writing from Bill Finger and Bob Kane.
Since making the jump to video games in the late 1980s, there have been countless manifestations of this purple clad sadist to choose from, with some being malignant to a positive reception and some just being viciously bombarded with existential criticism.
Which one will prevail over the rest? Well, there's only one way to find out.
And... here... we... go.
11. Commodore, 8-Bit, Game Boy And Early 16-Bit Iterations
Games: Batman The Caped Crusader, Batman (1989/1990), Return of The Joker, Revenge of the Joker, Batman: The Animated Series.
In the early days of companies gaining a penchant for the lucrative sensibilities of video games becoming genuine revenue generators, almost every popular license in existence was being outsourced to different developers.
Coincidentally, Batman just happened to have a gargantuan pop-culture resurgence around the same time, and with Tim Burton's theatrical interpretation exploding in the box office, plans to create tie-in video games were quickly being made.
The predominant issue that plagued a lot of these titles, both at the time and retrospectively, was that gaming wasn't anywhere near as technologically advanced as cinema, and a fair few elements were lost in translation due to this.
Mainly, the maliciously joyous personality of Nicholson's show-stealing performance as the Crown Prince of Crime. The main antagonist that featured in every video game accompaniment to the source material.
Perhaps people were able to heavily rely on their imagination more prominently during this infantile era. As the deplorable lack of personality imbued here - depending on your stance - is either laughably bad, or no laughing matter. The first appearance(s) of the Joker - despite being profitable - are not exactly prolific.