Batman: Arkham Series

[Leo656]

So I know this series has been talked about a lot here before, and probably had its own thread at one point, but I frankly can't be assed to look for it. Whenever it was had to have been ages ago and it would take me forever to find it, so whatever, deal.

Anyways, I recently got around to playing "Origins" for the first time, finally, and wanted to talk about it at-length as I usually do with most games I play. About halfway through my first playthrough, I decided I may as well just run through the entire series in storyline order, giving my thoughts and reviews as I go. And I figured other people would probably have their own two cents to drop in. So rather than do it in the "Currently Playing" thread, I figured I'd just do a new one dedicated to the series as a whole. Sound good? Good.

So first up, Batman: Arkham Origins (Xbox 360). Been on my shelf for years, never played it until about a month ago. What I think happened was, WAY back in the day I stopped playing "Arkham City" once I beat the main Story mode because I had a ton of Riddler Trophies left to find and just couldn't be bothered, even though I know I will "have" to get them eventually because I have a bit of a compulsion about leaving things "unfinished". Since then, whenever I've been tempted to play any Arkham game, all I think of is "Riddler Trophies" and it puts me off of the idea, and then I play something else. Not cool, I know, but it's how my brain works sometimes.

To jump ahead a little bit, SOME of that fear was indeed warranted, as once again hunting down the Riddler stuff ("Data Packs", this time) was by far my least favorite part of this game by a mile. I don't hate the idea of it by any means, and in each game I've played there's some fun to be had and some of the methods for finding them are indeed clever. But there's WAY too many of them in every game I've played, and even though I use a Guide to get them all as quickly as possible it still makes the game about three times longer than it needs to be, and it's very blatant padding. Way too many super-hero games do this sh*t. Like, 50-100 Riddler collectibles, okay, fine, but HUNDREDS of them in every game? Now you're just jerking off.

The dirt-worst is when I'm just about to get one of them and get taken out by a sniper I somehow didn't see. :roll: Nothing like getting killed during a completely pointless and arbitrary side-quest that feels like it should've been about half as deep. Especially when almost nothing in the Main Game is all that difficult or likely to kill you.

So anyways, yeah, this game has some problems compared to its predecessors, and I'll get those out of the way first, but to me the Riddler stuff was the worst, just because it's SO needlessly bloated. I DO love the concept of it, though, and I like how Riddler (or "Enigma", this time) was done in these games, I like it quite a lot. He doesn't really "fit" the tone of these games otherwise but I'm glad they found a way to include him. It works. There's just way too much of it.

I'm aware that this game has a reputation of being sort of the "black sheep" of the series, since it was made by different people than the other games, and apparently launched with a bunch of bugs and glitches and other things (most of which seem to have been patched out; I had a few bugs including once or twice where I had to restart the game but nothing major at all). But I honestly liked it a lot, way more than some of the reviews had me expecting to. That said, there ARE some things that bothered me, and like the Riddler stuff, it's not so much in the concept as the execution of certain elements.

Stuff That Bugged Me:

- For example, the "Dark Knight" Challenges, specifically the stealth or "Worst Nightmare" challenges. When I first saw it, I was like "Oh, cool!" Getting little upgrades and rewards for playing the game a certain way, mastering certain techniques, it makes sense. But I HATED how they forced you to get them done in a certain order; for example, by the time I'd gotten to the "Stop a random crime in each district" Challenge, I'd already done that about five times over just by playing through the game, but obviously did not get credit for it because I didn't do it when the game decided I "should" do it. But it's only REALLY a problem with the stealth challenges, specifically because some of them can only be done in certain rooms and therefore you get only one or two chances at them, AND since they need to be done in order it becomes almost impossible to do some of them until you're on New Game + or "I Am The Knight" Mode, which by default makes getting them a lot harder.

On my first playthrough, I'd gotten all of the other Challenges done and about half of the stealth ones done. I had to do the rest of the stealth ones during New Game +, and I don't mind telling you, a couple of those were among the least-fun and most frustrating things I've ever had to deal with. A lot of them were still easy, but some of them were made more difficult than they had to be since enemies on New Game + either wear armor (thus making them immune to Stealth takedowns you HAVE to do in order to get the Challenge credit) or else don't end up going near where they need to go so you can get the proper takedown. Rooms I'd whipped through in two minutes the first time through, I'd spend an hour retrying over and over just because nobody would go near the wall I needed to smash through, or wouldn't go near the propane tank I needed to blow them up with, or some nonsense. Too many times they'd just ignore the Sonic Batarang or whatever other tricks I'd use to try and lure them into position and do whatever they felt like. It was SUPER annoying. Once I finally got them all completed, it was one of those "Thank GOD I never have to do this again for the rest of my life!" moments. So yeah, this could've been done better; either the criteria for the Stealth challenges could've been less strict, OR they just could have let you complete the various Challenges in any order you wanted to, and in either case it would have made things far less annoying.

- The Deadshot mission wasn't bad altogether, but there were a few times that it glitched and I lost automatically. Like I didn't notice that his Health was already super-low and so I'd go to beat him up after a takedown, only for him to immediately kill the hostage before I could even make any effort to hide (like he would "warp" to the hostage regardless of where we'd been before and immediately kill them), and a few times I was behind him and the Takedown button simply wouldn't respond and he'd "see me" (even though I was behind him) and kill the hostage. I looked it up and saw that a lot of people had similar "automatic fail" issues on that mission, and was relieved it wasn't just me. Apparently it was much worse before the patch. Regardless, good idea overall but hurt by some bugginess.

- Both fights with Bane were made more annoying than they had to be, particularly on New Game +, by all the random dorks the game drops on you while you're trying to fight Bane. Especially when he does that stupid "bull charge" move, which is already annoying enough because so much of the time he "magically" hits you even when you dodge at the right time. I lost track of how many times I jumped far out of the way, only for him to be drawn to me like a magnet and run me over; this usually ended up with me pinned against a wall, where he'd do the same thing and I'd lose all my health in five seconds between him ramming me and the other idiots dogpiling me. There were times when it seemed like every single time I'd stun Bane, three other guys would attack me at once before I could even hit him, and then he'd charge and I'd be unable to dodge in time. Again, not terrible, but could've been tightened up. The normally-stupid enemy AI was magically super-aggressive during the Bane fights and it was aggravating.

- Magic Snipers. Seriously, there's a bunch of times when they absolutely should not be able to see you, but they do, and then you're dead in two hits no matter how much you upgraded your armor. The enemy AI is basically very inconsistent, being either brick-stupid or magically flawless, and the snipers are a good example. It got to the point where if the snipers spotted me, I'd just restart from the last checkpoint rather than try to run away or fight them.

- Graphics "pop-up" or "draw-in". It's minor, but I can't get over how when you go to select one of the alternate Batman skins, it starts out all blurry for a second and the game has to "draw" it in front of you. That feels sloppy and unfinished.

- Robin being Multiplayer Only. Why bother even having him playable? This was super-annoying, because the character skins look great and I would very much like to be able to at least play as him on regular Challenge maps, like Bruce or Deathstroke.

- Unobtainable Skins/DLC. This is GARBAGE whenever companies do this. Having a skin locked behind something like "WBID", which you can't even use anymore, is ridiculous and never should have been done. Likewise, I wasn't aware when I got the game that the PS3 version of the game had exclusive Knightfall skins and Challenge Maps, along with the Adam West Batman skin. I can see it being a limited-time "exclusive", but at some point it should have been released for the 360 as well. Preferably for free under Season Pass, but even if it was like $5 paid DLC that would be acceptable. Better than just "you can never own this unless you bought the PS3 version". I like the game a lot, but I'm not buying it again just for that. Even if I had bought the PS3 version instead, the fact that stuff was never made available on 360 is unacceptable. Companies need to stop doing that sh*t.

(Cont.)

[Andrew NDB]

I didn't get far into Origins. It was a birthday present years and years ago. I played it a little bit and then never again. Then I got to a certain point in Arkham Knight where I'd get killed right away by 12 thugs and just sort of gave up on the series.

[Leo656]

Things I Liked/Loved:

Pretty much everything else, but I'll do a few specifically.

- The graphics/overall look of the game. That's consistent with the entire series but bears mentioning again. I really liked all the character designs.

- Boss Fights. Really creative and well-done. Deathstroke and Copperhead stand out in particular. I laughed my ass off at the Electrocutioner "fight"; that was unexpected and very clever.

- "Most Wanted" Side Missions. Great way to include some of the various villains who weren't part of the main plot. The Anarky stuff was cool, good use of a relatively minor character. Yeah, some of these felt a little like padding - Go Here, fight bad guys, blow up this thing, repeat - but it still felt organic to the storyline and the gameplay.

- World-Building. This series has always been great for that. I love the little ambient conversations with the random grunts scattered around the city, and how they'd react to events from earlier in the game. It really goes a long way towards making the city feel real and lived-in. A lot of the dialog repeats after a while, but it's no big deal.

- Combat. Again, maybe the thing the series is most known for. It admittedly doesn't feel as "tight" here as it did in Asylum and City, but still very good. I love the dynamic physics where depending on where you are your attacks might see you DDT a guy into a wall, smash their face into a railing, or what have you. Very brutal. I also love how Batman will finish someone off after he interrogates them, some of those hits look brutal, like when he drops a knee across a guy's face for example. Good stuff.

- Bruce Wayne and Deathstroke DLC. The Challenge Maps have always been a fun addition to keep people playing once the main story is done, and these are a great addition. I liked that Bruce's were done with their own mini-Story for them.

- Roster of Villains. Some great picks here, including Shiva who seemingly never gets any love. And everyone they included made sense for the story and felt like they fit perfectly. Nobody felt like they were there just to be there, except for Electrocutioner for obvious reasons.

- Unlockable/Downloadable Skins. I'll be honest, I'm never going to use most of these, and I wish that they'd instead gone with some of the ones that ended up being used in other Arkham games, instead. But I love that they even bother to do this stuff at all. I just wish that when a new game came out, they'd still keep the skins that came with the previous game(s) and simply added more new ones, rather than most of them only being in one game and not the others. Also, this game needed a "classic" Neal Adams-inspired skin, the blue-and-gray with the "yellow oval" Bat-logo. Seeing as how they included the First Appearance skin - which looks way better in this game than it ever did on the printed page - it's kind of unforgivable that we don't get a "classic" Batman skin as well. Especially since the Adam West skin, the closest to that design, is PS3-only.

As is, I mostly play with either the First Appearance skin or the "Long Halloween" skin, with the latter being a fairly decent compromise (even though I hate the long "biker shorts" on Batman), but c'mon guys. They knew everyone would want the "classic" skin, and it feels like it was excluded for no reason than spite.

- The Story. I'll be honest, my opinion might shift when I play Asylum and City again, but I *think* this might be my favorite Story in the series thus far. As far as stories regarding Batman's first meeting with the Joker go, this is definitely one of the better ones, to me. It's pretty straightforward, nothing shocking or incredibly unexpected, I just think it was well-done on the whole even if it wasn't especially groundbreaking. I got a kick out of the Joker's Red Hood flashback sections as well, along with little things like Batman's Red Hood bulletin board in the Batcave which foreshadow Joker's eventual involvement in the story later on.

- "Cold, Cold Heart" DLC. I played through this after beating New Game +, and I really dug it. Again, not a ton of new wrinkles on the classic Mr. Freeze origin story, but I'll take "simple but well-done" any day. I liked how with the environmental changes and so on, it made revisiting parts of the map you'd already played through in the main game feel fresh. I also liked the beginning section where you played as Bruce in Wayne Manor, even though it felt a bit derivative of the stages in the "Batman Begins" game where you did essentially the same thing. But altogether it was a great addition to the main game.

- Voice Acting. I'll be honest, I think I prefer Batman and Joker's voices here over Conroy and Hammill. At the very least, they were similar enough so as not to be distracting. Not a popular opinion, I know, but as "iconic" as those guys are I've always been annoyed by how people insist nobody but them can do the roles any justice.
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So yeah, "Origins" has a bit of a mixed reputation but I think it holds up just fine alongside Asylum and City. It definitely has some problems, but what I think hurts those parts the most is how easy they'd be to have fixed. It very well could have been the best game in the series with just a little more polish. As it is, I still think it's really good.

One thing I couldn't help but think of while playing this game, was how badly I wished they would have done a game where you had Batman, Robin, and Nightwing as playable characters and could switch between them GTA V-style. That would have been amazing.

I'm also aggravated that Robin and Nightwing have such minimal presence in this series as a whole, to the point where you could kind of remove them from existence completely and the series would not be very much different. With an eight-year gap in-story between Origins and Asylum, there's still plenty of fertile storytelling ground where you could very easily cover all the Robin stuff, and I'm annoyed that they didn't bother. It comes off like, "Well, we put them in a little bit because we put everything else from the mythos in there, but we're rather embarrassed of Robin and only did so at gunpoint." You really get the feeling that the writers wished they didn't have to touch on Robin/Nightwing at all. That's a shame. Especially with how strongly Origins leans on "Batman can't do it all by himself" as a point. You'd think a game where they covered Robin's origin was a no-brainer. But again, I have a strong feeling they only did anything with Robin because they were "forced" to.

Anyways, great game, barring a few annoying parts. More to come as I'll be covering each game individually as I go along. Feel free to add whatever.

[IMJ]

Love the first two. Loved 'em. Never bought Origins because my gaming was tapering off more and more by that point and I had read some believably negative stuff about it (couldn't tell you what that was at this point).

Wanted to play Knight on the PS4 because it looked like City but amped up - I guess you could drive the friggin' Batmobile in it. But by that point I had two or three PS4 games in the shrink wrap and never bough it. I still have "The Sunken City" untouched in my collection. LOL!

But the Arkham games were great for my hand in them. Asylum was a very tough Platinum. I think it came down to doing some of the combos for me to get it. To this day I'm probably still like 80 or 90% of the trophies on City.

[Sumac]

I've completed all 4 games few years ago and can say, aside from the Asylum all others had their problems in one way or the other. My minireviews of them:

Asylum - rare example of a perfect game, with amazing gameplay and setting. Story is whatever, but characters represented in amazing way. Battle system is cool.

City - bloated and boring. Story is whatever, but bad. Gameplay is somehow become worse and feels slower. Setting is boring.

Origins - next best thing to Asylum. City feels dead, but at least game has new types of enemies, which make fighting system more interesting to use and proper boss fights. Story is not bad, but could have been better, if it didn't had certain villain.

Knight - amazing controls and not much else. Gameplay feels like a downgrade from Origins. Batmobile segments are cool, but feel like they were meant for another game. Story is **** and lack of boss battles, except for one single optional boss battle, makes it a rather messy experience. It is not a bad game, but very lackluster for the final game in the series. Its like Rocksteady didn't know what to do with it.

[Andrew NDB]

I LOVED Arkham City. I got everything I wanted and more from it. Everyone was perfect in that except for Bane.

Arkham Knight... such a slog to get through. The Batmobile bits were cool for like the first 4 or 5 times then it became a chore, especially the ones where the Batmobile figures into the little geographical "puzzles" you have to solve around you, by bringing it to you or over a certain way.

[ProphetofGanja]

The Batmobile bits were cool for like the first 4 or 5 times then it became a chore, especially the ones where the Batmobile figures into the little geographical "puzzles" you have to solve around you, by bringing it to you or over a certain way.

Yeah, freaking same. I took longer to get through Knight just because some of the batmobile bits got so tedious and frustrating.

I remember liking Origins a lot when I played it, I borrowed a friend's copy after playing Asylum and City. I can't remember too much else about each game specifically though, been a long while since I played.

[Leo656]

Since I'm going in storyline order, last night I started on Arkham Origins: Blackgate - Deluxe Edition (Xbox 360). Never played this one before, heard a lot of very mixed things. So far it's... okay. Like it's not "bad" and some parts of it are actually rather impressive, but on the whole it's a bit underwhelming. I'm not very far into it, so far I've just hit each of the main areas in the prison just far enough to get the weapons I needed to progress - the Explosive Gel, Bat Claw, and the zipline thing - and stopped just before the Penguin boss fight since it was like 4am by that point.

Same format, I'll get the negatives out of the way first so it doesn't seem like it's all gripes. I like to end on a positive note, generally.

Things That Bug Me:

- Combat. It's admirable that they managed to condense the combat almost in its entirety from the main games into a 2.5 side-scroller, but right away it feels very "off". I do not especially recommend playing this game immediately after Origins or one of the other games in the series; you hit the same buttons to do the attacks and counters, but it does not feel right at all. The hits lack weight, the timing for counters is way off, and the physics feel wrong. Bad guys go down like they're made of cement, and it lacks the satisfying feeling of taking them out in the main games, where a well-timed uppercut or spin-kick would send a guy flying through the air like a rag doll. Here, they just kind of crumple, and again, the hits don't feel like they connect as solidly as they should in the first place.

It's nothing you can't adjust to, but it feels like it should've been easy enough to fix and they just didn't bother. Given how essential the combat has always been to the Arkham series, this might be THE most unforgivable sin this game has.

- Movement in general. Batman is SO stiff, and playing this game on it's linear 2.5D plane immediately following Origins is jarring. You keep feeling like you should be able to go to places you can't go because you're on a fixed plane and can (mostly) only move left and right. But you'll still be trying to move around and explore the levels in a more free-roaming style because that's what you're used to. Again, it's something you can adjust to, but it feels very stiff and clunky immediately after playing Origins, and it also feels more stiff than most other Batman side-scrollers historically have been.

- Storyline Repetition. I like the idea of being confined just to Blackgate; it hearkens back to the first game in the series with Asylum, and it fits the more scaled-down approach (since this was originally a handheld game). But ANOTHER riot at the prison? COME ON. Two in one day during Origins was already kind of flimsy, the the point even that game sort of poked fun at it a little bit. Now three months later there's ANOTHER riot? It's not really this game's fault, it makes storyline sense and in a vacuum it's a great way to go. But again, it feels incredibly redundant immediately after Origins. I'm not sure what else they could have done but it definitely feels a bit lazy.

- Too Much Backtracking. I'll be blunt, I'm never a huge fan of "Metroidvania"-style games anyway because to me, they feel like they're almost entirely padding. They always feel like there's a couple hours of solid gameplay, drawn out to needless length by forcing you to revisit places you've already been to multiple times because "This upgrade is hidden behind a destructible wall; this door they show you during the first hour of the game only opens after you beat a Boss about three or four hours later," and stuff like that. I don't hate that stuff, but it's definitely not my favorite and it NEVER feels organic at all. At some point those games become mind-numbing, to me.

It's worse in this game because...

- Lack of Enemies/General Emptiness. So far, there's hardly any enemies to fight (as mentioned, I'm about a third or halfway through each of the three areas of the prison, and haven't done any Boss Fights yet besides Bronze Tiger), and they don't respawn. There is a TON of backtracking in this game, which means that most of your time is spent (stiffly) running down empty hallways, vents, and corridors. This gets very boring and tedious. It does not feel like a "prison riot" scenario, at least not yet. It just feels like there's a few guys hanging out in an otherwise-empty prison just waiting for Batman to show up so they can very lazily try and fight him. Maybe it gets better near the back half, but so far the game just feels more empty and lifeless than it should. Origins felt so vibrant and full of life by comparison that playing this one right after feels like a huge step back.

I'm allowing for technical limitations since this was originally a handheld game, but it still doesn't feel quite right, and going back through areas you've already cleared is boring as hell.

- The Map. It's terrible. It's hard to tell which icon is your current position, it's very hard to tell where you're actually going as the map is at an odd angle which does not correspond to the direction you're facing ("Left" is not Left on the map, for example), and sometimes it looks like you're in the right room to find that one switch or collectible when in truth it's on the floor above or below you. The maps in the main series are so simple that I can't imagine why they went with this style for this, it's needlessly cluttered and complicated. They should have just used the exact same map style.

- The comic book-style cutscenes. I don't hate the idea of them, but I hate how they're drawn. They don't look anything like the in-game characters, which is especially jarring when it cuts from one of these to an in-game cutscene featuring the actual graphics engine. Really bad, needed someone much better on art duties here.

Things I Like:

- The Story (Mostly). Again, the prison riot scenario is redundant after Origins, but in a vacuum it's fine. Having Black Mask, Penguin and Joker each take over a section of the prison is a neat idea, and continues the story from Origins in a cool way since those three all had huge problems with each other by the end of that ordeal. I like the consistency and I like how it moves things forward from Origins in a nice way. Having Catwoman and Task Force X as part of the plot are also nice touches. Again, the only really "bad" thing about the plot is "We literally just had TWO Blackgate riots in the last game".

It does reinforce the series' narrative that Blackgate simply isn't equipped to handle these guys, which is why Arkham Asylum is necessary, but by the end of Origins I feel like we'd already made that point pretty f*cking clear already.

- The graphics. The in-game graphics do a nice job of recreating the look of the main games, and it looks a lot better than I expected. A lot of the prison looks a bit too bland and similar, except the section where Joker took over, but it definitely all feels consistent with the main series and much better than I'd expect a 2.5D side-scroller to look, just in general.

- Effort, if not Execution. You can tell they really did try to squeeze as much from the main games down into a handheld game as they possibly could, and I think they mostly did an okay job. It definitely needed to be tightened up, but again, it's not a bad attempt. Just should have had more time in the oven.

- Voice acting. Again, consistent with the main games, very well done.

That's about all I have to say about this one right now. I'll have more to add once I play through the rest of it later on tonight. I'm aware it's not very long, I just started it really late last night so I only played part of it. I think you have to play it three times to see all the different endings and get one of the unlockable costumes; not sure if I'll bother but if the second half of the game picks up a bit then I might.

In summation, so far I don't think Blackgate is "bad" but it definitely could have been a lot better without a whole lot of work being done to get there. In some ways, that annoys me more than games that are just plain busted. Especially since this "Deluxe Edition" came out way later than the original handheld ones did, you'd think they could have just fixed some of this stuff. As it is, it feels a bit unfinished.

[Leo656]

Wow, was not actually expecting so many responses already. :lol: Nice.

Couple things...

- Yeah, it's annoying to a point how in Origins, once AGAIN the Joker ends up being the main enemy (I'm not worrying about f*cking spoilers in a decade-old series, I'm just not :lol:). But like I said, as "first encounters" go I felt like it was one of the better ones, so I forgive it. It is annoying how they blatantly lied by setting up Black Mask as the main villain during the marketing, but I felt like the way the game executed the twist made sense.

They could just as well have called the entire series "Batman vs. Joker" just to have a little more truth in advertising. :lol: But it's whatever, that's the main through-line they chose for the series because "Joker Sells Product". At least the games did still find a way to represent most of the other major Batman villains along the way. I wasn't as put off about it as a lot of people seem to have been. When it comes to Joker being the main villain, they're damned either way. They "have" to do it even though it's redundant, because if they don't they'd just have a ton of "This would have been better with Joker in it" complaints, plus they're forever worried that a game without Joker will sell less and didn't want to take any chances. It is what it is.

- See, I don't remember a ton about City since it's been so long, but I didn't think the city in Origins felt "dead" or "lifeless" at all. It seemed (going from memory) to have a lot more enemies on the map and a lot more ambient chatter than Asylum and City did, which I appreciated. I remember gliding around the map in Asylum after beating the main game and having it feel like there was no point, it all felt really empty. Origins' Gotham feels pretty vibrant to me (allowing for the storyline fact that all civilians were evacuated from the city). But again, when I replay the others I'll have more to say about that, probably. All I can say on that specific criticism in regard to Origins is, "I disagree".

- Yeah, I've heard a lot of bad stuff about Arkham Knight. I still look forward to finally playing it. Again, the lies during the marketing are annoying; anyone who didn't know that Arkham Knight was Jason Todd has never read a Batman comic, and I hate that kinda sh*t. I'm fine that they picked him but that was some "Cumberbatch totally isn't playing Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness" type stuff. Don't insult people with very obvious lies, and maybe don't rely so heavily on "twists" to sell your product. Especially when everyone can see it coming anyway.

I'll probably like the game more than most people, as that ends up being the case with everything, generally. But I'm prepared to like it the least out of the four.
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I forgot to mention how I really liked the music in Origins. Felt very much in line with the Zimmer score from Nolan's movies, and to me that's a great thing.

[AquaParade]

I remember being a bit deflated when I started the game, coming off Arkham City, which did a much better job at introducing the world and "putting you in Batman's shoes." AC built things up well, so you could feel the polish. I remember Origins of just tossing you into it. First impressions are strong.

Granted, I played this game over a decade ago.

The combat was sort of broken by the shock-gauntlets, but still fun nonetheless.

Last thing I remember appreciating was the winter atmosphere of Gotham and I think the rooftops were higger than in City, for more verticality.

Oh yeah, lastly, I actually appreciated the story, the most out of all the Arkham Games. Despite not having Conroy and Hammil in the roles.

It was a solid entry into the series, imo.

[ProphetofGanja]

Yeah, I've heard a lot of bad stuff about Arkham Knight. I still look forward to finally playing it. Again, the lies during the marketing are annoying; anyone who didn't know that Arkham Knight was Jason Todd has never read a Batman comic, and I hate that kinda sh*t. I'm fine that they picked him but that was some "Cumberbatch totally isn't playing Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness" type stuff. Don't insult people with very obvious lies, and maybe don't rely so heavily on "twists" to sell your product. Especially when everyone can see it coming anyway.

Even knowing the twist, the story in Knight isn't bad.

But get ready for a fvck-ton of Riddler trophies!!! :lol:

[AquaParade]

I loved Arkham Knight. It’s my favorite of the series.

The Batmobile was overused, for sure, but I still had fun with it overall. Frankly, it was worth it, for being able to call the Batmobile whenever you were free roaming. That type of immersion combined with the upgraded graphics, and polish applied to the city, made for such a great experience for me.

My advice with that game is to upgrade all the Batmobile components first, if you’re trying to minimize your required time spent in it.

[Leo656]

Yeah, I can't imagine how tough it must have been to work the Batmobile into a game that was built entirely around the grappling/gliding travel mechanic.

In reading about the series, it seems like from the beginning they'd always hoped to have the Batmobile, but it was a case of "We can focus on one mechanic and do it really well, OR we can have both driving and rooftop travel and have each of them be less than they should be", and in the end they spent the resources on making the grappling/gliding perfect, since that was what you'd spend most of the game doing. Probably a wise decision. Like, NOT having the Batmobile feels weird on a surface level, but then at the same time while I'm swinging around Gotham I'm like, "Yeah, the car would probably break this." Like, by default it would have to be a completely different kind of game, or at the least it would be next to impossible to include vehicles without making the rooftop travel redundant. "Why glide when you can just drive?" Kinda like how in GTA games, once you get the jetpack the entire game is "broken" and you never need cars again. Stuff like that is tricky to balance.

It must have been INCREDIBLY difficult for them to figure out, and I'm not surprised that it sounds like they didn't really nail it. Especially since Arkham Knight was the "last" game in the series and they never had a chance to polish it any further.

Regardless, even though it's not perfect I expect to get a kick out of it. We'll see, it'll be a few weeks before I get there, most likely.
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I can't 100% any of these games. Usually because of the Challenge Maps. I think the closest I got was Asylum, but there were like one or two Medals I just couldn't crack. I'm okay with it, I do prefer to 100% most stuff I play but I don't have the patience to spend hours on one map trying to do it flawlessly anymore. I remember in one of the previous games getting within a hair of getting the highest score and then missing the Medal because I'd taken a single punch, or broken a combo too soon. After that I'm like "Eh, if I do it then fine and if not I don't care." I "can't" miss any story-related stuff or main game side missions, but I'm not as strict with myself about Challenge Maps anymore. That's just something I mess with when I'm bored before bed but don't want to stop playing yet.
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I want to find the guy who said "These games each need 400+ Riddler Trophies" and beat him into a coma with a sack of oranges. In front of his kids. These games would be SO MUCH BETTER if that stuff was kept to a more reasonable amount. As it is, it's intolerable and makes the games a chore. IF you're obsessive about sh*t like I am.
-----------------

I'm aware there's a spinoff coming out, "Gotham Knights" or something? Am I mistaken or is that supposedly more or less "having multiple playable characters and being able to swap between them", as I put forth earlier? Could be cool, but again, I'd much prefer a game like that with Batman, Robin, and Knightwing, and maybe Batgirl as well but definitely those three at least. As I said, that eight years between Origins and Asylum has so much stuff they could go back and fill in, especially with Robin and Knightwing. A GTA V-style spin would be fantastic if done right.

Maybe they'll get around to it, I don't know. I just know I'm mad they haven't by now. It feels like a logical next step, since the standard formula seems to have been thoroughly done by the time Arkham Knight came out.

[Sumac]

I feel like they integrated Batmobile in the game, because, they were afraid to mess with core mechanics.

[Turo602]

I actually started up my New Game Plus playthroughs of the Return to Arkham games around October and was surprised to learn Arkham Asylum didn't actually have one. So I played the game on Hard and I was honestly shocked at how amazing it still is. Especially after having completed the final Spider-Man DLC right before which was just a repeat of the other DLCs which is just the same stuff you did in the game numerous times already.

Arkham Asylum on the other hand has such incredible pacing that never devolves into doing the same thing for too long despite its core gameplay revolving around free-flow combat and stealthy predator segments. Both concepts evolve in various ways throughout the game, often forcing the player to broaden their skill set by incorporating new elements and challenges into the regular formula.

But the flow of gameplay is also greatly improved by the Riddler challenges that reward those who pay attention to detail and are familiar with Batman lore. Even the Riddler trophies feel rewarding simply because they encourage you to explore the environment and use your gadgets. But then the game goes the extra mile to keep things fresh with its trippy Scarecrow segments, platforming sections, and Killer Croc's sewer maze.

Yet somehow, Arkham City still completely blows me away by just how much it expanded on the original's gameplay. There were so many things I'd try to do during my Asylum playthrough that I was surprised to learn originated in City. I've also found myself completely missing all the Riddler stuff during New Game Plus. The game just feels incomplete without it and completely robs the experience of its rewarding progression which I greatly appreciated after replaying Arkham Asylum.

I almost regret not just jumping into New Game Plus the first time around like I did with the original release. Especially because you start out with so many gadgets from the previous playthrough and have to relearn everything without the proper context after so much time. The overworld is also just completely barren without the Riddler stuff too.

Regardless, it was still a lot of fun despite mostly running through the story, and the side missions definitely add some meat to the Riddler Challengeless run. I was a little underwhelmed by Arkham Asylum's remastered visuals, but Arkham City is much more noticeably better looking than I remember it being.

I was actually really looking forward to getting back into Arkham Knight after as I only played it once so I could play New Game Plus later. But after having done that with Arkham City, I'm hoping it doesn't impact my experience too much as I actually found the Riddler Challenges to be a huge part of the fun as they often give you that light bulb moment any good Metroidvania does when you acquire a new gadget and return to an area or puzzle you can now solve.

I actually really enjoyed Arkham Knight when I played it. A lot more than most since I actually didn't mind the Batmobile at all. It really was the last piece of the Batman experience that these games have been really nailing and the same is true about the Batmobile. It feels amazing to control and it's such a beast too with how it just plows through the environment so that you never have to deal with it getting stuck on random pieces of geometry which would have really hurt the game otherwise.

So many people harp on how often the Batmobile is used but not enough is said about how well it's used. The tank battles and Riddler Tracks may be unnecessary components of a Batman game, but they're not exactly bad either. As far as video game diversions go, they could have done a lot worse. Not once did it ever feel like a chore to have to be in the Batmobile because it never felt awful to actually use. Yeah, it's a shame most of the boss fights were relegated to Batmobile sections, but that's more a problem with less traditional boss fight encounters than it is having to use the damn thing itself.

I would have loved better boss encounters myself, especially after how well they were done in Arkham Origins, but as far as the Batmobile goes, it was implemented incredibly as it often served as an extension of Batman's arsenal. The whole thing honestly feels overblown, which I attribute to the typical crowd of A.D.D. gamers that immediately get stumped once they're thrown out of their comfort zone in a game and refuse to either learn simple mechanics or simply get better. I honestly thought I wasn't going to be able to play as Batman much or that I'd hate the Batmobile after how much people b*tched about it until I played it myself and saw just how full of sh*t everyone was.

Arkham Knight definitely has its issues, the lack of traditional boss fights being one of them and the underwhelming Arkham Knight character who pretty much just muddles the story up. The tank battles and Riddler Tracks were definitely a stretch as it was obvious they just wanted to get as much mileage from the Batmobile as they could, but it definitely didn't ruin the overall experience nor did it feel like Batman was featured less because of it.

It's easily the best Batman game even if it's not as well rounded as Arkham City. The improvements made to the gameplay and overall experience have been completely glossed over because all everyone talks about is how much the Arkham Knight reveal sucked and how terrible the Batmobile was... It's honestly a shame that Arkham Knight has such a terrible reputation for what an amazing game it is. It was actually the reason I had started replaying the games in October as I was looking forward to revisiting it the most after having beaten it the first time.

Unfortunately, I ended up being distracted by other things around the time I finished Arkham City. I'll definitely come back here though after I replay it to see if I feel any different about it. But I have also recently learned that Arkham Origins is backwards compatible with the Xbox Series X, but for some reason, only the physical version, which I have, but never seeing it available for purchase digitally did certainly lead me to believe it wasn't. So I might get to that before Arkham Knight as it is the Batman game I remember the least about. I just remember really liking the boss fights and new mechanics, but it was also the only Batman game I ever really felt burnt out by from all the padding.

[Leo656]

I love posts like this, and I'd sincerely love to see such in-depth thoughts from more people on the topic. Thanks buddy. :)

I mean, I'll never agree on the Riddler stuff, or at least I will never be as in love with it. :lol: Like I said, I like the idea of it and I do think it adds to the games to a POINT. I just think they went completely overboard with it and it's pretty much my least favorite thing to do in the games. It *feels* like Video Game Busywork, to me, whereas "Go blow up all of Black Mask's drug stashes" and "Stop Anarky's Bombs" feels more organically like part of the story. It feels more like "authentic Batman stuff". Whereas I feel like a twat when I'm taking time out of the main game to go chase hidden collectibles in every nook and cranny of the map.

"I know there's a gang fight over there I should be breaking up, and I know there's assassins hunting me, and I know I need to find out who murdered so-and-so... BUT FIRST, let me glide off this rooftop, land on this switch, propel myself over this other rooftop without touching anything, land on this other switch, throw a Batarang through an electric fence, down a shaft and into an electric box, crawl through this vent, then do the Safety Dance while reciting the entire second stanza of the Star Spangled Banner so I can grab this Riddler Trophy. THEN I'll get back to saving the city." :lol: It just doesn't feel right at all.

The possible solution would obviously be to save all the Riddler Trophies until the main game is over with. But as I said, I tried that with Arkham City, just grabbing the "easy" ones and saving the rest until after the story was done, and the feeling that now ALL there was left to do in the game was find the rest of them just made me not want to play the game anymore at all. I kinda f*cked myself with that. "The only thing left to do now, is your least-favorite thing, for X hours." I thought I could do it that way, but I got bored WAY too fast and never touched the game again even though I loved playing it.

With "Origins", I made it a point to collect every single Data Pack that I could along the way, before completing the story, since I knew I'd have to replay the game on New Game + for things like the Dark Knight Challenges anyways. That way, on the second run all I'd have to worry about was the "real" stuff, the main story and the side missions. And I gotta say... the second run was a LOT more fun, for me. Not only because I had all the upgrades but because every second of the game felt "real", like I was "really" Batman going around doing stuff and every bit of it felt like it was vital to saving the city. I never felt like I was a rat in a maze jumping through arbitrary hoops to pick up meaningless collectibles, and thus my immersion in the game was never broken at all on my New Game + playthrough. Basically, New Game +, not needing to worry about the Data Packs, was the game I actually wanted to play. It was harder, but infinitely more fun and never for a moment felt like a chore. I was happy that you still had to disarm Enigma's towers and beat up his informants, though, so there was still a little bit of him being involved. But again, even that stuff felt "real" whereas the Packs/Trophies just feel VERY much like "Video Game Bullsh*t".

I'm not in any way trying to invalidate your experience, by the way. I can totally understand your opinion, especially in how you've explained it. :) This is just how it comes off to me, and why they're my least favorite parts of these games. For me, they're tedious and they ruin the immersion.

BUT, that's not to say I completely hate them or that they have no purpose at all. I agree that they can give you a reason to see more of the game's map (it kinda doesn't matter to me since I typically go around exploring every inch anyways, but I can see the value in it in that regard). And they can teach you some mechanics that might come in handy later... although oftentimes, they don't. Like the ones that force you to glide a certain way, or hit switches in order without touching anything but the switches, stuff like that... you NEVER "have" to use the skills they're forcing you to use for that stuff in the main game proper, and so again it just feels like Video Game Bullsh*t. Like, ideally, if you needed to use a complicated mechanic or series of moves in order to get a Trophy, it's because that skill will be necessary later on during a Boss fight or something and the game is "forcing" you to learn it so you'll be good at it later. And SOME of them are in fact that, but a lot of them aren't, and those cases just feel like the game screwing with you.

I don't know. Like I said, I understand why they're in there, a lot of what you said about their value and function is actually stuff I agree with to a point... I just feel like they overdid it for most of the games. It took me less than half the time to complete Origins on New Game + than it did the first time around, meaning that I spent way more time on my first run chasing collectibles than I did playing the "real" game. I can only sigh at that. It will forever feel unbalanced to me.

But hey man, the great thing about these games is there's a lot to do and a lot of variety. So if the Riddler gimmicks are some of your favorite stuff, then I'm happy for you. :) I'm getting old, and my backlog is getting bigger every day, so to me, it all just feels like very transparent padding that keeps me away from other things I'd rather do. But that has nothing to do with you or anyone else's experience.
---------------------

I really am looking forward to playing Arkham Knight, even though I've read the Wiki and had the whole thing spoiled for me and I think I'm gonna sigh at the ending pretty hard. I imagine my experience will probably fall more in line with yours than with some other folks. Despite my reputation for being a crab-ass who "hates everything", it's really more like I just have a laser-focused hatred towards very specific things, and that when I hate something it's deep and it's permanent. But I'm actually very, very forgiving about most things, compared to most people. It takes a LOT to annoy me... it's just that when something does, it becomes a nuclear f*cking hatred. :lol:

So yeah, even if Arkham Knight isn't my favorite in the series I can't imagine I'll be as harsh as some people are. We shall see!

With regard to Jason Todd, I can't help but notice that game was in the middle of the huge "Put Jason Todd in everything" push across various DC media; I think that's partly why the "big surprise" was so easy to see from ten miles away - "How can it be anyone BUT Jason Todd when DC is cramming him down our f*cking throats lately?"

But I gotta say, aside from the lies it doesn't bother me. I sincerely don't care about "surprises" at all, and I'm on record as feeling like if something relies heavily on a "surprise" then it probably lacks substance. From what I've read, even though the character is a bit extraneous to the main plot of the game it still makes some logical sense, and at least they found a place for him in the series. I'll probably be fine with it.
----------------

I'm surprised they didn't retrofit a New Game + Mode onto Arkham Asylum for the remasters. That might have made me buy it again. As it is, I'm still fine with my original copies of Asylum and City. I'm not in love with the idea of doing everything AGAIN just to play the games in HD.

From what I recall, no New Game + was one of the few complaints a ton of people had about the first game, to the point where they announced right away that Arkham City would have one. I loved Asylum, but it would definitely be a blast if you could play it over with all the upgrades. That would really add some replay value.

As is, I'm wrestling with whether or not to go for the Riddler Trophies again when I replay Asylum or just rip through the Story. All the games that have New Game +, I plan to do what I did with Origins - one "tedious" playthrough where I hunt all the collectibles, then a "straight" playthrough on New Game + not having to worry about anything but the story. I'll probably just get them all again in Asylum because my conscience will nag me if I don't. But man, I'm not in love with the idea. :lol:

[Leo656]

-------------------

I figure we can talk about other Batman games, too. Why not? It's my thread and I have never been a stickler for "the rules". :trazz:

- I still love "Batman Begins" and I still feel it has value and is a lot of fun to play, even though all the Arkham games are "better" in just about every way from an objective sense. That was by far "the best Batman game ever" until Arkham Asylum came out. I don't think anyone expected Asylum to be the amazing piece of work that it was. But I don't feel like Begins is obsolete just because other, better Batman games exist. I still pull it out for a run every couple years or so and I always have fun with it. Especially those killer Batmobile missions! I feel like it's been unfairly ignored, even before Arkham came out, simply because as a movie-based game it had a stigma. But it's easily one of the best movie-based games ever made, regardless.

Like if I want a huge, sprawling, totally immersive Batman experience with near-total freedom, I play an Arkham game. If I want a simple, tight, straightforward game and only feel like being Batman for a weekend in between other games, then Batman Begins hits that sweet spot perfectly. I find great joy and satisfaction sometimes in "weekender" games. I don't always need an epic.

- One Batman game I own, never played, and have heard an incredible amount of negative stuff about is "Dark Tomorrow". I've never seen anyone here talk about having played it; is it really THAT bad? I think I paid like $10 for it. I've had it for over ten years but I just never bothered with it yet.

In reading about the development of it, the fascinating thing seems to be that on paper, they actually had all the same gameplay ideas as what ended up going into the Arkham games... but either the technology wasn't there yet OR the developers just completely botched the project, OR it could have been "A little of A, a little of B", I guess. I see it constantly on "Worst Games Ever" list. It *looks* okay, graphically I mean; not "great" but perfectly acceptable for the time it was made. Not having played it I can't speak to how the gameplay might be. But when I see stuff like "2 out of 10" it makes me wonder. Few games are honestly THAT bad, so I admit that I'm curious.

It sounds intriguing with the storyline, being based on the comics, all that. BUT, on the other hand, it was made by the same people who made the "Superman: The Man of Steel" game for Xbox, and that game was... flawed. Now, I didn't think that game on the whole was AS bad as people said, but there were definitely a few individual parts that had me ready to break my TV in a rage. So I wouldn't be shocked if the Batman game those same people made is not great, but I'd be a little surprised if it truly is "2 out of 10" bad.

Maybe I'll force myself to play it after I do the Arkham run. :lol: "That was some awesome steak, now I'd like some crap, please." :trazz:

[Andrew NDB]

This thread inspires me to try them again. Does Origins have a remaster, or just the Rocksteady trilogy?

[Leo656]

No remaster, sorry. But I wouldn't let that stop you.

I'll say this much, and I came back because I forgot before to say this to you, specifically: I know how much you love Bane - the real Bane - and you really should try Origins again for that reason if nothing else. He's all over Origins, and he's presented properly for a change. They still "ruin" it by the end by having him get all hyped up on TN-1 (the precursor to the Titan "Super-Venom" in the later games) and turn into a 'roid monster, BUT the final fight with him is rather creative and not a rehash of the other games where you fought him, it's totally different even though it's not mind-blowing. And the TN-1 bit makes sense in-story; he's trying to cure himself of his addiction to Venom by creating a permanent one-shot solution, but it's too volatile. He only ends up using it in the game as a last resort at the very end of the game after already losing to Batman twice. "You leave me no choice... MISTER WAYNE." It actually feels logical in-story when it happens, and it kind of explains why he's a bit dumber in the other games (TN-1 causes permanent brain damage; something Bane knew but was willing to risk in his desperate final attempt to kill Batman).

There's little bits of Knightfall sprinkled into it, and Bird shows up as a side mission (even though he's physically unrecognizable). But honestly, I think you would LOVE Bane in this game. It's really, REALLY close to the comics version, far closer than has ever been done in any media. Like, they nailed it, it's pretty much perfect. He even hits you with the back-breaker if you're too slow to counter it during a Boss fight (although you can escape it if you're quick enough). But his smarts, his cunning, the whole thing where "Joker's the main villain but Bane is openly declaring that he's letting Joker play his game because it's going to lure Batman in so Bane can kill him instead, after which he plans to kill Joker anyway for being a nuisance"... it's VERY spot-on.

The only thing you'd maybe not like is the very final bit where he gets hyped on TN-1 and becomes The Hulk... but again, in-context it makes sense so you may find it forgivable. Especially since the rest of the game does a very good job of showcasing "the real Bane".

Like legit, I kept commenting out loud to my wife as I was playing, "I f*cking love Bane in this, they actually did him right for once." No smoke. He's all over the story, and you fight him three times (although two of those are nearly-identical).

I know you're very picky about Bane's presentation, and I actually thought about you specifically quite often as I played through it. "I bet Andrew would dig this part." Hopefully, you will. :) I *think* you will, anyways. I sure did.

[Andrew NDB]

OK, I'll check it out. And just did for a few minutes. It's getting late, but I was able to install it for free on my PS5 via PS Now streaming... so it probably actually looks worse than the disk version if I were to just play it on a PS3. But still playable.

Sadly, as soon as Batman arrives in the Batwing in the snowy compound... it freezes and I have to kill the game. Hopefully this is just a one off thing and not a sign of things to come. I'll try it again tomorrow.

[Leo656]

Ouch. I'm playing it on disc on my 360 so I have no idea. It did glitch/freeze on me and make me restart from the main menu, like... twice in all the hours I played it. I've been playing it for almost a month so I think that's acceptable. Almost positive it was exactly two times, both when a cutscene wouldn't load properly. Otherwise, smooth sailing.

I was expecting worse honestly. Apparently the original run was glitched to complete sh*t and basically unplayable until they very quickly patched it, after that like 99% of the problems were gone but a few minor things like that still slipped through the cracks.

I have no idea how stable the digital version is or isn't. Worst case, you could probably snag a disc copy for nickels if it came down to it and the digital one keeps fighting you. Hopefully it'll clear up though. Like I said, I had only two freezes and that to me ain't bad. The game auto-saves like crazy so reloading from checkpoints isn't much of a hassle, except in a few spots where they start you a bit further back than they should.

Good luck!
---------------

Forgot to mention, another minor gripe I have in Origins is how no matter which Batman skin you're using for gameplay, when it goes to a cinematic cutscene he'll be in the game's default costume. :ohwell: Not the end of the world, but it breaks the immersion and I'd prefer it if they'd found a way to reskin him in the cutscenes as well.

Also, the "Dark Knight" costume isn't exactly the Bale movie costume, it's just the default costume in a darker shade of black with a gold belt instead of a black one. Not bad, and I actually like it better since it looks like the Batman Begins suit, which was less clunky than the DK suit. And it's not even that big a deal since the in-game costume is very heavily modeled on the Bale suits anyway. Some people might not even notice.

But I had READ that the Dark Knight costume was "the movie costume", which simply isn't true. It is merely "movie-INSPIRED". Words matter and some of us notice this stuff. :trazz:

No big deal, just little nitpicks I had.

[Andrew NDB]

Eh... how do I access other skins in Origins? Are they unlockable as I play? Because the "store" button is basically deactivated.

[Leo656]

So yeah, they're only accessible on Challenge Maps OR in New Game + after you beat the main game. You have to play the game with the regular suit the first time through but on Challenge Maps you can use any skin you want. MOST of the skins are DLC but a couple are in-game unlockables. The in-game suits are a HUGE pain in the ass to get, requiring you to complete every single Dark Knight Challenge as well as beat the game multiple times on ever-increasing difficulty. There's one, I forget which, but you have to get three medals on EVERY Challenge Map in the entire game, which requires pretty much perfect mastery of combat and stealth. Knowing you, you may not want to bother with the in-game unlockable skins. To me they're not really worth the aggravation. I think the hardest one to get is the Injustice costume, and that suit's f*cking hideous anyway.

If you're doing Challenge Mode from the main menu or in the Batcave, you pick your character (either Batman, Deathstroke, or Bruce Wayne) and there will be an arrow icon under their name and portrait, and you scroll down through the other costumes. There's quite a few Batman costumes - New 52, Thrillkiller, Long Halloween, First Appearance, Gotham By Gaslight, Blackest Knight, and a few others. Deathstroke has three, including Injustice and Judas Contract skins. Bruce Wayne has two, basically the same except one of them he's wearing a ninja mask.

In the main game, when you're in the Batcave there's a Batsuit Chamber. You press the action button and scroll through them the same as the Challenge menu, except the game taunts you with the notation that you can only wear the skins in New Game + or I Am The Knight mode, as a reward for completing the game. So basically they're only there to look at on your first run.

I know, I hate that too. I guess they REALLY wanted to make sure people played the game more than once. Not that I dislike the in-game costume but I'd always play with one of the comics skins if given a choice.

I only bought the DLC last year when I had some spare cash so it should still be available. BUT I did buy it through the Xbox Live menu and not the in-game menu, not sure if that made any difference. It might be different on PSN than Xbox Live, as well.

What happened with me is, I purchased the DLC a few months back through the XBL store. When I started up Origins, I still had to re-download them through the game's menu although it was all marked "free" indicating that I had indeed purchased everything; I guess what I'd bought was "digital rights" and still had to get the physical files through the game's menu? I don't know. Upon start-up, it said "Checking for DLC", then automatically sent me to the DLC menu, and one-by-one I had to select and download each bit - the "Cold, Cold Heart" add-on, the Deathstroke and Bruce Wayne stuff, whatever skins were in the Season Pass, and so on. Then I restarted the console and it was all there.

So I'd suggest trying to get the DLC from the PSN store and not through the game's menu; if it's the same as mine, upon starting the game it will take you through it from there automatically. It *should*, anyway. I'd be shocked if they took the DLC down when it was just there not long ago.

Oh, FYI, on mine the "Cold, Cold Heart" DLC took literally a f*cking hour and change to download. Hopefully it won't be like that for you. Just a heads up.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

Keep in mind the Adam West suit is only available on the PS3 version. I was annoyed that the Cold Cold Heart DLC skipped the Wii U version especially since it's the most stable. I forgot how the multiplayer component was in Origins but I remember not being that impressed with it.

Also, why aren't these damn games on the Switch?!

[Turo602]

@Leo The thing is, I would typically agree with you about the Riddler Trophies, but in this instance, I've been away from the games so long that I would have just preferred playing them from scratch to get the full experience like I did with Arkham Asylum. The Metroidvania genre is one of my favorites in gaming and a big part of that is its level design and sense of progression that makes you feel like you're constantly solving things and advancing with every turn.

I actually blasted through Arkham Asylum in a few days just because I got stuck in that "I'll stop after this last one" loop and just couldn't put it down whereas I felt like I slogged through Arkham City because I had to relearn gadgets and mechanics before they were introduced in game and just kind of went through the motions from area to area with no real need for exploration which is sometimes necessary for completing side quests that randomly pop up in areas as I did often find myself mindlessly gliding around with nothing to do until something finally got triggered. Had I been drawn to a Riddler Trophy nearby, I probably wouldn't have had this issue.

And that's not to say I don't like New Game Plus, I just feel that experience is better suited directly after having beaten the game as you get to dive into the meat and potatoes all over again after having already familiarized yourself with the mechanics. But Arkham Asylum is also easily the least offensive game in the series when it comes to collectibles, so there is that to consider as well.

Regardless, the Riddler Challenges never really bothered me much overall from what I remember. I mean yeah, it is video gamey nonsense, but I don't necessarily find it too problematic as it simply adds more depth to the gameplay. While it is definitely immersion breaking as any game with any variety of side quests and collectibles, it still beats having an empty map with nothing to do but beat up bad guys here and there, which was a huge problem I had with Marvel's Spider-Man. At least with the Riddler Challenges, they're integrated into the game's level design bit by bit and come in enough variety to ever get stale.

With that said, I also won't pretend there isn't a feeling of relief after collecting all of them and knowing you don't have to worry about them again in New Game Plus as I was certainly excited about playing through Arkham Knight again without the Riddler Trophies. Just wish I would have jumped back in a lot sooner, but we'll see how I feel after I replay it. But as a whole, I do agree, they could find better ways to incorporate unique and immersive content, but as it currently stands, the Riddler stuff isn't too bad from a gameplay standpoint.

Arkham Origins on the other hand did feel like it doubled down on the busy work as it is the only game in the series that I didn't fully complete. I didn't think it could happen with any of these Batman games, but I was actually burned out by the time I finished New Game Plus that I never got all the Anarky Tags and didn't finish the Worst Nightmare Dark Knight track. Despite this, I never really felt negatively about the game the way a lot of people do. I still think it's one hell of a Batman game and I never understood how anyone could love Arkham City and not enjoy Arkham Origins.

Funny you bring up Batman Begins though. I actually ended up finding it for the Gamecube during the summer and picked it up because I remember enjoying it back when my brother had it on PS2. I did grow up playing games like Batman: Vengeance and Rise of Sin Tzu. I enjoyed both games very much back in the day, especially Vengeance, but it is certainly dated now and Sin Tzu honestly wasn't that good, but it was fun playing it with my siblings at the time. But when Batman Begins came out, it did feel like a leap in quality. I don't know whether it holds up today, but it was easily the best Batman game of its time.

I remember seeing Dark Tomorrow in stores and being so intrigued by the cover and always wondering why my brother never bothered to pick it up. It wasn't until way later when I finally looked the game up to see what I was missing and I can honestly say I didn't miss much. The game really does look 2/10 terrible. It's so deceiving too because you look at the graphics and story and there's tons of potential there, but once you see it in motion, you just can't help but wonder how the hell this thing went so wrong. It doesn't even look fun to play. Yet, for some reason, I still want it just out of that sick curiosity. I managed to pick up Superman: The Man of the Steel a couple years back, but I've never been able to find a copy of Dark Tomorrow on Xbox.

[Leo656]

So I will address the above post properly when I can, and also, give my thoughts in greater detail when I have time and am in a better mood.

But I just NEEDED to take a moment to say that Arkham Origins: Blackgate is terrible and I can't remember the last time I played anything this bad.

I'll write a novel when I can. In brief: "Batman Runs Down Empty Hallways In Circles For 6 Hours: The Game - Guest Starring the DIRT F*CKING WORST In-Game Map You've Ever Seen."

SHOCKINGLY bad. I thought maybe the first little bit was slow and that it got better. Nope. 2/3s of the way through and the opening ten minutes where you chase Catwoman is the ONLY thing that's even come close to being fun.

Clunky, slow, stiff, counterintuitive, absurdly repetitive, and above all, SO F*CKING BORING. If there's 50 enemies in the entire game, I'd be shocked. Most of them don't respawn so literally 99% of the game is backtracking and circle-jerking through empty rooms, and the level design is f*cking asscrackers so even navigating the simplest areas is a goddamn chore. I've gone hours without seeing a single enemy at times. It's the most convoluted Metroidvania you've ever seen, with the "bonus" of there being Jack sh*t to actually do.

I almost quit ten times so far, about half from anger and half from boredom. Like, the only thing pushing me forward is that I paid $20 for it like an asshole. So I'm gonna finish it or at least keep playing until I feel like I've gotten $20 worth from it.

I have lot more to say. But in brief: F*ck this game.

[Andrew NDB]

Long hallways or corridors with only the illusion of choice (in terms of which way you can go). This has been a thing with games since they started trying to be cinematic. It has always been a dumb thing, unless they actually do introduce varying paths that don't lead to dead ends.

[Leo656]

It's not even that. I literally can't fully explain it.

Okay, like... So you're in a room. And just on the other side of the room is a box. It looks like you should just be able to glide over and grab it, or walk over, but no. Because the game is 2.5D, and You are in the Foreground plane and the box is in the Background plane. So actually, you need to spend a half hour going through six other rooms, breaking down walls, crawling through vents, solving "puzzles" and maaaaybe fight an enemy or three, to wind up circling back around and ending up back in the room you were already in to start with only NOW you're in the background plane and can finally grab the stupid box.

Because "just walk over and grab it, you're in the same room" would be too simple, I guess.

This is ALL YOU DO for the entire game.

I posted a picture of a section of the map on my FB. Look at that, consider how completely f*cking bonkers it is for no reason, and then remember "you can only move Left and Right" and wonder WHY THE F*CK this game's level design is so goddamn terrible. The map looks like something Tony Stark had Jarvis draw. In a 2.5D side-scroller.

They absolutely should have just done a Final Fight clone and called it a day. "Ambitious but Flawed" doesn't even cover it. Not even close. They had an idea with "cram Arkham into something that works on a handheld" but it just does not work at all. It's part Metroidvania, part side-scrolling beat-em-up, part stealth, and it does EVERY F*CKING ONE OF THOSE THINGS TERRIBLY.

If I paid $20 for a game where I just ran left to right punching guys for two hours and occasionally had to solve a puzzle or do some light platforming... I don't care HOW "simplistic" that would be, it would be light years better than THIS. They tried to do WAY too much and it's totally f*cked as a result. Less is More.

[Andrew NDB]

So all the "Challenge Mode" maps are locked out in Arkham Origins (I'm guessing I have to unlock them by playing the main game?). There is no DLC to be had in the PS Store. "Online Mode" is non-functional. For fun, I poked into the Microsoft Store on the X-Box Series X and all it has anywhere in the store is "Supply Drop 1" and "Supply Drop 2" for DLC, but not even the game itself and both DLCs are marked "NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE."

[AquaParade]

What outfits have you been wearing the most? Default?

[Leo656]

Andrew: That's bananas. Someone more familiar with PSN and recent consoles would have to help you out with that. Wish I could be more help.

Aqua: Not sure who your question was towards, or with regard to which game. If it was for me, I mentioned how in Origins I prefer playing with the "Long Halloween" skin the most and "First Appearance" second. The default is "okay" but I prefer the less-armored and more comics-accurate look. I get that the armor is far more realistic and fits the entire aesthetic well, it's just not my favorite.
----------------------------

So I finally beat "Arkham Origins: Blackgate". If you're on my FB, you know that I'm convinced that this game was made by Actual Satan. Seriously, I think this is the worst game I've ever played to completion, or at least the main part. You're supposed to play it three times (!) and beat the bosses in different order to unlock all the skins and see each of the "secret" ending videos. I beat it once, and only had the patience to do that through cheating. If there's anyone out there who got 100% on this game, they're a f*cking loser with no life. I've had bouts of food poisoning that were less painful.

So at some point, I FINALLY found a halfway decent step-by-step walkthrough, which is the ONLY way anyone should even CONSIDER playing this game. But even then, the incomprehensible map and terrible level design makes it a complete chore; even with a walkthrough, you make one wrong turn and you're completely turned around in the complete wrong area. I really can't stress how incomprehensible this game is from beginning to end.

Things I HATED (In Detail):

- The map is a f*cking useless joke. Even if JUST THIS had been fixed, it would make the entire game better, or at least playable. A game where you can only move Left or Right does NOT need a map that looks like Tony Stark had Jarvis make it. Every time you stop to look at the map to try and get your bearings, you only get MORE confused. Some rooms are layered with different floors to them, and finding exactly how to navigate them is almost impossible; your best bet is to just run in circles and pray you find yourself in the right place.

All of the main Arkham games are fully-3D open world games and yet somehow a flat, top-down map does the trick perfectly for that. Why they thought we needed some full-blown Lawnmower Man bullsh*t for a game where you can only move in two directions is beyond me, but it's terrible. Like, I've seen a couple positive reviews of this game (Those people are wrong, by the way, and this is why I don't respect every single opinion anyone has; some sh*t is not up for debate, this game is garbage), but even those people admit that the map is the single-worst thing about the entire experience.

- The level design is complete nonsense, and the map only makes it worse. Everything about navigating the "real" Arkham games is so logical and intuitive in its design; this is the total opposite. You'll spend an hour trying to figure out how to get to the upper floor of a room you're already in, and getting there will make you circle around the entire map to the other side of the section and back around. It's like Rube Goldberg got high on crack and designed a video game.

- Going to the left onscreen is the same as going right on the map. Even when you KNOW this is the case, you never get used to it and again, makes navigating the already-awful levels nearly unplayable. Your entire sense of navigational awareness is totally f*cked the entire time you're playing it, which makes a step-by-step walkthrough mandatory, and by that point you may as well just let someone else play the damn game entirely.

- Most of the rooms look identical, except the Administration Building where Joker has taken over. Again, it's hard to get your bearings when almost every room in the game looks the same.

- Almost no enemies. I noticed that after halfway through the story, SOME enemies will respawn in certain areas, sometimes. Sometimes they don't. When they do, fights still last five seconds and the combat is very stiff, unresponsive, and unsatisfying. The timing to counter is completely broken, which ruins the already-awful Boss fights. Still, even though the combat is terrible, you catch yourself looking forward to it just because for five whole seconds you're not running in circles through empty rooms.

- Stealth sections are broken by the unresponsive controls. Trying to snare someone from on top of a vantage point will almost always have the enemy walking out of range before the button responds, regardless of whether you're prompted to hit the button. The game will ignore your input when trying to do a Silent Takedown, then the enemy will turn around and shoot at you. Also, when you enter a Stealth Room, the camera zooms out so far that you and all the enemies are incredibly tiny.

- You have to "scan the environment" CONSTANTLY, and you have to "analyze" anything before you can interact with it. Just being in Detective Mode isn't enough; see that destructible wall? You can't just shoot it with Explosive Gel, that'd be too easy. You have to stop, scan it, wait for it to register and for the game to tell you to blow it up, before you can do so. Otherwise you cannot even aim your items at it, it will not register. You have to do this for EVERY wall, ceiling, floor, pipe, grate, and vent that you interact with in the ENTIRE GAME. And you will forget, and try to throw a Batarang or Gel at something breakable, only to remember, "Oh, yeah, this dumb sh*t." This adds almost as many pointless minutes of gameplay as running in circles through the sh*tty map does. THERE'S NO REASON FOR THIS.

- There really is no point in ever shutting Detective Mode off. You're pretty much forced to play the entire game in a blue-green tint and keeping an eye out for the things you can interact with, because otherwise you WILL miss something and need to come back to it two hours later. The game knows it, too; at one point, Black Mask shuts off the power and you're running around in the dark with Detective Mode on as your night vision. This lasts a long time, and by then you realize that it's stupid to ever turn it off at all. The ONE good thing the game has going for it are the graphics, and you can't even enjoy them because if you turn off Detective Mode you're an idiot.

The one thing in the main Arkham series that annoys me is that it's tempting in those games to constantly play with Detective Mode on, too. The developers acknowledged this problem early on but never really found a good balance; the most they did was make it impossible to see your Objective Marker if Detective Mode was on, but otherwise you could still have a much easier time playing those games if you never shut off Detective Mode. So this game took a problem that has always been an issue in the main series, and made it a lot worse.

- Terrible Boss Fights. Bronze Tiger was okay, as it was mostly just a standard fight, and Deadshot was easy to figure out. Almost all the others were bad-to-terrible. Penguin has invincible allies, for some dumb reason. Most fights end immediately by killing you the second you f*ck up, leaving zero room for error and most times you don't even know what you did wrong. The Catwoman fight, the final Boss fight in the entire game, is one of the WORST I've ever seen. Halfway through, she throws a bomb in your face so you're almost blind, then attacks you from the darkness and you can't do sh*t about it. There's an onscreen visual flash letting you know she's about to attack, but the timing to Counter is COMPLETELY f*cked, almost like you have to predict when the attack is coming and hit Counter before you get a prompt, and that seems to make no difference either. People online said that the sound effect before she attacks is what you need to respond to, but again, this made no difference for me. When I eventually succeeded, I had no idea at all what I'd done "right" compared to all the other times.

As it is, I had to cheat to finish the game. By the end you unlock the "Blackest Night" costume which makes you invincible, and so I used that just to get the damn fight over with already after dying numerous times. I'd feel bad, but almost every single guide for the game more or less says "You simply can't beat this game unless you cheat", so I know for a fact it isn't on me, the countering is just completely f*cked. So I just grinded it out and kept getting hit until somehow, by magic, I managed to counter her and win. The only satisfaction came from finally being done with the sh*t.

- SO. F*CKING. BORING. I swear to God, between the lack of enemies and the constant backtracking and running around lost, you couldn't make a more boring Batman game if you tried.

[Leo656]

Things I Didn't Hate Completely:

- Graphics and sound. For a game that started out as a handheld, it looks and sounds really good. Sadly, that's about it.

- Detective Cases (In Theory). I like the idea of finding clues laying around, which little by little you can piece together and get a vivid idea about everything that led to the prison riot, step-by-step. This does enrich the story a little.

BUT, you have to find these clues by scanning EVERY INCH of the game with Detective Vision, and some of them are hidden pretty insidiously. Before the final Boss fight, I went back to collect all the things I'd missed, and there were a TON of Clues I somehow missed even though I'd scanned that area repeatedly, only to have it be a few pixels off to the side of where I'd already looked.

The game is already slow as dirt, but stopping every two steps to scan the entire environment with your reticle, taking two steps forward, and repeating it a million times... it's just awful.

- The Story. Not bad, but it's not essential to the overall series. The only really interesting parts are Batman's first encounter with Catwoman, and the Task Force X stuff (which really only exists as a commercial for the "Assault on Arkham" animated movie anyway).
-----------------

In short, DO NOT PLAY "ARKHAM ORIGINS: BLACKGATE". If you're at all curious about the story, just watch a YouTube video. I almost never say that, and I try like hell to find the good in everything, but after the Prologue section every minute of this game was slow torture. I had maybe five minutes of "fun" out of however many hours I played it, and every second besides that felt like work.

I cannot imagine how this thing turned out so bad. Easily one of the worst games I've ever played, and MAYBE the worst game I've ever beaten.
------------------

Thankfully, it's over now. When I feel up to it I'll be moving on to "Arkham Asylum" so I can play an actual good game again. But Dear God, this thing is gonna haunt my nightmares forever. I was LITERALLY seeing it in my sleep, the last two nights. Just horrible.

[Sumac]

I didn't really cared about completing games to 100%, only main campaign.

I think the only game from this series, that I've done to 100%, was Asylum, because, I really liked it. And I've got all Riddler challenges in Arkham Knight by using someone else's save for my Steam version of the game, just to fight extra boss and see a "full" ending.

[Leo656]

Yeah, I'm generally not incredibly obsessive about it. If I can get to 100% on a game and not have it be a HUGE inconvenience, then I will. Like, I admittedly get annoyed if I turn on a game and it says "97%" or something, it feels like I might as well just go finish whatever's left since I'm already balls-deep. But I don't feel like every single game deserves the commitment.

Some games make it "easy" for me to not even bother worrying about "100% Completion", by having stuff linked to Online or Multiplayer which I'm never going to bother with. In a way that's frustrating - "I'll never 'completely' beat it even if I wanted to" - but it can be very liberating as well. "No sense even worrying about it since it's not possible anyway."

I can't see why anyone would 100% this specific game. They either hate themselves or like they're in jail or something and this is the only game they're allowed to play for the next few years. Nothing else would make sense.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

http://https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/02/french-retailer-lists-batman-arkham-collection-for-switch

Batman Arkham Collection is listed for the Nintendo Switch on a French retailer's website. If this is true, thank goodness! I've been dying for this series to hit the Switch for the longest time. I don't know if Arkham Knight will work but I watched a video years ago on how someone was able to get the game to work and function well on the system.

But these past few years, I've been replaying Arkham Asylum a lot and the intro and the beginning cutscene just feel so great. You really feel like you are Batman in those games. The voice cast of TAS definitely helped connect me to game more. Batman doesn't sound like he's whispering like he did in the cartoon but his voice hear was where he sounded the most calm and collected compared to later games. Mark Hamill's performance was probably my favorite here out of all his roles as the Joker. Arleen Sorkin is still the best Harley Quinn. No offense to Tara Strong but I always found her voice to be squeaky. I suppose she fits Harley more for what they're trying to go for in the later games but I can't see her as the jester suit HQ.

[Andrew NDB]

Yeah, my general playthrough of Arkham Asylum and City (I don't say Knight because, again, I left off at this one spot where you have to swoop down and take out 20 dudes with guns and I get killed right away and it's at a point in the game where everything is shooting at you so no good easy way to XP up armor) is like...

Beat the game at I think the Normal level. Complete as many Riddler things as either are readily apparent or non-super frustrating. I'm good with that. I don't think I'm missing much.

Also, it's been a long time now, but I remember enjoying playing as Catwoman in the Catwoman stuff.

[Leo656]

I read about the Switch collection last week. Once again, "Origins" is omitted which I feel is a disservice.

But given everything I've read I can't imagine how these games would run well on Switch. I don't know. They can't even get some of the WWE games to run on it properly and I feel like these are an even bigger task. I mean the PC version of Arkham Knight was so glitched out they eventually just plain pulled it from sale because it was broken beyond repair; how can something like that be made to run on Switch when it can't even run properly on a PC?

I'unno. Guess we'll see. Good for Switch owners, I guess, if the games actually run properly.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

How did the Arkham Collection fair in performance compared to Return to Arkham? I'm assuming that the Arkham Collection contains the versions of Asylum and City from the Return to Arkham. It's not a huge deal to me but I didn't like how they tampered with the lighting in both games as it loses the murky atmosphere, especially with Asylum. The character models were to bright while some of the details such as Penguin's eyebrows looked fake.

[Leo656]

Had to take a break for a few days after Blackgate. Seriously, that game put me in such a mood I couldn't even think about playing any Batman games for a couple of days.

- Andrew: So just for fun I went onto Xbox Live Marketplace on the 360 and clicked around, and I do NOT see anything available for Arkham: Origins anymore, not even a tab for the game itself. Which is very strange, because I know for a fact it was still available a couple of months ago, possibly even a few weeks ago. Now they only have DLC available for Asylum and City.

Google SAYS that, at the least, the Season Pass and "Cold, Cold Heart" DLC is still available for Xbox and PS consoles, but I'm not sure how that would be the case since you said the DLC tab in your game's menu was deactivated. You might want to contact PSN directly, otherwise I'm at a loss.
---------------

So I started playing Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360) again for the first time in several years. A bit of an adjustment after playing Origins, but it's still cool just how much of the fundamentals of gameplay were there right from the start. I keep instinctively trying to do things I can't do, like use certain gadgets or fighting techniques. :lol: And the fighting feels a bit "off" compared to Origins; like, the hits look a bit more brutal, but everything is much slower, and you can't close the gap between enemies as well as you could later on; I keep accidentally breaking my combo by trying to jump over and attack someone far away, and they end up being just out of reach whereas in Origins they'd still be well within range. It also feels like they don't "hold" your Combo intact for as long as they do in Origins. Only really a problem on the Challenge Maps when trying to get Flawless Freeform bonuses.

For the record, I'm playing the original release and not the Remastered one. Some of the faces are a bit rough and the lip syncing is way off compared to Origins, but on the whole I think it looks fine considering how old it is. I like Batman's more streamlined outfit in this game compared to the heavy armor look he has in the rest of the series. Although story-wise it's a bit odd; in Origins he already has the bulky armor, then eight years later in-story he's got this much simpler and thinner suit, and then a few weeks later (Arkham City) he's all bulked up again. It's nitpicky, but it's weird.

Not very far into it so far, I'm about to head back to the Mansion to try and rescue the Doctor. So far it still holds up great, even though it's obviously much more scaled-back than subsequent games would become. On some level, I like that it's tighter and more focused, but I do love the open-world Gotham City of later games. I'm DEFINITELY relieved by the Riddler stuff being so scaled-back, and I feel like it was integrated into this game the best as well. I've already gotten like 50-something of them and was barely even trying. Not looking forward to the 400 or whatever in Arkham City, but I've got a bit yet before I have to worry about it.

Turns out I was VERY close to getting 100% on this game when last I left it; all I needed to do is beat it on Hard Mode (which I might do after this Normal playthrough), and get three Medals on the last two Combat Challenge Maps. I've got only two Medals on those, and three Medals on everything else, but with a bit of practice I *might* just be able to beat those. The Combat Challenges feel a bit easier in this game than Origins so I feel like that might help; last night I was able to smoke some of my old High Scores by a bit and I remember having a tough time on some of those back in the day. So we'll see. I'm not obsessed about it BUT like I said being stuck at 98% with just that little bit hanging over my head is SO annoying. I doubt I'll ever get close to 100% on any of the other games in the series - the Origins Challenges were giving me a pretty hard time and I don't remember City's being much easier - but I feel like this one is doable. I'unno.

I will say, playing Origins does kind of give a bit of backstory for why Bane is the way he is in this game, even accounting for the 8-year story gap. I mean Origins made it a strong point that messing with TN-1 would cause permanent damage on multiple levels, and I feel like they sort of snuck that in retroactively to justify what they'd done with Bane in later games. Still kind of a bummer BUT the fact that Origins treated Bane so incredibly well does make up for it to a point.

So far so good. Probably have more to say as I play deeper into it. Not sure if it's my favorite or not; so far each of the games have done things I liked better than the others and a few things not as well. This one suffers from having been first out BUT it's still a great game.

[Sumac]

I find it amusing how characters in Asylum look very stylized, almost like animated plastic figures and then, next games make them look more and more realistic, up until Knight where they look very much human.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

Origins needs to come to modern consoles. The only hope I have for this to happen is for WB Montreal's Gotham Knights game sells well which it likely well. It stinks that it never got the "Game of the Year Edition" treatment. While it's not the most polished game (my copy only froze on me once), I still stand that the boss fight are the best in the series!

[Sumac]

Origins needs to come to modern consoles. The only hope I have for this to happen is for WB Montreal's Gotham Knights game sells well which it likely well. It stinks that it never got the "Game of the Year Edition" treatment. While it's not the most polished game (my copy only froze on me once), I still stand that the boss fight are the best in the series!
Only issue I had with Origins was lack of sound, during fast travel cutscene.

[Leo656]

Okay, so finally done with Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360), and FINALLY managed to 100% it! :tgrin: I must have spent like six hours trying to master the "Shock and Awe (Extreme)" and "Rumble in the Jungle (Extreme)" Challenge Maps, but I finally got three medals on each which took care of that pesky 2% I needed to get the "Perfect Knight" Achievement. Awesome!

That was a bit of an ordeal, though, for reasons I'll get into when I do my Dislike/Like list. I went through streaks where I'd be knocking out some amazing High Scores during the first and second rounds only to die in the last round, and then get so thrown off that it would take me a half hour just to get out of the first round again - not that surviving it was the problem, but the fact that you needed to do so "perfectly" in order to get the Bonuses you'd need for the High Score. I'd be on a roll, and then I'd lose my combo or someone would hit me from behind or SOME dumb thing, and I'd have to start over. But whatever, I beat it, FINALLY. And on the run where I finally beat it, I thought I was way behind on points since I'd done much better on previous runs, but something clicked during Round 4 and I ended up with like 5000 more points than I needed. No idea how, but hey, it's done. :tgrin:

So anyway, great game! Although... not my favorite, through no fault of its own. The only thing "wrong" with it really is that subsequent games made huge improvements to almost everything. As its own thing, though, it's a really great "first try". I definitely missed a ton of the things later games had or did better, though. But as for objective "flaws", there really aren't many.

Things I Didn't Love/Could Have Been Better:

- Lack of Boss Fights. I remembered there weren't many, but you could seriously argue that there's only, like, two "real" Boss Fights in the entire game, Bane and Ivy. I guess the parts where you have to fight Titan monsters are supposed to count, but they don't exactly feel like it. People cite the Killer Croc encounter, but really, that's not exactly a "fight" so much as a cat-and-mouse game. And the final one with Titan Joker is pretty lame. You don't even fight HIM, you just fight off waves of random goons until you can grab him with your grappling hook and unload at will. "Origins" was WAY better with this; not only are there more Boss Fights but they actually feel like Boss Fights.

- Barren Map. I love the layout and the level design a lot. BUT, like "Origins: Blackgate" once you've cleared an area it's clear for good, which means traversing the map or the interior levels late in the game can be pretty boring. I felt no tension or danger running around the island, since there were rarely more than three random enemies spread out at any given time, and they were mostly "Lunatic" enemies you can KO in two hits. In "Origins", you couldn't move three feet in any direction without having to fight someone, which made exploration a bit tense but also felt a lot more "real".

It's a very well-designed game and it looks great, it just feels like there could have been more to do outside of going through the buildings. Traversing the outside areas felt like a walk in the park, and that's not right, I think.

- Too quiet at times. The music is very good BUT there's long stretches where there just isn't any. At one point, I was running through the Botanical Gardens and I could literally hear crickets chirping. Again, I keep harping on "Origins", but I found myself really missing the music from that game, and how it would shift dynamically alongside whatever was going on in the game. In this one, it was mostly only used when a cutscene or something otherwise "important" was happening.

Like, the music is VERY good, but I mostly only know that from listening to the soundtrack on YouTube with my headphones after my wife went to bed. From actually playing the game itself, the music doesn't leave as much of an impression as it should because there's so many long stretches of near-silence.

- Very linear. Not a huge "problem" per se, but again, after playing some of the sequels it becomes noticeable in this one that you really don't have as much freedom as you think. You can technically go to any area most of the time, but in many cases there's little to do until you get the late-game upgrades and at one point late in the game they literally block you off from doing anything except going to fight Ivy. So while you have "freedom" to explore to a point, the best way to play the game is to pretty much just do exactly what the game says to do when they say to do it and not bother deviating from that. Almost half of the Riddler Trophies can only be conveniently gotten at the very end of the game, so going off the beaten path to look for them at any point before that is quite literally a waste of time.

On my Normal playthrough, I chose to play "freestyle", going wherever I wanted to whenever, and on Hard I chose to do what the game said to do... and both times the order in which I successfully managed to do or obtain things was more or less the same, EXCEPT that in the Normal playthrough I wasted a lot of time looking for things I couldn't get to, and so my Hard run took not even half as long to complete.

- Minor Combat Flaws. In brief, EVERYTHING breaks your Combo, and this can be a HUGE point of frustration when going for those last few Challenge Map medals (if you bother). If it were up to me, only getting hit and/or missing a strike would break your combo. But if you stand still for even a c*nt's hair of a second without hitting a button, your Combo gets dropped and it is SO ANNOYING. Again, Origins seemed to give you a *little* bit more time before you'd lose your chain, like half a second, maybe. Whatever it was, it was better than this. Not a huge factor in the main game, BUT it cost me hours of time trying to get those Challenge medals so I feel it's worth mentioning.

- Gadget Upgrades Are Pointless. Don't get me wrong, it's great they bothered. But you can beat the entire game, even on Hard, without using the Remote Control Batarang, the Multi-Batarang, the Sonic Shock Batarang, or the Proximity Gel even once. I like how the game allows you the freedom to use - or not to use - various items at your leisure, but AGAIN, Origins did a much better job at making every single item you acquired feel like it was necessary. Almost everything except the Armor and Combat upgrades is a waste of XP in this one.

- Thin Story. It's not a "bad" story, but it's pretty thin and simplistic. It doesn't really feel as "epic" as it probably did originally, and the story in "Origins" absolutely blows it away.

- No Side Missions. Again, aside from the main plot there's f*ck-all to do. The later games are much better at being "Batman Simulators" even though the basic mechanics are all in place right from the first game. But having all of the other stuff to do in Origins made it a lot more fun on the whole. This entire game more or less felt like it could be merely a very long side mission in one of the later games.

- Barely-there supporting cast. Alfred isn't even referenced outside of his Profile sheet and a Scarecrow flashback bit of dialog. Oracle is just a voice on your headset. And Commissioner Gordon is literally Princess Toadstool in this game. Again, I get "why". Kind of. But they're still missed.

Again, these things only REALLY stand out upon paying it in close succession with one of the later games. In a vacuum, it's great! But these are all things that the sequels/prequels made some huge improvements on.

As for things I loved, well... pretty much everything, really. It's just "lesser than" its successor games in multiple ways. But that's not this game's fault; things SHOULD evolve and improve.

Also, definitely the best incorporation of Riddler Trophies. Most of them are in plain sight, the rest are "just around the corner or behind that wall there", and none of them require a cheat sheet or any ass-backward "adventure game" logic to try and snag. Also, not a million of them. I didn't need to collect all of them on my repeat run, but I did anyway, because "Why Not?" and it didn't feel like a chore, whereas in "Origins" every bit of it felt like work. I wish they'd kept it like this.

Definitely feels great to finally have all the Achievements. Next up is "Arkham City", which I remember loving BUT only played it once and thus have no memory of at all. Looking forward to it! But I'm most curious now to see whether City or Origins will be my new favorite in the series; right now, it's actually Origins, but as I said I haven't played City in so long that there's a good chance it might squeak ahead. We'll see!

[Leo656]

Alright, so aside from a few straggling Side Missions and a bunch of Riddler Revenge Challenge Maps, I'm almost "done" with Batman: Arkham City (Xbox 360). I beat it once normally and then took a break to get over being sick before really getting into the New Game Plus and finishing that.

Huge, HUGE improvement over the first game in almost every way, but there are still some things I feel like Origins did better. Having played each of the first three games at least twice I honestly feel like Origins and City are about equal in terms of quality with each of them having various Pros and Cons over the other. Asylum comes in last place despite being a Very Good Game simply because it's so tiny and linear compared to the others, and also the serious improvements to the combat and other gameplay.

Things I Thought Could Have Been Better:

- Again, Alfred is barely a factor, only existing as a wiseass voice over Batman's headset and never seen at all. I'd completely forgotten how practically nonexistent he was in the first two games; suffice to say, this is one place where Origins is way, way ahead since Alfred is all over that game and has a few important moments of his own.

- In that same vein, Commissioner Gordon feels like he gets even less to do in this game than in Asylum, where he was basically just a Dude In Distress to be rescued. These games seemingly had very little idea how to integrate Batman's supporting cast. Once again, Origins gets it right and did way, way better with this character. As well as...

- Not enough Bane, although his inclusion at all is welcome. But again, if you're playing these games in storyline order, beginning with Origins, it's a bit disappointing to start out with him being portrayed very well and one of the Main Boss Enemies and then have his role get smaller (and he himself reduced to generic Big Strong Guy) as time went on. The post-credits shot in Asylum of Bane's arm coming out of the water and grabbing the Titan container was a nice bit of foreshadowing, and this game's side mission does continue that thread fairly organically, but at the same time, it feels a bit underwhelming. In the end, you don't even fight Bane at all, which feels like a bit of a waste. Like you KNOW he's gonna betray you and you expect it will lead to something more than a cutscene, but nope.

- Lack of proper Boss fights (again). I know it's a broken record at this point, but when it comes to Boss Fights, Origins is the best of the 360/PS3-era games. Both Asylum and City barely have any, although City does have a couple more and the ones that are there are good. And again, like Asylum, the final Boss Fight feels a bit weak; you just pelt ice grenades at Clayface for a while and occasionally slice some one-hit-kill fodder enemies, and that's it. The first two games went so hard into crafting a story and an atmosphere, it kinda feels like they forgot that once in a while you'd need to actually fight someone. The Boss battles are good, they just needed a few more.

- Slightly Convoluted Story. You start off thinking the story is about One Thing, and by the end it's about a Whole Other Thing entirely, and a bunch of characters and plot points that are presented as being Super Important turn out to be a bit less so. The three main plots (Strange and Protocol 10, Ra's and his Master Plan, and Joker's Cure) don't seem to really mesh very well and seem forced together; Ra's isn't even introduced as a player until halfway through the game, Strange is presented upfront as the Big Bad but turns out to be just a pawn, and Joker by his own admission has nothing to do with any of it, so it all comes off a bit weird. It very much feels like they had two different ideas for the game's plot and decided to smash them together. Add in the Catwoman missions and it all gets even more disconnected and convoluted, as the Two-Face stuff feels like it's barely relevant to the rest of the game at all.

It's not a "bad" story, and as always I really like how hard they worked to try and fit a bunch of the main villains in there. It's just not always very gracefully done and some things feel a bit forced. As far as the "best" story of the first three games, I have to say I like Origins best. It just all comes together a lot more organically than this one's feeling of having Dueling Plotlines, and it uses the villains and supporting cast better.

- Too Much Riddler Stuff. I managed to complete all of it, but oh man, was the New Game Plus run a ton more fun not having to worry about any of it except for saving the hostages. 440 was ridiculous.

- Batman/Robin Interaction. Don't get me wrong, I'm really glad they found a place for Robin after ignoring him entirely in Asylum. But for one thing, they admitted that his main game inclusion was entirely tacked-on when they figured that having two remote item drops was redundant and that it would be cool to have Robin do the second drop. But beyond that, between that one moment and the way Bruce treats him in the "Harley Quinn's Revenge" DLC mission, it's like "DUDE, why does Batman hate Robin?" He's a complete and total dick to him, and I'm assuming that the developers thought people would think it was funny or cute, but it just really makes Batman come off like a needless asshole. I get that in the DLC mission, it's just Bruce swallowing his feelings when he thinks he saw Robin just get blown up, and he doesn't want to show he cares so he just gets all dismissive, but it comes off very poorly. You get no inclination whatsoever that Bruce actually cares about this kid at all and what's presented makes it feel like he hates having him around. This needed work.

- Cutscenes only use the default Batman costume, regardless of which one you're actually wearing at the time. Origins did this too, and I get that it'd be extra work, but c'mon guys. Can't be THAT hard to make work; the "Batman Begins" game from 2005 even managed to incorporate the different skins into the cutscenes, so I'm a little annoyed they can't make it work in these games.

- Can't use Catwoman's other skins in Story Mode. This is kind of a bummer, since on New Game Plus whenever you start it they ask which Batman skin you want to use; Catwoman only has two others but it would be fun to use them in the main game and not just the Challenge Maps.

- Anticlimactic Side Missions. I know that by definition these are mostly just time-wasting diversions, but a couple feel very tacked on. Going around saving the Political Prisoners from getting beaten up just feels like busywork since it doesn't lead to anything, and they can be hard to trigger so you kinda just go swinging around the map waiting for someone to cry for help. And the "Identity Thief"/Hush stuff felt like it should have led to something more than just a cutscene. Batman just letting him walk away and saying "Eh, I'll pick him up tomorrow" feels VERY out of character, too; "There's a guy walking around with my face and a huge grudge against me, but it's probably okay if I sleep on this one."

- Hugo Strange Not Established Well. Now, this sort of ties into the whole criticism of the story feeling convoluted, but I feel like it bears extra mention in Strange's case because almost all of his involvement and character motivation is left in the various files and audio tapes you collect; if you don't know him from the comics, you don't really ever get to know all of what's going on with him. You get SOME of it through the tapes, but the whole part of him being obsessed with becoming and replacing Bruce Wayne as Batman is entirely glossed over, only ever hinted at in one single Riddler interview tape. Once more, seeing as how he was set up (seemingly) to be the main villain, the fact that you can miss his entire plotline unless you listen to the tapes feels a bit shoddy.

- No Batcave Stuff. I get that it wouldn't really have fit the story, but Asylum had an "Emergency Batcave" setup on the island so it could've been cool to see something like that here; it's such a "definitive" Batman game in so many ways that to not have any hint of the Batcave, or Batmobile, and barely any Alfred for example makes it feel incomplete.

(Cont.)

[Leo656]

Things I Loved or Really Liked:

- Right away, I noticed how they switched the dark-colored parts of Batman's costume from straight black as in Asylum to a more blue-black. I really loved that.

- Better Combat Controls. As I figured, they immediately fixed the combat from Asylum for the sequel; there's much more time before your Combo drops, and that makes a huge difference all the way around.

- Decent-Sized Map. Much bigger than Asylum, much more to do all around.

- Side Missions. Some feel tacked-on or inconsequential, but I love the feeling of being Batman, going around a cityscape doing Batman Stuff. I loved how, compared to Origins, the various physical challenges you needed to complete did not need to be done in any particular order; that made it a LOT easier to complete them all and that's the way Origins should have done it. The best of the side quests did a very good job of incorporating some of the lesser villains like Mad Hatter, or guys like Deadshot who didn't really fit the game's plot.

- Batman Skins. You get more variety in Origins but I like the ones presented in this game better, selfishly. I mostly use the 1970s-era Batman costume but I occasionally rock the Animated Series skin as well.

- Catwoman Stuff. Even though her storyline feels very tacked-on, playing as her is a blast and I love how after you beat the main story you can switch between her and Batman at your leisure, even though by then there's not much point to it.

- Riddler's Revenge Challenge Maps. These feel a bit more fair than the ones in Asylum, and are very addictive. I also love how Batman, Robin, Catwoman and Nightwing all play differently with their own strengths and weaknesses. It's a bit cheap how they didn't even bother adding in any voices for Robin and Nightwing for the Challenge Maps but eh. They look great and they play fantastic. I'm much more partial to the Combat maps than the Stealth ones but even the Stealth ones are more fun than the previous game's since the levels are laid out a little bit better.

- Ambitious Story. I mentioned how the game's plotlines are bit disconnected and how the way they intersect is far from seamless, but I do enjoy the story as a whole. It's just that some of the "big moments" seem to come a bit too far out of left field, but they definitely had a lot of ambition and I do like it altogether. It just could've been tighter.

- More Enemies. One of my biggest gripes with Asylum was how little there was to actually DO, and how once you cleared an area it was done. This game is a HUGE improvement, with lots of enemies everywhere, more snipers and armed enemies appearing as you get deeper into the game, and even new groups of enemies showing up in places you'd cleared earlier. Oftentimes the new enemies will be having conversations about what had taken place there earlier, and that's really neat.

- Ambient Chatter. I mentioned this in Origins as well, but it really does make the game world feel more alive when you're swinging around and you hear the bad guys talking about anything from whatever you just did in the story to whether or not they wanna gang-f*ck Harley Quinn. :lol: Again, it's Little Stuff but it adds up, especially compared to the practically funereal silence that was cast over Asylum for most of the game.

- DLC Mission. "Harley Quinn's Revenge" was a bit short - if you completely ignore the Harley Balloons you can beat the entire thing in like an hour - but it was fun. Getting to play properly as Robin was great, and getting to see the aftermath of the main game's plot was also cool. It's not quite as good as the "Cold, Cold Heart" DLC mission for Origins, but it's still really cool.
---------------------

Just a really, really great game overall and it's even better than I'd remembered, which is tough. I have some very specific gripes but they're nothing all that major, just Things That Could Have Been Better.

I really do rate Origins and City just about the same, overall; they each have some stuff they fall slightly short in that the other game does better. It annoys me that Origins has such a middling reputation, mostly for "not being a huge improvement over City"; I'm fine with the gameplay being "more of the same" since I think it does a bit better with the overall Story, Side Missions, and inclusion of other iconic elements like the Batcave, Alfred and Gordon being more important, better Boss fights, larger map, and so on.

I'm probably going to mess with a few more Challenge Maps - they really do become addictive very quickly; I went in not planning to mess with them much at all but after doing a few I got bit by the bug and now I'm kinda hooked. But some time this week, I'll probably FINALLY move on to Arkham Knight, which I've never played before.

[Leo656]

I keep wanting to start "Arkham Knight", but I keep getting distracted by the remaining Challenge Maps from "Arkham City". :lol: I went from "I completely don't care" to being really hung up on them. It didn't hurt that I ended up doing a lot better than I expected to on them.

I only need to complete three more of the Campaign ones with Batman, I think, to get the "Perfect Knight" Achievement. But the remaining ones are the hardest ones and that's kind of a drag. There's still a whole bunch I didn't bother to do yet with Catwoman, Robin and Nightwing, but I'm a bit less obsessive about those although I do plan to finish them eventually.

I might start Knight later on today, though. Our car broke down and we have no immediate means of fixing it so it looks like I've got a whole lot of nothing to do this week. Not a bad reason to jump into a new game.

[Andrew NDB]

Speaking of Arkham games, has anyone tried Arkham VR for PSVR? I was thinking of getting it but it sounds less like a game and more like a tech demo.

[Leo656]

No, but I did finally start Arkham Knight and I'll have a lot to say about it very soon.

Short version: I love it, but it's got some issues. I'll do a full novella after I finish the Story Mode and do some of the DLC missions. At this point I've gotten all the Riddler trophies and I think the only thing left to do in the main game is beat Deathstroke and activate the Knightfall Protocol.

I will say though in brief that playing through this series in storyline order has been some of the most fun I've ever had playing video games. Arkham Origins: Blackgate being the notable exception, however. F*ck that game in the ear. Everything else is great.

[CyberCubed]

My problem with Arkham Knight is the entire game is designed around the Batmobile. Like half the story missions, puzzles, etc. are all designed over the Batmobile and some of the boss fights. I know people begged for the Batmobile ever since Arkham City, but I didn't expect them to design an entire game around it.

[Andrew NDB]

My problem with Arkham Knight is the entire game is designed around the Batmobile. Like half the story missions, puzzles, etc. are all designed over the Batmobile and some of the boss fights. I know people begged for the Batmobile ever since Arkham City, but I didn't expect them to design an entire game around it.

It would've been fine if it wasn't so tedious. There's at least one mission where you have to drive around and destroy these drones or something and it took me forever and it wasn't fun in the least.

[Leo656]

It's definitely a lot. At the same time they had to rebuild the entire game to accommodate the Batmobile so I understand wanting to maximize the experience. If it were only used for racing missions or getting from Point A to Point B, people would have said it felt tacked-on.

I didn't find any of it tedious, or even difficult (in the main game). But I did notice there's a ton of Batmobile, yeah. Did it bother me, personally? Not at all.

I probably spent a lot more time on these games than most people did, but the Drone battles where you have to blow them up from behind aren't bad at all once you recognize their patterns of movement and get familiar with the map area. They're actually really easy. For one thing, they only put six or seven of them on the map and they die in one hit. The only thing that was hard for me was that the first time I did it, I blew up one of them way too close to the others and so they killed me two seconds later. After that I just went after the one farthest away, sneaked down an adjacent alleyway and hit them from behind. Super easy, you can easily take out all of them in less than five minutes.

The only really hard Drone battles are the ones where they throw in a big tank that can kill you in one or two hits. But they're pretty few and far between, and again not actually all THAT hard. 9/10s of all that is avoiding the main streets and staying in the alleyways for cover.

My favorite of those were the ones where they'd throw 30-50 smaller drones at you, and it'd be a huge chaotic battle with missiles and rockets flying everywhere. If you use the Hack function to take over enemy drones so they'll clear out some of the rest, and the EMP to knock missiles out of the air, even that stuff is a breeze.

For me, the only Batmobile stuff that was actually a pain in the ass was any race that involved driving on the walls, because it demands a level of precision you just don't have. It's manageable, and not even THAT hard as long as you remember not to Boost or Drift and just take the wall at normal speed, but it's irritating because most parts of most races practically demand full-speed Boosting and Drifting so it kinda throws you off when you hit a spot where doing either will make you spin out and fail.

The ONE Batmobile part I simply did not like and think was much too hard, was one of the Challenge races where you're in a tunnel and you have to go through it full-Boost the entire time, hitting green gates while avoiding red ones. You have JUST enough time to hit 15 green gates if you're absolutely perfect, but if you make even one mistake you have to start over, and you have to be a master of driving not only on the walls but on the ceiling as well... At maximum speed... With the gates getting smaller as you go, and at full-speed you really can't maneuver as tightly as you need to. It becomes nothing but trial-and-error, memorizing the course and knowing where every gate and obstacle is well in advance so you can prepare accordingly. And even then, it's STILL insanely hard. I spent hours on that one before I finally beat it once.

BUT, that was a Challenge Map mission (and may have even been DLC, I forget). So I kinda forgive it. That stuff is specifically to test people who mastered the main game so it's kinda supposed to be unreasonable.

There were definitely a few moments in the regular game where I was like "Ah, c'mon" at first, but nothing that practice and Upgrades didn't resolve.

One thing I've come to feel as I played through the entire series is that I think the first game - while a great experience - is frankly SO easy that I suspect some people expected they all would be the same way, something you could rip through in one shot without breaking a sweat. When in truth, each game really demands that you have recently played (and preferably mastered) the previous game. Each one gets a little bit more challenging and intricate than the previous game, whether it be the enemy types or an entire new mechanic to master such as the Batmobile.

I still need to do a proper full review but I can't do it while I'm still so sick. I also at least want to start the New Game + run, first.

[CyberCubed]

If you have Arkham Knight on PS4, there's exclusive Scarecrow missions that aren't on the Xbox version. They're basically just 3 missions racing through Gotham in a "nightmare" world from Scarecrows gas but they're exclusive to PS4 and they're free too.

I also loved they finally put Man-bat in these games, I'm surprised it took them till the 4th game but chasing him with the Batmobile was fun. Between all 4 games they managed to finally include every major Batman villain eventually. I don't think they missed any as they even included Calendar Man and some obscure ones here and there even if it was just easter egg stuff.

[Leo656]

I sadly never got any of the PS versions of the games. At the time I bought them I wasn't aware of the console-exclusive content. I really hate that they did that. For example, having Burt Ward Robin, Julie Newmar Catwoman, and the '66 Batmobile, but no Adam West Batman, is such a f*cking c*cktease on Xbox One.

The Man-Bat stuff was cool for sure, although I chased him from the air. I was so used to gliding around that using the Batmobile for traversal wasn't my automatic go-to in every situation. It was pretty random whether I did or didn't use it; whatever I felt like in the moment. But that's one of the things that was cool to me, the freedom to do things One Way or Another Way. With Man-Bat, I think my thinking was, "He's gonna be up in the sky so I should be, too."

They definitely did a good job showcasing just about all the major Batman villains. I would have liked Zsasz to be a bigger part of Knight after being so involved in Asylum and City but by the same token Scarecrow wasn't really part of City so I guess you can't have everyone always.

Probably my biggest disappointment with the villains was the handling of Hush; the build-up in City was intriguing, but Batman's whole "Eh, there's a guy with my face running around... whatever, I'll catch him tomorrow" thing was odd as hell, like the writers didn't have a clue how to end that. And then Batman apparently didn't go after him anyway! Which makes him rather an idiot. And then the bit in Knight was cool and everything, but his plan to basically just break into Wayne Enterprises and steal Bruce's money was kind of dumb, and the encounter just being a one-button deal was a bit anticlimactic. Granted, the comics never really did right by Hush either; you can tell he was just created for the One Story and that nobody but Loeb really knew what to do with the character. But still, of all the ways you could try and hurt Bruce Wayne by usurping his identity, "break into his office and steal his money" is hardly super-villain level. "You went to ALL this trouble for THAT? I'm not sure you're smart enough to be a doctor, Tommy." I guess he probably had grander plans for afterwards, but I can only go by what we saw.

But yeah, overall they did a very good job of utilizing almost all of the major villains. One way or another, they got almost all of 'em in there, and usually to very good effect.

[superstaff]

I sadly never got any of the PS versions of the games. At the time I bought them I wasn't aware of the console-exclusive content. I really hate that they did that. For example, having Burt Ward Robin, Julie Newmar Catwoman, and the '66 Batmobile, but no Adam West Batman, is such a f*cking c*cktease on Xbox One.


Was that because West was in declining health during that time, or was it released after he died?

[Leo656]

No, it was for the same reason Arkham City had a PS3-exclusive "Knightfall Batman" skin. "Because F*ck Xbox Owners, that's why." :roll: Literally the exact same reason. They put all the other Batman '66 stuff on both Xbox One and PS4, but they made the Adam West Batman skin a PS4 exclusive just to be gigantic dicks.

They did that sh*t with every game in the series since the first and it's ridiculous.

Thankfully, they at least put the Neal Adams/"1970s Batman" skin in the game, and that one works just as well almost when cruising in the '66 Batmobile or teaming up with Burt Ward Robin on the tag team maps. Still, to put ALL the other '66 stuff on both platforms and keep Adam West locked up on PS4 is super-dickery of the highest order.

[Sumac]

Batmobile felt like a crutch from developers. I have a theory, they didn't know how to redesign battle system after City, so they just stuck a foreign element in it and call it a day.

And I mean, Batmobile handles amazingly well, but it doesn't really feel like a natural part of the experience. More like sections of another good game were strapped into the fabric of a good old Arkham game.

[Andrew NDB]

Batmobile felt like a crutch from developers. I have a theory, they didn't know how to redesign battle system after City, so they just stuck a foreign element in it and call it a day.

And I mean, Batmobile handles amazingly well, but it doesn't really feel like a natural part of the experience. More like sections of another good game were strapped into the fabric of a good old Arkham game.

That's all true. I don't remember much non-Batmobile gameplay difference between City and Knight at all.

[Turo602]

Batmobile felt like a crutch from developers. I have a theory, they didn't know how to redesign battle system after City, so they just stuck a foreign element in it and call it a day.

And I mean, Batmobile handles amazingly well, but it doesn't really feel like a natural part of the experience. More like sections of another good game were strapped into the fabric of a good old Arkham game.

The thing is, the series has always been this way. Both combat and predator sections are essentially 2 different types of games/styles with their own mechanics. It's literally just a series of rooms stitched together with either one of these sections. Arkham Knight just took it further with 2 new Batmobile-centric playstyles with tank battles and race tracks.

Splitting up the gameplay like this is precisely why these games have worked out so well because they're able to fully realize each playstyle by sectioning them off as opposed to trying to make it all feel cohesive and seamless and risk watering down all their ideas and mechanics in the process.

[Leo656]

The thing is, the series has always been this way. Both combat and predator sections are essentially 2 different types of games/styles with their own mechanics. It's literally just a series of rooms stitched together with either one of these sections. Arkham Knight just took it further with 2 new Batmobile-centric playstyles with tank battles and race tracks.

Splitting up the gameplay like this is precisely why these games have worked out so well because they're able to fully realize each playstyle by sectioning them off as opposed to trying to make it all feel cohesive and seamless and risk watering down all their ideas and mechanics in the process.

STOP DOING THAT! :lol: Stop saying exactly what I'm saying but simpler. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
---------------------------

Here it is ANYWAY since I typed it all, you prick. :lol:

I don't know about all that. I made the comment to my wife that the first three games in the series all felt like essentially two completely different types of games - beat-'em-up and stealth, specifically - linked together via an open-world traversal system into One Larger Game. A few years earlier, say, anytime up to 2005 or so, and just the Challenge Maps of either the Combat or Stealth challenges could have easily been released as their own standalone game and still been fairly well-received, because even without the open world and Boss battles (which barely exist anyway) to link them together, each of the two gameplay types feels relatively self-contained and fully-formed all by itself.

The overworld definitely helps the immersion and creating the "illusion" that it's really One Game you're playing and not "two different games stitched together"... but frankly, the basic Arkham game structure IS two games stitched together. The strongest evidence of this is how completely neutered and vulnerable Batman is in a Stealth Room compared to a Combat Room; in a Combat Room, Batman can take many punches and even get shot multiple times, while in a Stealth room, this same guy can now be struck dead by a stiff breeze as soon as anyone sees him. From the very first game it literally almost feels like it was developed as two completely different Batman games and then someone just decided to merge them into one to save resources, because it never quite feels fully cohesive. It feels disconnected, slightly.

Adding the Batmobile builds on this same exact foundation and merely doubles it, adding Racing and Tank Battle gameplay, thus upping the disparate gameplay styles to four instead of two. That's really all it is. The exploration element still acts as a way to link the different styles of gameplay, but throughout the entire series if you really play them over and over, it becomes more and more noticeable that it's all just a diversion between "rooms". I.e., Combat Room, exploration section, Stealth Room, exploration section, repeat, occasionally broken up by a Boss fight (VERY rarely; this entire goddamn series needed more Boss fights).

This formula is most noticeable in the first game, since in Asylum there is NOTHING AT ALL TO DO in-between scripted story moments (besides the extraneous Riddler Trophies, obviously), but it's still very prevalent throughout the entire series. Outside of Side Missions, which could be Either/Or, you start to be able to predict the games' story and gameplay beats based on whatever you last did. "Okay, the game just had me fight off a roomful of goons; I know that now I'm gonna walk down hallways for ten minutes, and then do a Stealth room." And it almost never deviates from that cycle.

The addition of the Batmobile sections retains this same basic formula while adding two more "modes" and breaking up the repetition of doing things in the same exact order over and over again, simply because now there are four different "games" in one box rather than just two. You're not doing things in the same static "A-B-A-B-A-Boss Fight" pattern anymore; it's a lot more randomized since there's just plain twice as many things to do, and they're no longer presented in a predictable set order. It might go, "Combat-Stealth-Race-Combat-Tank", for example, OR, "Combat-Race-Tank-Stealth-Combat", or any other combination.

But it's STILL just disparate gameplay styles' linked together by an overworld, is the point, same as it always was. They just doubled the types of gameplay from Two to Four, divided equally between on-foot and driving missions.

Granted, all of this MAY become a bit more noticeable if you play the games A-to-Z almost every day over a 4-month span. There's just a lot of stuff that starts to become very noticeable when you do a deep-dive into the entire series and make it a point to do "everything" there is to do. One of those noticeable things being, it's kind of oversimplifying to imply that the addition of the Batmobile missions was stitched-together because frankly, the whole series was already like that. I think it just stuck out more because the Batmobile stuff was "new" and we'd already gotten used to the previous stock formula of "A-B-A-B-A" for three straight games. The new elements thus feel a little intrusive simply by being so vastly different, but they don't in any way change the way the games were already presented, that being "Disparate sections linked by open-world navigation and exploration" moreso than One Cohesive Game.
--------------

Of course Turo says in three sentences what I spent 15 minutes trying to say. F*ck this f*cking guy. Love you! :lol: Dick.

[Leo656]

That's all true. I don't remember much non-Batmobile gameplay difference between City and Knight at all.

Combat-wise, almost no difference.

The biggest difference is that the gliding has been revamped heavily in Knight; Batman's cape is now much larger, he can glide MUCH higher and farther, and cover more ground faster than ever before. You also have a lot more precision and control while gliding than before. You can actually cover huge swaths of the map via the air ALMOST as fast as you can with the Batmobile; just for fun I tried doing one of the Riddler Trophy challenges both With and Without the Batmobile, and the Batmobile only shaves about 3-5 seconds off of your time from A to B, you can *almost* snatch the Trophy in time without using the Batmobile and simply gliding instead. You can't, but it's VERY close.

That's pretty much the biggest non-Batmobile difference in the gameplay, but it is very noticeable when you play them all back-to-back. It was already getting better with each game but in Knight it's noticeable the first time you jump off a building that they finally perfected the gliding, which before either didn't let you go quite high enough, forced you to lose height and momentum too soon, didn't allow you to turn or land with pinpoint accuracy... they really tightened it up A LOT for the last game.

Maybe not the biggest "change" but it was noticeable and very much appreciated.

[Turo602]

STOP DOING THAT! :lol: Stop saying exactly what I'm saying but simpler. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
---------------------------
Of course Turo says in three sentences what I spent 15 minutes trying to say. F*ck this f*cking guy. Love you! :lol: Dick.

LMAO! Now you know how I feel when I'm reading through your long ass essays ready to make a point only to see you've already covered it on paragraph 4, line 3. :lol:

Also, Arkham Knight easily has the best gameplay in the series full stop. The leap Arkham City made over Arkham Asylum, Knight did to City. Like you said, gliding has never been better and the Batmobile feels great to control. But you guys are really understating just how much more fluid and expanded combat is, which already felt like it couldn't get any better in City, yet still did.

The game isn't that fresh to me anymore, so I'm sure you can go deeper on this than I can right now. But from what I remember, crowds of enemies are larger, Batman covers more ground, Batman can use melee weapons, there's fear takedowns, environmental takedowns, downed enemies can be attacked to keep your combo going, gadgets affect groups of enemies, you can charge the stun attack, and you can even call in the Batmobile to neutralize enemies. Then of course there's the dual free-flow segments where you can switch back and forth between Batman and another character and do tag team moves. It's just so much more responsive and quicker paced too.

It's honestly a real shame we haven't been given more of THIS Batman gameplay because it just absolutely sh*ts on the other titles in just about every way, yet it's the goddamn Batmobile that everyone talks about. They really dropped the ball not giving Origins a sequel using Arkham Knight's assets.

[Leo656]

Y'know, that's all true and well-stated. I forgot about some of that since due to being sick I haven't played it in a week due to illness, and some of those mechanics slipped my mind since I rarely used them but was notably Wow'ed that they included them.

I'm citing brain-fog due to being severely ill, that's my only excuse. You're 100% correct in that they added a lot of things to the combat but it all feels so natural to what was already there that it could have/should have been there all along. It still feels "the same" as the previous games but they significantly added a ton of little things that add up to Big Things for the combat.

I fumbled that. Not at my best right now, that's my only excuse.

[CyberCubed]

Anyone excited for the next game, Gotham Knights? It's technically not part of the Arkham series but it's the next big Batman game although Batman himself is not playable (for now). Funnily enough it fits right in with the story at the end of Arkham Knight where Batman pretends to "die" and blows up Wayne Manor. It's also covering the Court of Owls story next time:

You can play as Nightwing, Red Hood (Jason Todd), Time Drake and Batgirl:

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Remember Arkham Knight came out way back in 2015 so we haven't had a new Batman game in 7 years. There's also rumors this game got delayed to 2023 so it'll be 8 years since the last game.

[Leo656]

Gameplay-wise, yeah. The "tag team" sections of Arkham Knight were some of my favorite parts of the game and I think I've mentioned before that an entire game where you could swap between Batman, Robin, Nightwing and Catwoman on the fly would be a dream come true for me, and this seems very much like the next best thing even though you probably won't be able to play as Batman except for paid DLC (there's no way they'd do this kind of game and not let you play as Batman at all, that'd be ridiculous).

And since I don't keep up as closely as some people do, it was initially a bit confusing to me about whether or not it was intended to be in-canon with the previous games - apparently this one is not, but somehow Suicide Squad is? That's... kinda stupid. For one thing, as Cubed mentioned it's already 99% in-line story-wise where Knight ended, I think the only major deviation is that in this game Gordon is supposed to be dead, too. They should have just made this the in-canon follow-up/direct sequel/whatever, and it feels like the only reason they did not is because there was probably internal disagreement about how the storyline should play out with regard to "what comes next" in-universe. For example, Arkham Knight (and City) clearly sets up Azrael taking over as the new Batman, and I'm guessing nobody wanted to deal with that directly (or they didn't think that far ahead, or something along those lines), so this came along as some kind of weird in-between compromise. But I mean, would it really have been so hard?

Furthermore, doesn't look like Suicide Squad, despite being "in-canon" with Arkham, is gonna deal with any of the Azrael stuff either, at least as far as we know. So it's pretty much just "in-canon with the Arkham series" so they can sell more copies of the Suicide Squad game to people who won't play any DC games that aren't explicitly labelled as such. That's what it feels like. I know the series always teased an eventual Squad/Task Force X but they also teased a completely different roster of characters for it, almost none of whom are gonna be playable in the upcoming game.

Gotham Knights had to have been the direct sequel on-paper at some point. You have the entire cast of secondary characters from Knight as the protagonists, the ending is almost perfectly in-line with where things were left in the previous game, and even the titles have a strong linking thread ("Arkham Knight" - "Gotham Knights", that can't just be accident or coincidence) to suggest that they're connected.

They say they're not and it's not the direct sequel, but my BS detector says that at some point it definitely was. I'm aware that there was a lot of internal disagreement over what the next true game in the series should be and all of this reeks of compromise among people who simply couldn't agree on what to do. As long as the games are good it won't matter a ton, but it's annoying.

[Turo602]

I'm looking forward to Gotham Knights simply because I've always wanted a co-op Batman game, but I still don't see this as a substitute for a Batman game since Batman won't be playable and the gameplay is deviating from the traditional Arkham game structure.

As excited as I am for Gotham Knights, reworking the Batman gameplay for co-op is tricky and could have serious shortcomings if not executed correctly, which is my biggest worry about this game. I also find it strange that the game is strictly 2 players, despite 4 characters being advertised which raises more questions about how co-op works and how this will affect the story.

As for the lack of continuity with the Arkham games, I blame Arkham Knight for that. This project did originally start as a future Batman game starring Damian Wayne as Batman, which I believe was called Arkham Insurgency or something, so it was definitely in continuity with the Arkham games and they were clearly struggling to write themselves out of Arkham Knight's ending by having a new Batman.

I honestly don't blame them for going this route though. In a way, they're rewriting Arkham Knight's ending without actually retconning it, so that it can feel like it's picking up from the last Batman game everyone played, but without the restrictions created from Arkham Knight's ending since it's only Bruce Wayne who died in Gotham Knight and not Batman. We also know Bruce Wayne isn't faking his death as a result of the world knowing Batman's identity, so it's likely Bruce's "death" here is the result of the Court of Owls.

What I do find strange is Suicide Squad being in continuity with the Arkham games for absolutely no reason, especially when they're obviously trying to keep synergy with the Suicide Squad films. Not to mention, I hear Batman won't even be in it seeing as the goal here is to "kill the Justice League" and well, Batman is already "dead" and working solo under new circumstances. The most they'll get out of this is merely referencing the fact that Bruce Wayne is Batman and Joker is dead, which is not really necessary or big enough a reason to keep it in continuity. I'm also sure part of the reason he'll be absent from this game is due to the very likelihood that we'll be fighting him in Gotham Knights already.

Also, isn't it kinda weird how Arkham Origins initially teased this game, yet that team is doing Gotham Knights, a sorta kinda sequel but not really continuation of Arkham Knight, and Rocksteady is doing Suicide Squad? You'd think Rocksteady would continue Batman and WB Montreal could finish what they started in Origins.

[Leo656]

Yeah, it's a bit of a clusterf*ck. Both games should be good but holy hell, the "continuity" angle is totally botched.

The drop-in/drop-out gameplay is intriguing for my wife and I, since she likes the idea of playing co-op games in theory but it never really works well in practice because I tend to play games in huge 8-12 hour chunks and she does not, so it just never really works out. The idea that I could get to a cool part of the game though and then she can just jump in for that little bit, mess around a while, then stop whenever she wants without it hurting anything is something she got really excited for when I told her about it. So that's cool.

[Leo656]

So okay, I've been too lazy to really sit down and put my full thoughts down, and it's been a few weeks since I beat it for the second time so I'm not as sharp as I was then, but suffice to say, I really loved Arkham Knight and in a lot of ways it really feels like the most complete package. The whole series was great, but gameplay-wise this one is easily the best.

There's really nothing I DIDN'T like, other than there is a LOT of Batmobile and almost no actual Boss Fights. And I actually loved the Batmobile stuff, for the most part, it's kinda just how at the very end when Deathstroke shows up and you have to go around and blow up more mines and stuff AGAIN after you've already done all that in the main game... that much feels like padding. Thankfully there's not a TON of it, and it's at the very end so it's whatever, but the one really annoying thing is how the mines for this section are in hard-to-find spots. Otherwise, it's no big deal. I'm more cranky about the lack of Boss fights; the entire series was lousy with this, but almost every "Boss Fight" in this game is a Batmobile Tank Battle. You ever even get a proper 1-on-1 with Jason, just Stealth missions where you sneak up to his perch and punch him. To be fair, though, I almost didn't notice until I beat the game how few Boss fights there are, because there wasn't a moment of the game where I wasn't having fun. It was more a, "Hmmm, y'know..." after the fact kinda thing.

The Riddler stuff, as usual, was "eh", but at least there was a LOT less of it, compared to the other games. The races weren't very hard at all once you get the pattern down. Driving on walls sucks, but once you learn not to try and accelerate or drift it's doable. I agree with those who say that few of these are actually "Riddles" and that it overall feels like less effort was put into this than in the other games, but the Riddler stuff was always my least-favorite part, anyway, so I don't mind it being scaled back.

Same for the scaled-back Stealth sections. They almost eliminated them entirely compared to the rest of the series, and while I can understand why some people would be upset by that, much as I appreciate the Stealth sections they always slowed the flow of the game down and just plain weren't as fun as the action/combat sections. I'm glad they're still in the game but I'm completely fine with them being used much more sparingly. The game flows better, now; it feels much less like two different games stapled together, as you move between environments. Everything feels much more organically-structured.

Combat and just the gameplay in general is easily the best of the series, with many more options at your disposal. Using gadgets while gliding down onto enemies, all the different Environment Takedowns like smashing guys into spotlights or electrical panels, picking up weapons that are lying around, more countering options... there's just so much more you can do, to the point where while it still has the same basic feel it's almost like a brand new game altogether, in some ways. Stuff you didn't even know you were missing, until you get to do it in this game, and it's like "Hey, yeah, it really should have ALWAYS been like this!"

Even in the Stealth sections, the little extra stuff they let you do changes the entire experience. I LOVED setting traps for bad guys like booby-trapping the Weapons crates and using the Voice Synthesizer to send them off to get knocked out, all that kinda stuff. That Voice Synthesizer itself gives you SO many more options for setting up traps and takedowns; the Stealth sections don't all just come down to hiding in grates or on gargoyles and waiting for guys to get near you, anymore, the entire thing is much more dynamic and you have a lot more control over the situation. You feel much more empowered in this game than in any of the others, and I love that.

I've always loved the Side Missions in this series, and this game didn't disappoint. I loved the Rogues Gallery chosen and how they were used, and I loved how they even stuck some guys you wouldn't necessarily expect in there, like Professor Pyg and Deacon Blackfire. It was neat how the board at GCPD kept track of your mission progress by showing you how much room was left in the cells and all that. I loved how GCPD was sort of the "hub" in general, and you could interact with all the bad guys you'd caught, cops and firefighters you'd saved, check out the gadgets in the Evidence rooms, all that stuff. Very dynamic! I did miss having an actual Batcave, though.

Some of my very favorite stuff, was how much of the game revolved around Batman's relationship with his sidekicks/partners. Something that I was outspokenly bothered by in the earlier games was how it was almost like Robin, Nightwing, etc. didn't even exist, but this game more than makes up for it. All the "tag team" missions with Batman and Catwoman, Robin, and Nightwing, the relationships and dialog between them, it was all so PERFECT. Being able to swap between them in combat and do "Tag Team Finishers" was fantastic, it's everything I ever wanted in a Batman game and it was SO great to finally get it. It felt like they were making up for lost time, in a sense.

I get some peoples' complaints about the Batmobile, but frankly, I liked it a lot. There's more of it than I'd expect but it was all fun, for me. I loved the tank battles, the bigger the better. They were chaotic, for sure, but they were a blast. I always get a kick out of Hacking the drones and turning them against the other tanks. The only thing that bothered me about the Batmobile, is that you can't use most of the alternate skins in the main games' missions since they had no weapons' function. That was some bullsh*t, and I feel like if they had just a little more time they could have fixed that.

I really liked how the story came together; yeah, anyone who knows anything about Batman could see the "twist" coming before they even started the damn game, but I liked how they put it together. The flashback scenes with Joker torturing Jason were suitably unnerving. The game feels like it rips off a lot from "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight Rises", but for me that just ties in with the entire series' general aesthetic of being a "remix" of some of the best parts of the Batman mythos. The stuff with Azrael was pretty neat and leans into the comics' storyline (even if it's the FAKE Azrael and not Jean-Paul, that annoyed me); it's too bad we probably won't get a proper follow-up to tie that part up. If you do all the Riddler stuff and get the "real" ending, you see how Azrael has taken up the mantle of the Bat but it seems like we won't get to see "the next chapter" anytime soon, and that's a bummer.

The only thing I didn't get or care for in the story, was having Barbara and Tim be the ones in love and not Barbara and Dick. That made little sense and was poorly explained. It's alluded to in some of the DLC that Dick and Barbara still had been together in the past, but it's never really explained why she's now with Tim, of all people, and that just felt very weird. Just like, "Let's do it different, just because." They should have just had it be Babs and Dick. That annoyed me, but it's whatever.

As always, the Challenge Maps are VERY addicting, and there's SO many of them, since you're encouraged to do each one multiple times. Having Missions tailored to each playable character - Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Arkham Knight, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Azrael and Batgirl - is nice, and getting to play each mission with each character is fun and adds a ton of replay value. Likewise, all the different Batmobile Races and getting to do each one with each different Batmobile is a blast; you very quickly notice how each one handles differently, and that it's not just a new skin but an altogether different car with different handling, very nice that they put so much work into that. Like the "Arkham Asylum" Batmobile has the fastest acceleration but the most slippery handling, almost feeling "too fast", the Batman '66 car has good speed but doesn't turn well or avoid obstacles easily since it's like a big rectangular box, the Tumbler goes around tight corners incredibly well since it comes to a narrow point in the front with those smaller front wheels... you quickly get a feel for each one and how it handles, and it makes you play all the races with a different strategy each time, so it never feels redundant. I loved it! I played the game for weeks between the Story and Challenge stuff, and I still only completed about half of the stuff to do in Challenge Mode. I really look forward to going back and completing it.

All the skins are great, as usual. I just wish they'd kept in ALL the ones from previous games, as well. This game has the overall best selection, but I missed the Animated Series skins as well as a few others. I also missed having Deathstroke and Bruce Wayne being playable characters in Challenge Mode. I know you can't have everything, but since Arkham Knight feels so much like "The Total Package" it's a shame they didn't just go whole-hog and keep every single thing the other games had.

All the DLC missions are great, just a bit short. Harley sadly kinda sucks, having the least amount of combat options and gadgets. It's a shame you finally get to play as her and she ends up being the "worst" playable character. Like, the Challenge missions where you need to get a high Combo multiplier to succeed, it's nearly impossible with her since she has almost no gadgets and her Combo chain breaks so easily; conversely, Batgirl is practically Godlike and I can get higher Combos with her than almost anyone. Jason also is kind of weak, since he also has few gadgets and using his guns leaves you open for attack, but he's good sometimes.

(Cont.)

[Leo656]

All in all, it's not a "perfect" game but I do feel like it's the most complete game in the series with the most bang for the buck all the way around. You get EVERYTHING, it's the ultimate "Batman Simulator". All it really needed were more/better Boss Fights, and a Batcave. Then it would be "perfect" as far as I'm concerned. I never wasn't having an absolute blast, even if the story was entirely predictable. I don't need twists and turns, I just need Fun. And this one delivered everything I could have asked for. I beat it twice back-to-back, on the regular and "I Am The Knight" or whatever mode, and had a blast both times. I LOVED this game.

What a great series (except for Origins: Blackgate, f*ck that piece of sh*t). All in all, I spent about 4+ months playing the games in story order, starting with Origins in January, beating each game twice on varying difficulty, and it was some of the most fun I've ever had in gaming. There's still a ton of Challenge Mode stuff I didn't do in Origins and Knight, so I have something to go back to. It's funny how some people act like Origins "doesn't count", because if you play Knight and pay attention there are a TON of callbacks to Origins; you can tell they were in development at the same time because there's a lot of synergy and connective tissue between them. I enjoyed that.

They're all great, fun games; Asylum is just "the worst" by default since it was first and thus so stripped-down compared to the rest. It's just SO linear and there's NOTHING to do outside the main game except get Riddler Trophies, and the entire game's story feels like it would be a Side Mission in any of the other games. It's not that it's a bad game by any means, it's a ton of fun for what it is, it just feels almost like a demo compared to the others. When you play them in story order with Origins first, and then Asylum, it REALLY jumps out at you just how small the game actually is, and how much they advanced as they went along.

If you haven't played them in a while, or have never played them all in storyline order, I definitely recommend doing so because it definitely reframes the experience. If you've never played them at all, it might be best to start with Asylum because Origins is structured in a way where you're likely to get your ass kicked easily since it sort of expects/demands that you've already experienced Asylum and City to get the hang of things.

A++ for the entire series. Except Origins: Blackgate, which is awful. Skip that one.

[Turo602]

Glad you enjoyed Arkham Knight as much as I did. It really did feel like a complete package. Not a perfect one, but much more than any other game in the series. The GCPD acting as a hub of sorts just created so much more immersion into the Batman experience that I don't think gets talked about enough, and driving the villains and turning them in to the GCPD was such a great touch and yet another good use of the Batmobile.

And as you said, the story was predictable and the Arkham Knight stuff was kinda dumb, but the way the story was told and presented was leagues ahead of any of the others. Whenever I see people try to tear into this game, the story is always something they criticize, yet they purposely don't highlight how well it's presented for a Batman game. Just like the Christopher Nolan films gradually build up and just pile so much sh*t on Batman's shoulders, Arkham Knight takes you from moment to moment with so much impact and weight that all that's missing is that incredible Hans Zimmer score as you're kicking ass.

And now that you mention it, the predator segments were a lot more seamlessly integrated into the gameplay than before. But I feel it having taken more of a backseat is the result of the open world and Batmobile already offering so much variety into the mix that they no longer needed to rely on the predator stuff to break up the flow as much. But even so, still the best it's ever been in the series. I swear, people on the internet just like to sh*t on this game because it's the cool thing to do even though a lot of their criticisms don't really hold up.

Arkham City is great, but it has this kind of annoying reputation now that it can never be topped, sort of like how casual gamers always insisted there were no great Spider-Man games after Spider-Man 2 for a long time. Arkham Origins is a perfectly fine game and Arkham Knight was fantastic, yet people act like they're dark spots in the Arkham franchise.

[Leo656]

Yeah, I agree. City WAS great, but so were Origins and Knight. Origins gets ripped for being "just more of the same", but in truth it was a more refined experience than City AND had more/better Boss Fights. It also had some great side missions and the only "true" Bane content in the entire franchise.

Every time I hear anyone talk about Knight online, they always make sure to piss on the Batmobile content, to the point where I was expecting it to be just godawful, but... it's NOT? Like, the worst I can say is, "There's a lot of it." But it handles great and it feels like something that "should have always been there", in a sense. And frankly, for me it wasn't "too much" since I tended to enjoy gliding around the city more than driving unless I "had" to use the car, and so I never got sick of it. A lot of the game still gives you the choice as to how you want to get around, and with the revised gliding it's almost as fast as the car, anyway. So whenever I got tired of driving, I'd just glide. Simple.

But past that and "the story sucks", which I disagree with, I don't see people make very substantive points about why Arkham Knight is "bad". Both Origins and Knight, the "worst" thing I can say about them is simply that they don't absolutely leap ten miles forward the way it went from Arkham Asylum to Arkham City. That was like going from black-and-white to color, and since then the improvements, while noticeable, have been more incremental. But for me, that's perfectly fine. Sometimes I think people just expect/demand too much. After everything I've read, I was SHOCKED at how much I loved Origins and Knight. There's a LOT about both of them I liked better than City, and I loved City from the first time I played it.

I already knew the ending, since the game's several years old already and I love me some Spoilers. But because of that, I got pretty emotional near the end, after Bruce was unmasked and Scarecrow beaten, when you're just walking around the GCPD taking to everyone and getting ready to do the last few side missions and activate the Knightfall Protocol. After playing the entire saga from Origins onward, there was just such an emotional weight to it, like I'd taken Bruce through all the "big moments" of his Batman career, and now I was walking him through the end of it all. Powerful stuff. It brought me back to how I got the exact same feelings a few years ago when I did my Metal Gear series runthrough.

Seriously; I'm walking around the GCPD at the very end, after putting Deathstroke away... Gotham is saved, every bad guy is in jail, there's nothing left to do, and Oracle's like, "So... what are you going to do now?" And my wife's really good at reading my body language, so she's like, "...Are you okay?" :lol: And I'm just like, "Siiiiiiiigh..." :lol:

I WANT moments like that. I dig it SO much, when a great game or movie or whatever can shake me up like that. And I'm so glad I played the entire series in storyline order before getting to Knight for the first time, because it probably would have hit altogether differently.

So yeah, great game, great series. The only "disappointment" (aside from Origins: Blackgate being great for the opening 10 minutes and then a huge piece of sh*t after that) was that Asylum is SO much smaller than I'd remembered. It's still a great game, it's just... it really is almost like it could be a side mission, compared to the rest of the series, and there's just so many things missing from it that you get used to having/doing in the other games. But I mean, it was still a great first step, a literal game-changer. It's not that game's fault that everything they either forgot or couldn't do Then, they managed to do to great effect later. It just seemed so much bigger, in my nostalgic memory. To run through it A-to-Z twice in three days was... well, it was a lot of fun, but also really eye-opening just how far things came after that one.

The good in that, though, was that it made me notice and appreciate ALL the different things the later games improved upon and perfected. :) It all has its place and its purpose. Just kinda makes me snicker, looking back to my first time playing Asylum and how I was so sure, "Man, they'll NEVER top THIS!" :lol: But I'm so very glad I was wrong. They did better each time, for sure, even if the "jumps" forward after City were more like "hops".

One day in the not-so-distant future I plan on checking out "Dark Tomorrow" for the first time just to experience the complete opposite end of the Batman spectrum. :lol: Oddly enough, from what I understand that game originally wanted to do a ton of stuff that the Arkham series ended up doing, they just didn't have the money, technology and development team to actually pull it off. I'm aware it's apparently godawful, but I got it for 5 bucks over a decade ago so no matter how bad it is I won't feel the sting too badly. :trazz:

[Andrew NDB]

"City" honestly does rank as one of my favorite video game experiences. Ranked on many categories. Mainly: I've played many great games where I'll dip in for a day or two, jump out, come back in a month or two, and eventually beat it in a year. "City," I was riveted the whole way, glued to it for the work week it took me to beat it, and can't say a single bad thing about anything in the whole game. Pioneering experience. Every bit of the story, every reveal, I was hook line and sinker the whole way. And they got all of the characters right in it, absolutely. Jumping and gliding across rooftops, rappelling like that, these were things I dreamed about in the original Asylum game and here they were realized, they work, and work well.

If you think about it, the Arkham trilogy (yes, excluding Origin) kind of feels like the Nolan trilogy in a way. Begins is to Asylum in that it's fairly lean, tells a focused story and it's out. Dark Knight is to City in that the scope is broadened and most people seem to consider it the best of the bunch (I don't, on Dark Knight, but that's just me). Dark Knight Rises is to Arkham Knight in that there's a bunch of stuff added into it that make it certainly "less lean" and a little bit more all over the map.

[Leo656]

I can't say anything bad at all about City, only that Origins and Knight did a lot of things a whole lot better. No game in the series ever "regressed" even a little, they each took the ball from the last game and ran with it, just getting more and more refined each time out.

Actually, the ONE thing I can say negatively about City was the RIDICULOUS amount of Riddler Trophy stuff. Origins still had a bit too much of it, but thankfully not AS much, and for Knight it was scaled WAY back and the puzzles were nowhere near as obtuse and nonsensical as some of the ones in City.

So yeah, there's that. City had WAY too much Riddler Sh*t, too many of the puzzles were nonsense, and I'm glad the two games after that dialed it down. That's the only "negative" I can think of. And not everybody collects Riddler Trophies anyway, I just make it a point to 100% the stuff I play as much as I possibly can.

City will forever be one of the best sequels in gaming history, without a doubt. The jump from Asylum to City was SO incredible, it's a big reason why Origins and Knight aren't as fondly remembered in the grand scheme of it all; the improvements from City to Origins and from Origins to Knight were very real, just more subtle in most instances. Whereas the jump from Asylum to City was HUGE. It's hard to think of too many second games, from ANY series, that were such an incredible leap over the first game in every single way.

Like, I'm trying to think of another game series where Part 2 was SO much better than Part 1, and right now I kinda can't. City might be THE best "Game Number 2" any series ever had, as far as taking the concept of the original and multiplying it by a thousand, improving every single bit of it along the way.


the Arkham trilogy (yes, excluding Origin)

I think it's very strange to exclude Origins. Arkham Knight calls back to Origins constantly, so it's very clear that you are supposed to have played that game. They purposely put in tons of references and callbacks big and small. Small stuff like the Evidence Locker being full of the gadgets of the enemies you busted in Origins, and big stuff like Deathstroke and Firefly talking about "Ten years ago...", and more.

Origins is 100% considered an important part of the saga by the games themselves, so I don't rightly see why they'd be excluded for any reason whatsoever. Different studio? So What? Different voice actors? Again, Who Cares? If it was supposed to be ignored, Knight would have ignored it, instead of packing the game full of constant references to it.

Origins also had the best Boss Fights in the entire series by a huge margin, and the only real Bane. If people insist on ignoring it, I'm not their Dad, but it's a poor choice on their end.

[Andrew NDB]

Actually, the ONE thing I can say negatively about City was the RIDICULOUS amount of Riddler Trophy stuff.

For me, don't care. If I see some I'll f*** with them and try to beat them. But if I can't or don't, I'm not tripping. Back to the story. It's like me with Red Dead Redemption. I don't need to hunt every legendary animal... I'll beat the story and maybe do a few cool bonus quests, then I'm good.

Like, I'm trying to think of another game series where Part 2 was SO much better than Part 1, and right now I kinda can't.

Sounds like a thing that's thread worthy.

I think it's very strange to exclude Origins.

Well, I'm not. But it isn't a part of the Rocksteady trilogy (or the literal trilogy you can buy right now for either X-Box or PS). I'm actually playing it on PS5 in the PSNow or whatever option I'm paying for every month. Though I got to be honest, it's difficult to get excited about hopping back into it every time I think about doing so. But I'm early on. And now Obi-Wan inspires me to play this Fallen Order thing.

And of course I'm not saying it doesn't count. It definitely does. And I like that it even slightly does a little bit of damage control on Bane. Because oh boy, those Rocksteady guys got him dead wrong.

[Turo602]

I don't know, isn't it kinda a thing how sequels are usually really incredible in video games? Off the top of my head, Street Fighter II, Sonic 2, Resident Evil 2, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Spider-Man 2, Assassin's Creed II, Uncharted 2, Borderlands 2, and Red Dead Redemption II are all pretty iconic sequels that just doubled down on what made their original great and just completely refined and reshaped their respective franchises.

[Leo656]

Fair point. I've only played some of those; the ones I've played didn't quite feel AS "Whoa!" to me the first time I played them, as the first time playing City did after Asylum.

Maybe the jump from Street Fighter to Street Fighter II is as large. But that's mostly owing to the fact that the original Street Fighter was garbage, and the jump from "This Is Worthless" to ANYTHING would seem huge.

But yeah, those are all good examples, they belong in the conversation.

And I like that it even slightly does a little bit of damage control on Bane. Because oh boy, those Rocksteady guys got him dead wrong.

At least Origins gives it all SOME context by having him be completely and irrecoverably wrecked on Titan or whatever by the time we get to Asylum. I wasn't a fan of how "off-brand" he was later on, either (although his side mission in City was very cute). But for as wrong as they did him in Asylum, he was damn near perfect in Origins. He was low-key one of the best parts of the whole game.

[Andrew NDB]

Anyone excited for the next game, Gotham Knights? It's technically not part of the Arkham series

Are we SURE it isn't part of it? Like, a spinoff?

[LeotheLateBloomer]

Are we SURE it isn't part of it? Like, a spinoff?

We're sure. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is canon to the Arkham series. It's Rocksteady's next game they're working on.

[Andrew NDB]

We're sure. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is canon to the Arkham series. It's Rocksteady's next game they're working on.

But I mean... WB Games Montreal made Arkham Origins and that's pretty readily considered canon to the Arkham games, isn't it? This is from them.

[Leo656]

Gotham Knights should have been, but they've said it's officially not. Has nothing to do with the studio, they've just stated that story-wise this new game is its own canon unrelated to the Arkham games.

It's kinda dumb that it's not, because it has the entire cast of secondary playable characters from Arkham Knight, and it picks up with Batman being dead, so it would fit right in there. But I'm guessing they want to stay away from doing mainline Bat-family stuff until they inevitably do a full-blown Arkham follow-up, whenever that will be. They probably want to keep things wide open for whatever they decide to eventually do, and having this game be canon to that universe would be boxing them into a corner storyline-wise. They probably don't want the canon of a spin-off game to tie them down to anything they might have to retcon or dance around later on, is what I figure.

So they just fudge a few details, Batman is dead for entirely different reasons than in Arkham Knight - and supposedly actually "dead dead", this time, instead of "Clearly faked his death to let the heat die off" as in Knight - and the fact that it's the entire playable cast from the last game ends up being just a coincidence. Kinda dumb, and I'd rather have it be Arkham Canon, but I sort of get why they decided to do it that way. They can get away with the Suicide Squad game being "canon" to the Arkham series because it'll probably only be very loosely tied in via Harley and a few lines of dialog, anyway.

On one hand, it's kinda neat that they're doing an "in-canon" Suicide Squad game, since the series was teasing that since the beginning, but it's also kinda dumb because the team in the game has nothing to do with the team Waller was trying to recruit and establish in the earlier games. Like it's cool but it's weird.

[Andrew NDB]

Hmf. Weird. Maybe this began as an Arkham Knight sequel/spinoff and then as development went on they just threw in the towel on that. Sort of like TMNTA.

Also, what's with all of these projects with Batman being dead all of a sudden? He can't just be "gone," or maybe set it during Knightfall when he's got a broken back? Seems pretty creatively void.