Batman: Arkham Series

[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]

Originally Posted by 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!

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! 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.

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. 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". 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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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." 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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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

[Turo602]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by Turo602

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! Stop saying exactly what I'm saying but simpler. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
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Here it is ANYWAY since I typed it all, you prick.

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

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

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.