I really wanted to like this game. I loved Arkham Asylum, and Arkham City, and even though I didn't get to play Arkham Origins, I think I would have thought it was okay, from gameplay footage I've seen. But this? This is definitely the weakest in this fantastic series.
Let me start off by saying the writing is terrible, I mean it is just lazy! The "twist" as to who the Arkham Knight is, is so incredibly obvious, to the point where they're practically beating you over the head with it; "Look the Arkham Knight is calling Batman 'old man' and is acting like he knows him. Get it? Look he's calling Batman a coward and is acting like he's been betrayed by him. Get it?! Look the game keeps referencing Jason Todd's story over and over! GET IT?!" Batman, himself, makes so many stupid decisions, for no other reason other than "the plot demands it." And probably the most insulting part of the writing is that the game kills off a supporting character that I really liked, and I had a legitimate emotional reaction to it, only to bring that character back and say, "Whoop! It was all just a hallucination, they're fine!" Even the ending is terrible, it had me with my jaw on the floor saying "What the hell just happened." This was not a satisfying conclusion to a great series like this.
The gameplay can also be very monotonous and repetitive, notably the bat-mobile sections. Throughout the game I dreaded going back to using the bat-mobile, most of the time you'll be dodging and shooting at numerous drones, and they have little to no variation on it. Even when I had to travel across Gotham, I would just fly, because y'know, that's way more fun than driving a car that controls like you're on a skating rink. Do you remember all the fun, and innovative boss battles in the previous games? The fight with Bane, Poison Ivy, and of course, the crowning boss fight with Mr. Freeze in Arkham City. Well guess what? There are absolutely no boss fights to speak of in this game. I'm not joking. There's a, sort of, interesting climax at the end, but no boss battle anywhere in the game. Seriously, Scarecrow is the main villain in this game and there's not one fight with him, not even a nightmare sequence even close to reminiscent of the fantastic ones in the first game.
Another problem with the game is, I feel like the developers tried to cram too many things in the game at once. There are so many side villains, that could have been used much better. Arkham city had a lot of side villains, but they managed to weave them into the story well enough that they felt important, and like they had a place in the story. This game on the other hand just throws Two-Face, Penguin, Man-Bat, Harley Quinn, among others, in without much explanation for why they're there, that it just makes the content look like a cluttered mess. For example, Hush seriously shows up as a "side mission" that's just around 5 minutes long, Hush is such a cool villain, and they could have easily brought him in in a way that didn't feel forced and kept him around for a while, but no, it's one encounter and he's defeated. Hell I don't even feel the need to find all of the Riddler's collectibles, and there's actually less in this game than in Arkham City.
After beating up this game so badly, is there anything I actually liked about it? Yes, actually. The voice-acting as always is top notch. With people like Keven Conroy, Jonathan Banks, Troy Baker, Grey Griffin, the whole cast does a great job. Including, Spoiler, Mark Hamill reprising his role as the Joker. He is absolutely hilarious in every scene he's in. Hell He practically saves this game for me. Even though I hated the writing in this game, it did manage to pull out a few interesting twists in the game. One involving some victims of the Joker's blood toxin from the second game. I also still liked the stealth sequences in the game. They're just as strong as they've been throughout the series. Hell, they might even be the best of the series. The game keeps adding new and interesting stuff to these sequences that make them more challenging, and make you think about how to approach each thug to take them down.
But even with the fun I had playing some of the game, I can't deny my true thoughts, and I don't care if they're unpopular. This is not the conclusion the Arkham franchise deserved. The writing is lazy, the gameplay gets very monotonous, I was going to give this game a 6/10, but that terrible ending dropped it down to a 5/10, and this game is lucky I'm trying to be fair.
Hopefully in the future they'll be more cool Batman games like Arkham Asylum, and City, I need something else to wash this bad taste out of my mouth.
Let me start off by saying the writing is terrible, I mean it is just lazy! The "twist" as to who the Arkham Knight is, is so incredibly obvious, to the point where they're practically beating you over the head with it; "Look the Arkham Knight is calling Batman 'old man' and is acting like he knows him. Get it? Look he's calling Batman a coward and is acting like he's been betrayed by him. Get it?! Look the game keeps referencing Jason Todd's story over and over! GET IT?!" Batman, himself, makes so many stupid decisions, for no other reason other than "the plot demands it." And probably the most insulting part of the writing is that the game kills off a supporting character that I really liked, and I had a legitimate emotional reaction to it, only to bring that character back and say, "Whoop! It was all just a hallucination, they're fine!" Even the ending is terrible, it had me with my jaw on the floor saying "What the hell just happened." This was not a satisfying conclusion to a great series like this.
The gameplay can also be very monotonous and repetitive, notably the bat-mobile sections. Throughout the game I dreaded going back to using the bat-mobile, most of the time you'll be dodging and shooting at numerous drones, and they have little to no variation on it. Even when I had to travel across Gotham, I would just fly, because y'know, that's way more fun than driving a car that controls like you're on a skating rink. Do you remember all the fun, and innovative boss battles in the previous games? The fight with Bane, Poison Ivy, and of course, the crowning boss fight with Mr. Freeze in Arkham City. Well guess what? There are absolutely no boss fights to speak of in this game. I'm not joking. There's a, sort of, interesting climax at the end, but no boss battle anywhere in the game. Seriously, Scarecrow is the main villain in this game and there's not one fight with him, not even a nightmare sequence even close to reminiscent of the fantastic ones in the first game.
Another problem with the game is, I feel like the developers tried to cram too many things in the game at once. There are so many side villains, that could have been used much better. Arkham city had a lot of side villains, but they managed to weave them into the story well enough that they felt important, and like they had a place in the story. This game on the other hand just throws Two-Face, Penguin, Man-Bat, Harley Quinn, among others, in without much explanation for why they're there, that it just makes the content look like a cluttered mess. For example, Hush seriously shows up as a "side mission" that's just around 5 minutes long, Hush is such a cool villain, and they could have easily brought him in in a way that didn't feel forced and kept him around for a while, but no, it's one encounter and he's defeated. Hell I don't even feel the need to find all of the Riddler's collectibles, and there's actually less in this game than in Arkham City.
After beating up this game so badly, is there anything I actually liked about it? Yes, actually. The voice-acting as always is top notch. With people like Keven Conroy, Jonathan Banks, Troy Baker, Grey Griffin, the whole cast does a great job. Including, Spoiler, Mark Hamill reprising his role as the Joker. He is absolutely hilarious in every scene he's in. Hell He practically saves this game for me. Even though I hated the writing in this game, it did manage to pull out a few interesting twists in the game. One involving some victims of the Joker's blood toxin from the second game. I also still liked the stealth sequences in the game. They're just as strong as they've been throughout the series. Hell, they might even be the best of the series. The game keeps adding new and interesting stuff to these sequences that make them more challenging, and make you think about how to approach each thug to take them down.
But even with the fun I had playing some of the game, I can't deny my true thoughts, and I don't care if they're unpopular. This is not the conclusion the Arkham franchise deserved. The writing is lazy, the gameplay gets very monotonous, I was going to give this game a 6/10, but that terrible ending dropped it down to a 5/10, and this game is lucky I'm trying to be fair.
Hopefully in the future they'll be more cool Batman games like Arkham Asylum, and City, I need something else to wash this bad taste out of my mouth.