"Batman: Arkham Knight" Everything, Fully Realized

 

    Look, my displeasure with the Batman: Arkham series is well documented, I thought Arkham Asylum was fine, Arkham City was better, if not bogged down by an offensive amount of riddler trophies, Arkham Origins Blackgate should have never existed, and that Arkham Origins was pleasantly fun. When it comes to Batman: Arkham Knight though, it just feels like my prayers have been answered, it feels like the vision you could see in the original games had finally been actualized, and frankly it felt amazing. Now I understand that this is all with the benefit of hindsight, I remember 9 years ago when I was a child and there was so much controversy surrounding this game and the performance issues that plagued its PC release, but it's safe to say that those are all gone. If you pick up Batman: Arkham Knight on PC right now, I would argue you're picking up what is easily the best superhero game I've ever played, that easily holds up with any title of the modern era.

    Where do I even start with this? It just feels and looks better than any other of the Arkham games, by a longshot, whether it be the sound, the combat, or the graphics themselves. Now, I'm normally not a sucker for graphics, typically you won't really hear me complain or talk about how important graphics are, especially because most of the time I feel as if many of the "improvements" are a 1% visual improvement for a 10% performance loss. But after playing Batman: Arkham City, which somehow came only three years before Arkham Knight, this game really does look beautiful. It's not just me who thinks that as well, to this day you can go online and see posts talking about how ahead of it's time this game looks, and just how beautiful it is even to games released almost 10 years after it did. This improvement isn't visual too, personally I feel as if this is easily the best combat the series has to offer. In Arkham City and Arkham Asylum I enjoyed the combat, but I didn't quite understand why people raved so much about the combat system in these games until I played Arkham Knight. Now, I actually learned to properly use the system during Arkham Origins of all games, but luckily my skills transferred over to this one, and with the addition of fear takedowns, it really does help you feel like a one man wrecking crew who's human yet unstoppable.

    That is not where the improvement ends though, because I can safely report that this game probably has the best story out of them all. I've stated multiple times that part of the reason I was disappointed with the Arkham series is that the story usually ends up being too weak, I felt that the big Joker dying moment in Arkham City was undercut by the fact that the gameplay for the ending was super anticlimactic, and the same could be said for Arkham Asylum. For once though, I kind of enjoyed the story, or I suppose stories. I mean the big Jason Todd reveal was so obvious, they literally only started talking about him at one point then never stopped, and if you couldn't tell it was him then you were just being obtuse I'm sorry. Even still, the whole it's Batman's last night, and he's desperately trying to fight for control of his city was fun, and frankly I was impressed that the game was able to actually make Scarecrow the big bad villain that this game needed, instead of him feeling miscast. Moreover, I think for once there was actually a good deal of side content to do, and I liked having all of these random most wanted quests to keep me busy, because otherwise the story mode would feel a bit too short, which is another complaint I used to have about the series.

    If I'm being honest though, I think the whole Joker being in Batman plot was not needed, I don't think it added much other than adding some stakes and making it feel like Batman's final night, but Joker's main purpose is just to add some "banter" with Batman, I say banter but of course Batman never responds. If I was in charge of making this game I'd probably move away from the one night thing that these games seem to love. Personally, I would have loved it if Gotham was actually more populated, and it wasn't just thugs and militia out there. I would have been okay if at certain stages of the game it was only the militia, but it would have been cool to move away from the "it's only bad guys out there with Batman" schtick. Speaking of which, they really must have hated the idea of Batman having help, could you imagine an Arkham game, where like all of the members of the Bat Family are just out and about in the city, and you could decide to help them on specific arcs which help spark some character growth or something? Just me? It's ok, sadly they aren't making any more of these games anyways.

    Now, I need to address the elephant in the room, and that is the Batmobile, and yeah it probably is featured too much in this game. I didn't hate the Batmobile, it's just I started laughing when I saw how much of the game needed it. I understand using it to traverse through Gotham because otherwise it takes 9 years just to reach any sort of checkpoint, but is the Riddler really so obsessed with the Batmobile that like 40-50% of his riddles require it? Does every boss fight really need you to turn the Batmobile into a giant take to kill everyone? I think by far the most egregious fight was the Deathstroke fight, which Arkham Origins did the best in my opinion. Tell me why you have a master assassin, and all that ends up happening is another stupid ass tank battle. A tank battle where you basically just fill up your power bar and kill him in two seconds at that? Look, I think it's impressive what they did with the Batmobile, it feels really good to use, drive and attack with. By that same token though it does feel as if the developers were almost too impressed with what they were able to do with it, and wanted to feature it as much as possible, because it is heavily featured in this game. 

Final Score: 84/100

    I finally did it, it finally clicked for me. I finally understood why this series was so beloved. I suppose in 2012, Arkham City was the revolutionary? But in modern times the only one that really sparks my interest was Arkham Knight. The only issue is that you really should play the first two games in the series to fully appreciate this one, but you can just feel how old both of them are. I do have to admit I really enjoyed this game though, and I am glad you can switch through batsuits before you finish the campaign. Am I a little disappointed with the ending? Yeah it would have been cool if Bruce was still around, and frankly I think Kill the Justice League devalues the ending of this game by a pretty significant margin. On a side note I think all of the DLC's were pretty fun and short for what they were. Nothing too crazy you just get to try out some different characters, though that Catwoman DLC is bullshit they almost certainly never playtested that final riddler fight. You basically throw away everything you've learned about combat in the game and it is incredibly frustrating so if you try it you have been warned. The Red Hood DLC is also really funny because you think they won't let you get away with just shooting everyone and making things super easy but they do you can just spam the shoot button and kill random henchman. Otherwise, if you haven't tried this game yet, why not? Do you hate Batman? Do you hate superheroes? Just go play it, it's that good in my opinion, and worth every discounted dollar you can buy it for at this point.