So this has been a long time coming...sorry about that.
When I reviewed Arkham Origins, I was about to move back to university, and in all the chaos, I kind of...forgot about Arkham Knight. By the time I was playing games again, there were other things I wanted to play, which you've seen me review, but I'm here now! Arkham Knight, bois.
What I remembered about it from my first playthrough is that it was still fun to play, that the experience of being Batman is as cool as it ever was in this series, but it was hugely dragged down by a pretty boring story. And what I'm going to say after this playthrough is...pretty much the same thing.
Starting with the story, then...to me it defines the phrase "mixed bag". A good chunk of it is really, really boring. Scarecrow has returned with a plan to cover Gotham in his fear toxin, which is a plot I think has only been done 153 times before in various Batman material, and he is assisted by the titular "Arkham Knight", who has flooded the city streets with an endless supply of drone tanks to keep the police at bay.
Scarecrow is the most boring villain in any of these games by far, every time you hear his droning, somatic voice on the city PA system you have to fight to stay awake, because all he does is mumble about "what you really fear, Batman", and "by the end of this night, you will no longer be a legend", and goes on and on and on with this same tedious tosh for the whole game. What the hell happened to the Scarecrow from Arkham Asylum, who was a cackling, witchy-voiced and yet genuinely scary highlight in that game?
The Arkham Knight isn't much better, because instead of boring you to death, he has opted to whine you into submission. Endless, constant whining whenever it's his turn on the PA system, and unlike the perpetually funny Riddler, whose whinging is played for laughs, I think you were supposed to take the Knight seriously? He comes off like an edgy 15 year old who just discovered black metal, and to make it even worse, his identity is played up as a big mystery to be revealed at the end of the game, but this is a lose-lose situation, because if you know the character who he really is from Batman lore, you automatically know that this is the Knight.
Hell, I played this with my girlfriend watching, who knows next to nothing about Batman other than the most famous villains, and even she guessed who he was correctly within...I don't know, ten minutes of him appearing? And if you don't know this character at all, then the reveal will have no emotional impact on you whatsoever, because it isn't even a character that's appeared in the Arkham series up until now. Like I said, lose-lose.
So the good part of this game's main story concerns the inclusion of a third villain. A third villain I won't be spoiling here, but they completely save the narrative from being a total wash, and make things really darkly psychological in a pretty cool way. That's all I'll say here, but trust me, this aspect of the main quest is really, really good. It honestly makes going through the otherwise flat main story completely worth it.
Some of the side quests have more interesting villains and stories - I particularly enjoyed one involving tracking a serial killer hanging his mutilated victims around the city while playing opera music at the crime scene, but even when the side quests are more interesting, they do mostly revolve around doing the same thing a few times before capturing the big bad. And naturally, the Riddler has still been leaving far too much of his rubbish all over the city, which still pads the game out too much, even if it is really satisfying being able to lay the Bat Smackdown (TM) on him afterwards.
Presentation wise, the game is top tier stuff. The voice acting is amazing across the board, except for Scarecrow I guess, the rest of the sound design once again brings that dirty, corrupt city atmosphere the Arkham series does so well onto the eighth generation flawlessly, cutscenes stood out to me as being pretty well directed, and holy balls does Gotham and all its streets, abandoned buildings, villain hideouts, etc etc, look absolutely stunning. The open world is still a delight to glide, and this time, drive around.
Which brings me to the gameplay...specifically, the inclusion of the Batmobile. I remember it being almost as controversial as the game's disastrous PC version at release, with people complaining it was overused, it's just a tank, and other things like that. And to be honest...I don't get what the big deal is. It's not like there's less stealthing around and beating thugs up because of it's inclusion, or like the game has suddenly turned into "Batman-llefield". There's parts of the main story and side quests where you have to use the Batmobile, sure, but I felt like it brought some nice variety into the typical Arkham formula, with tank battles, puzzles that incorporate it, car chases, that kind of thing. I like it, and I don't think it was ever used too much for its own good. And if you don't, you can ignore it in the open world and glide around the same way you always could.
The rest of the gameplay is unfortunately starting to feel a bit "been there, done that" to me, because it's mostly the same beating dudes up and strangling dudes with guns until they stop moving (deffo not killing them though), with only a small handful of changes, most of which are fairly inconsequential. I suppose it's acceptable considering how much effort likely had to be put into the Batmobile, but some of these additions are just kind of dumb in concept.
For example, the fear multi takedown thing isn't so much a gameplay innovation as it is a "push button to win" mechanic, especially considering you can upgrade it to take down five dudes at once, and it recharges after a single normal takedown afterwards. It certainly looks cool though.
Combat is still fun, but as far as I can remember, there aren't any new enemy types introduced other than those stupid annoying medics who don't do anything than obnoxiously revive guys you've already beaten, which is pretty disappointing. The only major change to combat is the ability to disarm guys armed with melee weapons and use them yourself, which is pretty fun to be fair.
There's still the ever-present issue of some upgrades feeling pretty useless in the grand scheme of things, but at the end of the day, this is a really fun game still. The core Arkham experience is polished to a point here, so if you enjoyed the other games, you'll probably enjoy this one.
But please don't expect the great big mystery that was hyped up of "ooooooh, who is the Arkham Knight", because depending on your knowledge, there either isn't one at all, or it'll mean jack squat to you.
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