kay4today

arkham asylum was pretty gud. arkham city was even better and vastly improved gameplay. (story was always a weak aspect of this series, like expecting me to believe that the guards in arkham really are so incredibly incompetent and literally everything about strange's criminal ghetto city). they even dared to kill the joker off! though considering he's one of the main villains of the prequel origins (which was.. well... it definitely exists. probably) and somehow still manages to be one of the main villains in knight despite being literally dead... well, it rings a little hollow. especially when he shows up every 10 seconds with humor even blacker than my heart. i get it, you people love mark hamill's joker

now, is arkham knight good? well, from a gameplay perspective i guess it's competent. its fun to shoot at things in the batmobile, even though it really gets overused at times and some of the riddles involving it arent as hard as they are tedious. speaking of, the whole racing thing the riddler puts batman through is ridiculous, poorly explained, and just an excuse to tack on some more races as f all those stupid simulations werent enough already. also what is it with these games and changing controls? it screws with muscle memory and therefore is irritating. and it might be a petty complaint, but the equipment wheel thing that pauses the screen is annoying as fuck. the fluid version worked perfectly fine in arkham city, so why change it?

story is pretty bad as usual. if you're even somewhat familiar with jason todd, you ought to be slapped on the head for not immediately knowing he's the titular arkham knight. oracle not being dead was also extremely predictable. scarecrow kind of lost his somewhat funny charisma from the first game and is just sort of generic villain #5261 now. at least his design looks good

boss fights completely suck ass again. asylum was basically throwing batarangs and jumping against every single boss. or sometimes just throwing a batarang (like against killer croc) the last fight was literally the joker taking 3 swings at you, then getting bored and sending his goons out. and upon defeating them he turns his back to you so you can batclaw him down. rinse repeat 3 times. city improved it. freeze alone is probably a better fight than all bosses of the 3 other games combined. ra's, clayface, and grundy arent particulary good but still look awesome in comparison to the bosses in the other 3 games (except maybe deathstroke from origins). in knight most of the boss fights are shooting at things from your batmobile. thats it. there's also the predator encounter against the arkham knight, who you despite all logic and implied awesomeness, dont even get to fight directly. he just throws his goons at you and sits on a vantage point whining at you until you get below him and yell at him 4 times in a row

and what's with the treatment of the female characters? harley's entire appearance revolves around the joker as usual and she mostly comes across as a complete klutz. i thought it was cool that she managed to get inside the batcave in name only, but surprise as it turns out it wasnt really her. catwoman spends the entire game as riddler's hostage, and the reasons she got in this situation, while admittedly hilarious, was also incredibly stupid. oracle is a hostage and presumed to be dead for about three quarters of the game. and practically the first thing you do in the game is save poison ivy

however, it's not as bad as it sounds. oracle and ivy are at least competent once they arent hostages anymore. and while i saw many people complain about ivy's death, it was probably one of my favorite moments from the game. also catwoman gets to save batman in return at one point. so really it could be worse. (except for harley, it seems this game series doesnt seem to like her a whole lot in general) there's a lot of male hostages too, but obviously its not that noticeable if the game is full of dudes and only has like 4 or 5 girls with a somewhat relevant role in it

but what guys and gals have in common is being treated like shit by batman. he was a huge dick in city already, but knight really shows what a self-absorbed assholish control freak he is. and sometimes when i think the game acknowledges this, it does things like having two cops apologize to him after batman hauls another cop off his ass and starts to choke him. he's a riddler informant, but batman doesnt bother letting his colleagues know before indulging in some vigilante brutality. or when he breaks glass open to get one of his gadgets he gave to the gcpd. he could just explain himself before doing it, but who cares? he's the goddamn batman and he'll goddamn do whatever goddman thing he likes. like throwing a well-meaning fireman into a cell with a batshit crazy serial killer for letting someone burn down a few empty houses so his men could keep their jobs. presumably the cops dont dare point out that's kind of fucked up, because who knows? batman might stick them in the same cell next, for presumably being a riddler informant or something

remember how in arkham origins batman learned that he needs allies and cant do everything by himself? well by arkham knight he must have forgotten it. he only accepts help when it's pretty much forced on him, and even then acts like an ungrateful asshole.

plot threads from the previous game get clumsily resolved. the hush side mission in particular. so hush finds out his real identity in a side mission? well so fucking what, he has to reveal it at the end anyway. also the mission basically consists of listening to hush talk and then pressing one button. side missions in general are pretty tedious. you just do the same thing over and over again in every one of them

there is a pretty creative part near the end where you play as the joker and then get to kick his ass. that was cool

all in all its still a fun game to play, but disappointing in too many ways to count. honestly the best part was alfred's increased role. he, at least, dares to make fun of batman. that arrogant prick