Batman: Arkham Knight Review

-SPOILERS AHEAD! You've been warned!-

"I am Vengeance. I am the Knight. I am BATMAN!"

I don't know why I get a jittery nerdy response whenever that line is uttered by the great Kevin Conroy. And believe me, that's really an awkward thing to see. But who could blame me? I'm just passionate about something, right? No? Just a creepy? Hmm...noted. With that said, I have just finished playing Batman: Arkham Knight, and collected ALL Riddler trophies. yeah, so I'm pretty fatigued, but I really wanted to talk about it, cause it's still in my head all the time.

Batman: Arkham Knight is the latest and final adition to the Batman Arkham series. (Though not many enjoyed Origins, or even acknowledge that it exists, I still count it as part of the main story, because it's in Arkham Knight. There's literally a room full of evidence that it existed! More on that later.) Batman, the legendary Dark Knight, after the events of Arkham City has never been the same. He is a lot more distant ever since the death of his beloved Talia and his archnemesis, the Clown Prince of Crime himself, the Joker. When Scarecrow reemerges (the last we saw him: being dragged to the sewers by Killer Croc) with a brand new strain of fear toxin, Batman must learn to conquer his fears if he wishes to put an end to the mad scientist's plan. To make matters worse, Scarecrow has sought out help from a now unified Arkham Rogues gallery and a mysterious general only known as the Arkham Knight. Will Batman save the day?

Well duh, he's the Batman. His super power aside from being incredibly rich, is that he's got plot protection! But all jokes aside, I had some real fun with this game. The gameplay was reminiscent of previous Arkham games, but have been tweaked to fit in new features, new combo takedowns, and new gadgets; awesome sidemissions that keep you entertained; a phenominal story; and a TANK!

This game is a worthy successor to the ridiculously over-lauded predecessor Arkham City, with its ups and downs.

STORY First, let's start with the story. The story was a roller coaster ride. This entire game is verry narrative heavy and trades in certain things (Specifically, Boss Fights) for the sake of an interactive story. Not that the entire game is Quick Time Events, but the lack of boss fights made the story's pacing smoother. I felt that the game was like the Uncharted games were cinematics played a complimentary role to the gameplay. But not in the same scope as Nathan Drake's adventures. The cast were great, Kevin Conroy is back in black and taking down names as Batman, Mike (Jonathan Banks) from Breaking Bad as Jim Gordon, and John Noble as Scarecrow made me wish he was Scarecrow in previous Arkham games, and by previous Arkham gameS, I meant Asylum, the only game Scarecrow was in prior to Knight. Scarecrow was a great villain I have to say, though he couldve been better. I have some things that could've made him more cooler, but that's subject for a separate article. But I have to say that no loading screens (except when you die) were great. It all just felt seemless, gameplay and story. And speaking of story...

SPOILERS AHEAD!!! BE WARY! Batman is a shadow of his former self in some ways. He is incredibly distant, which is interesting because that's what he's usually known for, but he keeps pushing everyone away. Arkham City really messed him up. And when Scarecrow shows up, he expects to take him down by himself end of story. But unfortunately not. When Gotham City is evacuated, Batman tracks down where Scarecrow is manufacturing the fear toxin he plans to detonate in Gotham with a blast radius of "Holy S***! We're screwed." Scarecrow was using the old Ace Chemicals facility and has effectively turned it into his own fortress while he prepares his evil plan. When Batman arrives he encounters the Arkham Knight, some mysterious Batman wanna-be who commands a large army of Venezualans apparently. Or trained in Venezuela? Wait, is Arkham Knight Hugo Chavez? Hmm...

Basically, Arkham Knight hates Batman. He met the guy that night and the dude already hates him. Bats, this is gonna be a loooong night. Arkham Knight also apparently knows everything to know about Batman, his techniques, gadgets, blood type, everything. So it makes you wonder who he is, and why he knows so much. That is literally all you need to know to decipher who he is. Follow your gut feeling, Batman fans. That and a few fear toxin induced flashbacks of Jason Todd being tortured by the Joker.

While trying to stop Scarecrow at Ace Chemicals, he finds out that the factory will blow up and cover the entire Eastern Seaboard in fear, so while Crane got away, Batman is going to sacrifice his life. Alfred is trying to plead with him to stop being an emo kid and go stop Scarecrow instead of doing something stupid like this. So while batman is trying to lessen the blast radius, he is slowly inhaling the fear gas, and then when you turn around...BOOM! Mark Hammil is pointing a gun straight at you! Not Mark Hammil himself, though that would be pretty funny and cool, but none other than Joker.

Turns out the fear toxin is affecting Batman in a different way. Since he was infected with Joker's blood in Arkham City, and so are four other people, Joker's fighting for control of the Batman's body. The Joker blood's effect is that it turns people infected into Jokers. The sideplot is that Robin is trying to find a cure for it and he doens't know that Bruce is infected until later in the story. But I like how they incorporated the Joker in the gameplay. He was just there talking smack for most of the game while you're trying to solve puzzles or going off on a mission. He wasn't the Joker's ghost per se, but all the things he is saying is what Batman perceives or expects what the Joker would say IF he was there watching Batman. It's an interesting psychological aspect that I loved about the game.

Scarecrow releases his fear gas with something called a Cloudburst, developed by Stagg Industries, Stagg the same guy responsible for creating Metamorpho. (If you don't know who that is either: read a comic book, search him up in Google, or watch the Justlice League cartoons.) So yeah everything has gone to hell and Batman tries to confront Scarecrow only to have the Arkham Knight step in to fulfill his Vendetta. He then reveals his identity to Batman and surprise! It's NOT Damian Wayne, it's Jason Todd. Damian woulve been so much cooler, but I guess Jason's alright. But his reveal is just so obvious. There's specific moment in the game that practically confirms that Arkham Knight is Jason Todd. I just thought they couldve done more with that.

But the ending was just very tense. Scarecrow's captured Robin AND Commisioner Gordon and the only way for you to save them is by doing what Scarecrow says. He tells you to throw your utility belt away and get in the van. As you enter it you can obviously see some Fear Gas spilling in and you start tripping balls. The van crashes into crime alley and you start hallucinating two dead bodies, the Waynes, before the Joker and an army of Jokers start attacking you. Then when you finally got Joker you snap his neck! This stops Bruce from hallucinating and the Joker is telling him that Batman's a murderer and it was just really tense. The van is headed to the Asylum, it's only fitting that it ends where it began, and Scarecrow unmasks Batman on live TV. Well, Gordon does but Scarecrow made him. Scarecrow injects Batman with a whole bunch more of toxin and Joker breaks free.

This section was easily the most memorable part of the enitre game. Joker is captured by Two Face, Penguin, Riddler, and a bulky mutated Killer Croc. When I saw Croc I just thought: "Damn, the hell happened to you?" But then Joker calls in the Jokermobile and rund the poor reptile over and starts killing everyone in the room with it. You then chase down the three criminals down the hall with a rifle and just waste them. Until everything becomes dark and you're shooting Batman statues popping out of nowehere. Batman just fights for control then locks Joker away into his subconscious throwing away his fear. He gains control, breaks free from the hallucinations, injects Crane with his own medicine, and Gordon knocks him out as he trips balls.

So now that the world knows who he is, he decides to activate the Knightfall Protocol, which is basically blowing up the mansion while he and Alfred are still in there. Bruce Wayne is now dead. You don't get the full ending until you've completed the entire game, meaning, collecting all those godforsaken Riddler trophies! And you find out that there's this ghost like phantom of the Batman running around Gotham protecting the innocent. Which I concluded as Batman using a mild fear toxin to strike terror into the hearts of Gotham's criminals. No one is afraid of Batman anymore now that they know who's behind the mask, but this new symbol definitely does the job.

I must say I was kinda disappointed with the ending, seeing as I got no type of solid closure from it. Rocksteady wanted to leave it as a cliffhanger so you can decide what happened, but I don't think that's the right way to end this series. But I did thoroughly enjoyed the story and thought that it was a worthy sequel.

GAMEPLAY

The overall gameplay was an improvement from City. Batman feels like he hits harder. Maybe it's the new suit, but he just felt like a bruiser. Which is great! That's what I wanted to see Rocksteady do. I wanted this game to feel like the Dark Knight Returns, where he's older and just a lot more brutal. Speaking of Brutal he definitely killed people in this game. The environmental/Batmobile takedowns could easily have killed people despite "non-lethal rounds". The environmental takedowns like sticking someone's face into an electric generator or dropping a chandelier on someone makes it look like Batman doesn't care about the code anymore. The Batmobile is the biggest offense to the "no-killing" rule. It does this cute thing that if a thug comes into contact with it, it tazes them and knocks them out, which sort of convinces the player that he's alright and not dead, even when you hit them with the Batmobile at 200 MILES PER HOUR! They added in a new type of takedown: the Fear Multi-Takedown. Easily the best aspect of combat. It made beating up thugs so much fun and smoother. This mechanic has saved me multiple times in Predator challenges in the game and made sure I wasn't too overwhelmed with the thugs.

Gadgets...and the Batmobile

There's really not a lot of new gadgets. You have the essential ones from previous games: batarangs, batclaw, explosive gel the line launcher, smoke pellets. They have a new menu selct creen for gadgets. You have to press the down button the D-pad to activate the screen. It pauses the game so you can select one via the Wheel. You use your right analog stick to select and this was annoying at first, until I got used to it. It has some ups and downs. The good thing about this is that it makes it clear what gadget you are about to select by enlarging the icon it uses so you don't get confused as to what gadget is what. And it pauses the game so you don't have to get hurt when selecting gadgets anymore during combat. The down side, it ruins the pacing of the game. I preferred the old menu screen over the new one, but they needed to make room for batmobile controls. The Detective mode button is now on the D-Pad, which I think is a lot better, because I sometimes, find myself pressing it by accident during combat in the previous games, at least it's out of the way and the button it previously was (L2) is now the button you use for quickfire gadgets.

There arent really any NEW gadgets. You pretty much have to earn them or take them. The Cryptographic Sequencer is made available to you when you need it as you progress through the story, as well as the only new gadget, aside from the Batmobile, the Voice Synthesizer, which is a gadget that mimics voices and can be used to lure enemies into a trap. I wished they found a way to include this a bit more, but I'm glad they didn't make it too overpowering, as it can only be used on thugs wearing headsets, voice activated panels and Riddler robots. You also get the Disruptor later on the game, specifically during the Penguin side missions.

The two other gadgets are the REC (Remote Electrical Charge Gun) and the Freeze Blast grenade. But you have to obtain them by picking them up. You don't really earn them, you can just take them. The REC is located in the Evidence Room at GCPD, and all you have to do is break the glass and take it earlier in the game. The Freeze Blast is in the movie studios where Batman and Robin are trying to work up a cure for the Jover virus. I liked what they did here, and it made me feel like I can equip myself with the gadgets I need. It wouldv'e been cool if they added in an armory and you can choose what gadgets you can take with you.

The final gadget worth talking about is the BATMOBILE. This thing is a monster. It is basically what sold the game. You can finally drive this thing around. Although, it wouldve been cool if they added in the Batwing as well and flew that thing all over Gotham. But I digress. The Batmobile split the fans in three: You either love it or you hate it or both. I am both. The batmobile is fun to drive around and you use it to get you out of tight spaces, but they really chucked it down your throat with ridiculous amounts of drone battles, annoying riddler races and riddler trophies that require the hulking tank, and it makes you super dependent on it. If they wouldve cut back on the Batmobile, the game's pacing wouldnt have been dragged down like it did. It just seemed tedious to use the Batmobile that it felt like a chore, especially with Riddler trophies. It wouldve been alright to use it once, but you needed to use it for a good 15% of the Riddler trophies, not counting the Riddler Races as that is part of the main side mission involving Riddler. Riddler trophies are so annoying since its a chore to pick them all up in order to view the 100% ending. I didn't mind it at first but it was just so tedious. The Batmobile made it even more tedious. But what pissed everyone of is the lack of boss battles. Specifically the Deathstroke and Arkham Knight boss battles. Instead of fighting them one-on-one, you fought them with the tank. That's it. (I'll talk about this more in a separate post.)

If I were to rate the batmobile's inclusion, it would be a 4 out of 5 stars. It was fun to use but the overall chore in having to drag the hunk of metal around for puzzles prevented it from the 5 out of 5 stars.

Dual Gameplay

The new combat feature they included was Dual Play, where you get to switch between characters in combat. You can change from Batman, Nightwing, Robin, and Catwoman. These were very fun and I wish they'd have added more. Transitioning from character to character with a single button felt seamless, and was very fun. Everyones fighting style was all very much the same as it was in Arkham City. The Dual Takedowns were pretty awesome as it made short work of handling brutes in the game.

They only included a Nightwing and Batman AR Challenge in the game, but I do wish they come up with more. I liked the Riddler challenge maps in Arkham City, and I was looking forward to that prior to the game's release. In the end, what makes a game good, is its replayability and extra content to keep you entertained.

You also get to play as Azrael via side mission, but I kinda wished we got some Tag Team moments with him. Imagine Batman and the Assassin of St. Dumas kicking butt in the rooftops of Gotham?

I did wish we could have free roamed Gotham with these characters.

EXTRAS

If you preordered the game you get some bonuses like the Arkham Episodes, and new skins. Almost everyone who preordered it got the Harley Quinn story. The only thing about it is that I felt that it was too short. When we got the Harley Quinn's revenge in City, it was a little longer than the Harley Quinn's Story in Knight. I was hoping they'd go all out with this last game, but they went a much safer route in my opinion. Gamestop also had the Red Hood Story and een I felt it was too short. They couldve added a few cutscenes to make it longer. Just saying. It felt like you were just going through the motions and it didnt really have much of a fleshed out story.

CONCLUSION

Arkham Knight is a well made game and a worthy sucessor to the Arkham City game. The mesmerizingly jaw-dropping cinematic story and the improved combat system made the game a blast and was a hauntingly new atmosphere for the entire Arkham Series. Though the lack of boss fights, the predictable twist and the over saturated exposure and usage of the Batmobile proved cringeworthy, it didn't detract from the core game. The amount of content you are left with until future DLC and an imminent Game of the Year Edition is enough to keep you satisfied and wanting for more. I would give Batman: Arkham Knight a solid A- That's my thoughts on the Arkham Knight game. What do you guys think? Did you like the game or hated it? Was the Batmobile worth the chore? Who would you have wanted to be the Arkham Knight instead? personally I wouldve wanted him to be D.A.V.E. If you don't know who that is, it's okay, not a lot of people do. It wouldve been perfect.

Cheers!