Spoilers btw
The game looks, plays and sounds like a mod to Arkham City.
The actual "game" aspect is no different from the previous entries.
Actually, I take that back, it's worse amd left me in frustration and confusion.
Like the gadgets, the glue granade, literally just the freeze grenade but with sticky stuff. A gadget Batman doesn't have in the other games, making me wonder why. (and don't give me that whole "ooo the formula is unstable" as if Bats woulnd't have tried perfecting it)
Or the shock gloves, they're pretty useful, and outside of like the WIIU version of Arkham City, we NEVER see these again. So the lore of these gloves is exclusive to a console that wasn't even well received.
The gliding in the game is 1 to 1 from Arkham City so that means it also has that annoying ass auto turn feature. Which wouldn't be so bad, if a 1/3 of the Enigma data packs weren't literally place in areas you can only reach if you glide just perfectly in the tiny hole that BATMAN COULD VERY EASILY JUST CRAPLE IN TO.
Some of these packs are on top of platforms you could easily grapple on to, but the game doesn't want you to, so you have to glide to it, but the problem is that there isn't a high enough place to glide from, so you have to grapple boost, glide, dive, and pull back up just perfectly to get to these places.
But that is if you can even graple, yeah, apparently the creators only made certain parts elligible for grappling. There's this one data pack behind some backs on like a balcony, but the railing side of the balcony wasn't barred off, you think you could graple to it right? LOL, nah, even tho little further you can grapple, that specific area? Nah. And this is throughout the whole game. Sometimes Batman can grapple really far and other times he just can't.
Speaking of the data packs, color me stupid, but why did Enigma put all the extortion data into random packs across Gotham, outside, in the middle of winter? The guy is Untraceable in this game, so why the hell did he not keep that data with him?
Oh btw, you never actually aprehend the guy, so you do this just because, there's no reward, just a singular riddler trophy.
OH and another thing, you remember those wood panels you could break with your fists in the previous game? yeah, they require explosion gel now, why? ♥♥♥♥ you.
There's also a lot of visual bugs and artifacts from Arkham City in this game, some I can understand were easy to miss, others don't. Like, sorry, call me crazy, but I don't think a wooden sign can display an LCD image.
Now the story, it's good, but because of how this game's gameplay has got me riled up, I feel really nitpicky towards it.
Call me crazy, but I find it really dumb how the first "main" villain of this story is Black Mask and not Mr.Freeze. Nah, but that guy in a DLC.
The game takes place during freaking Christmas, it's like perfect for Freeze.
And the assasins, specifically one, Shiva. What makes her such a great threat to Batman?
"Her skill is unmatched"
yeah that's it.
And her skill is trash too, so much so that she doesn't even fight you 1 on 1, she has to call her ninja minions to help her.
Also why is Barbara Gordon awake? Like, did the writers forget that the game takes place during a whole night, and that she's a kid? Why is Jim just fine with his daughter killing her sleep schedule like this, especially when this night is extremely dangerous, yet the guy just brings her to the police station.
Oh btw, this game retcons when Harley and Joker meet, like did they bother checking the previous games?
The biggest threat is Bane because he knows Batman's identity, and what is the writer's solution? It just so happens his modified version of venom destroys Bane's memory turning him into the Batman and Robin movie version of Bane. How convenient.
I know WB forced them to rush a prequal for the Akhram franchise, this seems to just be a trend with DC, the higher ups looove to rush their employees so that they can get a cash grab, so we end up with franchises being killed because of that. Just look at the DC movies and shows, or heck, look at the Arkahm Franchise, it died with Suicide Squad.
Anyway, I know that there's that, but remembering how the Batgirl DLC in Akham Knight was so buggy and out of place in terms of animation, I think the actual studio behind this game might be a bit lack luster.
Good writers, just bad developers.
Anyway, if this wasn't canon to the main arkham trilogy in a literal important way, I wouldn't be playing this.
