History YMMV / BatmanArkhamCity

* AnnoyingVideoGameHelper:
** You might want to scream at Bane when the two of you team up to fight a roomful of {{mooks}}. He's not ''trying'' to hit you, but he will if you're near his target. Bane even apologizes to Batman if he hits him.
*** Sometimes even if you're on opposite sides of the room and Bane is surrounded by enemies, he'll deliberately walk over to where you are and start swinging. It's easy to question his sincerity. [[spoiler: Especially after he reveals that he in fact collected Titan for himself.]]

** Two-Face for Catwoman: like Freeze, it's a predator battle, but he's guarded by numerous armed mooks, damaging him naturally alerts him to your presence and, after they figure out you're there, any mooks you take out will be quickly replaced by Two-Face. Due to Catwoman's limited number of gadgets and lower health, you're either forced to take potshots at him while he's separated and hope you get away before the reinforcements arrive (which isn't helped by the finickiness of her wall-climbing) or just beat him, do your best to disarm any mooks that arrive to help him and hope you can deplete his health before you're overwhelmed. The preferable alternative is to jump next to Two-Face and beat the Christ out of him while throwing Catwoman's caltrops to either side of him to keep mooks away while you drain his entire health bar.

* {{Narm}}: While otherwise a serious and very good game, it does have some unintentionally goofy moments.

** Turning on Big Head mode during important story moments results in this, but this time it's entirely intentional.

* GoodBadBugs: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvP4eQxNjQ4 Behold, how to escape from Arkham City!]]
** You can even [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nonHI6b3rn8 see where The Riddler is recording his taunts during the Hostage Puzzles!]]

* MemeticMutation:
** "Two guns, bitch!"[[note]]Two Face says this after he pulls a second gun on Catwoman, having been disarmed with his first gun. The cheesiness has made it very memorable.[[/note]]
** Augmented Reality Training failed.[[note]]The dialogue that plays after failing an Augmented Reality Training says that quote. Considering how hard the Advanced ART missions are, you'll be hearing it a lot.[[/note]]
** "That actually is… pretty funny."[[note]]Joker's last words, used in response to situations that are, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin well]], ActuallyPrettyFunny.[[/note]]
* MoralEventHorizon: Let's see?

** Batman when [[spoiler:he's reaching Ra's al Ghul's lair, while suffering from the effects of Titan poisoning. He can't run at all and is constantly coughing, sounding almost like a child. You want to rush to the next checkpoint just to see him get better, ''any'' better]].
*** Batman in general. Particularly as his suit gets damaged as the night wears on, and how he doesn't even pause to change into a fresh suit (or, it's implied, ''take a break'') following the dramatic climax. [[spoiler:He even loses both Talia to murder and the Joker to Titan poisoning, which is taking a terrible, emotional toll on him.]]

* ThatOneLevel: The final predator section outside the theater. There are about a dozen snipers dotted across various buildings, each one covered by at least two or three of the others. The architecture isn't conducive to being stealthy, so every time you take out a sniper, you risk getting a large chunk of your health chipped away by the others. This by itself isn't too bad, as long as you're patient. Unfortunately, it's very, ''very'' hard to be patient when the Joker keeps screaming "ContinueYourMissionDammit" messages at you every few seconds. After just a few of his speeches, you'll want the entire section to be over just so he'll stop being so condescending at you.

** Getting 3 Medals on the DLC Riddler's Revenge challenge Joker's Carnival is known for being notoriously hard. The entire concept is that you start off with three minutes to fight off increasingly difficult unending waves of enemies. The more enemies you beat, your level increases, as does the difficulty of the enemies, all the way up to level 6 where you fight a Titan henchman. For each level, you can "bank" your level for extra points and time for a maximum of 500000 points and 75 extra seconds at level 6 (max gauge not included), which resets your level back to 0. However, you can't get hit at any point, otherwise your level will reset. And if you want all three medals, which requires 1000000 points, you basically have to keep a perfect freeflow combo going at least until after you bank level 6 and get a few rodeo strikes, as if you break your combo,you lose your combo multiplier even if your level doesn't reset, which significantly decreases the number of points you get for each move. This usually means you typically need to maintain a perfect freeflow combo of at least well over 200 if you want a chance of getting to the point threshold. Thankfully, Batman at least has some very helpful tools to make the whole thing more bearable. The special combo disarm and destroy and bat swarm in particular are very helpful. The former comes in very handy since each level will only drop one of each weapon, so all you have to do is watch out for them and take it apart the second a mook picks it up and not worry about it again. The second one is insanely helpful for point farming as the score is multiplied by the number of enemies caught in the swarm, and is just generally nice if you need a quick breather. It also makes the Lieutenants and Titan henchmen much easier to deal with, as you don't have to re-stun the henchman and you can easily cheese the Lieutenant with it. He also has the REC Blast, which is just as useful for the armored thugs. It immediately knocks them over, saving you the trouble of having to either waste a special combo takedown or focus a beatdown on him. You can just knock him over and multi-ground takedown, taking down anyone on the ground as well as everyone he knocked over as you blasted him. As a matter of fact, his multi-ground takedown in general helps to give more breathing room and clean out the field every now and again. His other tools also have their uses as well, such as his freeze grenades, batarangs, and explosive gel; doubly so when combined with the aforementioned multi-ground takedown and with the freeflow power gadgets upgrade. They make the entire level much more bearable, though still immensely hard. Catwoman, Robin, and Nightwing don't have those tools, however, so good luck completing the level with them. Your best bet then is to go into Freeflow Focus and spam critical strikes and hope that no one's fast enough to land a hit and hit so fast that no one can pick up any of the weapons, but it can get very hard to keep track of, especially when the hordes of enemies get larger and it makes it much easier to miss a counter icon. It can also be considered somewhat monotonous, as it just turns into button mashing the game series has been known to try to avoid, so although it might technically be the most efficient way, it still doesn't make it easy. Point is, the level is insanely hard, but to finally get three medals feels so damn good; even more so if you do it in a custom challenge with the One-Hand Tied modifier, which takes away the counter icons a-la New Game Plus.
** Also getting all 9 medals on the predator campaigns, even more so than the individual rooms since you're forced to add modifiers that often make it much more difficult, with effects such as the room being pre-lined with proximity mines, detective mode being scrambled (jammer or not), and all the gargoyles being booby-trapped among others so they blow up if you ever land on them. Of a special note is the Predator Master campaign, which requires just about the all of most difficult modifiers across three of the hardest rooms with the hardest medal requirements of all the maps.

** The Penguin can be this if you don't know that you have to wait for him to say "Gimme your best shot" or "I'll give ya a free shot", walk up to him slowly, and ''then'' use the weapon scrambler.

** Mr. Freeze on NewGamePlus. To be more precise, Mr. Freeze on a normal playthrough is considered by many to be [[AwesomeBosses/VideoGames quite fun]]. But during a NewGamePlus run, he gets controller-breakingly frustrating due to his increased health and general badassery.
*** First, he's more aggressive than usual and faster.
*** Second, if you keep your Detective Vision on for an extended period of time, he jams it into uselessness unless you turn it off for extended periods of time much longer than the duration you left it on in the first place. Have fun having to actually track Freeze on your own.
*** Third, and this one requires some explaining... There are a total of twelve ways to damage Mr. Freeze. On a normal playthrough, you only need to use five or six of them to defeat him (depending on difficulty level). But on NewGamePlus, '''hits don't do as much damage on bosses, just like the mooks''', so you'll need to use almost '''all''' of the techniques to defeat him.
*** Also, as in Hard Mode, he's completely invulnerable to a head-on attack and can kill you in under five seconds with his ice beam.
** Two-Face can easily be this for Catwoman: like Freeze, it's a predator battle, but he's guarded by numerous armed mooks, damaging him naturally alerts him to your presence and after they figure out you're there, any mooks you take out will be quickly replaced by Two-Face: due to the above and Catwoman's limited number of gadgets and lower health, you're either forced to take potshots at him while he's separated and hope you get away before the reinforcements arrive (which isn't helped by the finickiness of her wall-climbing) or just beat him, do your best to disarm any mooks that arrive to help him and hope you can deplete his health before you're overwhelmed. The preferable alternative is to jump next to Two-Face and beat the Christ out of him while throwing Catwoman's caltrops to either side of him to keep mooks away while you drain his entire health bar. Really, if you could play this battle as Batman, you could finish the battle in a single try by throwing a smoke bomb at him and kicking his ass practically unopposed.
*** Becomes HilariousInHindsight with his "fight" at the end of his mission in Arkham Knight. This time, you actually do get to play as Batman, and to say he's an easy boss would be a MASSIVE understatement, considering he quite literally goes down like any other mook; no extra health, no gimmicks to avoid your KO moves, no summoning reinforcements as you take them out, NOTHING. As a matter of fact, many a player take him out without even noticing that they took him down, especially if you're using detective mode and the game's [[GameBreaker Fear Multi-takedown ability]] making it really easy to take down up to 5 foes in quick succession. That said, may provide some nice CatharsisFactor if you want some sweet revenge for the absolute gauntlet that was his aforementioned Arkham City level. You can take him out in the most humiliating way you can think of like dangling him from a gargoyle with an inverted takedown, then drop him back on the floor with a batarang headfirst, or leave him as the last enemy and toy with him before taking him down in any way you want: beat down, fear multi-takedown, silent takedown, environmental takedown, collapse a wall on him, REC blast him, line launcher him over a walkway, make him trip down an escalator like a total prat, drop a chandelier on his head, you name it. Suffice to say, Batman isn't kidding when he says "I am Vengeance".
** Harley's Revenge contains a predator battle much like above, and since Robin has access to the grappling hook and smoke bombs as well as having the same amount of health as Batman does, the mission is much easier when it comes to taking Harley down, and there are far fewer reinforcements. However, to compensate for it, not only do you have to take down all thugs in addition to Harley (Catwoman's Predator room ends the second you take down Two-Face), there are 2 hostages in the room as well.

* SignatureScene:
** The opening level with Bruce Wayne arrested by Strange who knows he is Batman. Bruce busting out his cuffs, beating the Penguin and then summoning his suit, and pulling the cowl down on his face.
** The Mr. Freeze boss-fight.
** TheReveal about the secret behind "the old fake Joker gag" near the end.
** [[spoiler:Joker's death in the finale]].

* SpiritualAdaptation: This is the best ''Film/EscapeFromNewYork'' game ever made.

** [[spoiler: Remember how the Joker mockingly aimed the Titan Shot at his head to make it look like a suicide shot back in Arkham Asylum? After the end of this game and what the Titan wound up doing to him, that moment takes on a much darker tone....]]
** [[spoiler: "Twinkle twinkle, little Bat. Watch me kill your favorite cat."]]
** In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'', [[spoiler: in "The Knights of Tomorrow!", the Joker is sick and dying, with what seems to be like short time to live, all while he acknowledges his own JokerImmunity ([[LampshadeHanging "I'm the Joker! I always survive!"]]). Come this game, where the plot similarities are, at most, almost uncanny.]]
** The fact that the [[spoiler: climatic battle]] takes place in a movie theater, in light of the Aurora Theater Shooting.

** "That actually is… pretty funny."[[note]]Joker's FamousLastWords, used in response to situations that are, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin well]], ActuallyPrettyFunny.[[/note]]

* UncannyValley:
** Joker sometimes looks almost plasticine, [[spoiler: possibly because many times Clayface is acting as him]].
** ComicBook/TheJoker always looks different than your average clown, but in Arkham City [[spoiler: his dying, decaying form looks disturbingly realistic somehow and Clayface's version of him is disturbingly... just slightly "off"]].
** The ''Batman: The Animated Series'' alternate skins deliberately evoke this; they're rendered in a completely different art style with mostly smooth textures and simple colors.

** The "Protective Aura" modifier in challenge maps. Whenever it's active, it makes one enemy immune to everything, and switches its host at random. Doesn't sound too bad? Either by glitch or design, it can be active on more than one enemy at a time, its deactivation takes slightly longer than you are allowed to be inactive in combat without losing your combo (and the final enemy of any given wave ''will'' have it), and can seriously ruin some of the predator medals that require careful planning due to its random nature.
*** [[http:\\static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/batman__return_to_arkham_arkham_city_20170820170528.jpg Here's an example from a combat situation.]] [[UnintentionallyUnwinnable Note that they are the only enemies left.]]

** The opening level [[spoiler:with Bruce Wayne arrested by Strange who knows he is Batman. Bruce busting out his cuffs, beating the Penguin and then summoning his suit, and pulling the cowl down on his face]].

** Three Joker's thugs arguing about who'll thaw and rape Nora Fries? Not funny. The same Joker's thugs attempting to settle the matter through a three-way game of Rock paper scissors where they keep introducing moves suche as "gun" and "dynamite"? Hilarious.

** After he hadn't been thought of much in comics, the Arkhamverse's version of Hugo Strange gave the character a big leap in popularity by being a cunning MagnificentBastard who uncovers Batman's secret identity and [[NearVillainVictory nearly succeeds]] in his plans to eradicate all crime from Gotham.

* OlderThanTheyThink: Judging by the praise the scene gets, you'd think that [[spoiler: Joker had never died in any other Batman media. For example, he died in Creator/FrankMiller's ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns, Burton's ''Film/Batman1989'' and of course, ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyondReturnOfTheJoker'' written by Paul Dini. What makes ''Arkham City'' surprising is that two of the other examples were set in an alternate continuity future story (the kind where [[AnyoneCanDie one expects character death]]), whereas the game was promoted as just-another-Batman-adventure similar to how VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum was; the kind that everyone expected to end with JokerImmunity which made the twist a special ShockingSwerve]].

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Mad Hatter, more than anyone. You'd think someone who [[spoiler: Hugo Strange took advantage of to get Arkham City happen in the first place]] would've had a bigger role than a side story nuisance.

** Before TheReveal, the ending of the [[spoiler:Hush]] sidequest is foreshadowed by some inmates discussing how Bruce Wayne is seemingly going around killing people. The problem is, when the killer is finally confronted [[spoiler:he still has his bandages on - meaning that either A) before bandaging it, Hush went around wearing his unfinished face fully visible and the mooks couldn't tell the difference, B) that Hush went around in his bandages/coat combo and the mooks thought that Bruce Wayne looks like a mummy dressed up as an arms dealer, and/or C) that Hush finished his face, unwrapped it, went around killing some more folk, and then rebandaged it just to perform a DramaticUnmasking for Batman]]. Either way, the FridgeLogic present kind of deflates the supposedly dramatic moment.

** [[spoiler: In his last outing,]] The Joker proves himself as manipulative and evil as ever by manipulating Batman into finding him a cure for the TITAN disease, killing Batman's love interest Talia al Ghul, and [[spoiler: having Clayface impersonate him to hide the fact that he's dying.]]

** The predator room at the top of Wonder Tower comes to mind as well, considering that it's one of the only predator sections in the entire game without gargoyles or grate systems that spread across the entire room, with the only cover Batman has being a few crates here and there. Couple that with Hugo Strange being a total asshat and yelling things like "Are you blind?!! Batman is over there!!" whenever he sees you sneaking around, which you may not notice since you're probably trying to stalk a guard for a silent takedown.
** Getting 3 Medals on the DLC Riddler's Revenge challenge Joker's Carnival is known for being notoriously hard. The entire concept is that you start off with three minutes to fight off increasingly waves and waves of enemies. The more enemies you beat, your level increases, as does the difficulty of the enemies, all the way up to level 6 where you fight a Titan henchman. For each level, you can "bank" your level for extra points and time for a maximum of 500000 points and 75 extra seconds at level 6 (max gauge not included), which resets your level back to 0. However, you can't get hit at any point, otherwise your level will reset. And if you want all three medals, which requires 1000000 points, you basically have to keep a perfect freeflow combo going at least until after you bank level 6 and get a few rodeo strikes, as if you break your combo, even if your level doesn't reset, you lose your combo multiplier, which significantly decreases the number of points you get for each move. This usually means you typically need to maintain a perfect freeflow combo of at least well over 200 if you want a chance of getting to the point threshold. Thankfully, Batman at least has the special combo disarm and destroy, which is INSANELY useful, since each level will only drop one of each weapon, so all you have to do is watch out for them and take it apart the second a mook picks it up and not worry about it again. He also has the REC Blast, which is just as useful for the armored thugs and lieutenants, as it immediately knocks armored thugs over, saving you the trouble of having to either waste a special combo takedown or focus a beatdown on him, as you can just knock him over and multi-ground takedown, taking down anyone on the ground as well as everyone he knocked over as you blasted him. That and Batman's other tools like his Bat-swarm, freeze grenades, and multi-ground takedown make the entire thing much more bearable, though still immensely hard. Catwoman, Robin, and Nightwing don't have those tools, however, so good luck getting there rwith that. Your best bet then is to go into Freeflow Focus and spam critical strikes and hope that no one's fast enough to land a hit and hit so fast that no one can pick up any of the weapons, but it cantget hard to keep track of, especially when the hordes of enemies get larger and it makes it much easier to miss a counter icon, and honestly just becomes monotonous, so although it might technically be the most efficient way, it still doesn't make it easy. Point is, the level is insanely hard, but to finally get three medals feels so damn good; even more so if you do it in a custom challenge with the One-Hand Tied modifier, which takes away the counter icons a-la New Game Plus.

*** [[http:\\static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/batman__return_to_arkham_arkham_city_20170820170528.jpg Here's an example from a combat situation.]] [[UnwinnableByMistake Note that they are the only enemies left.]]