Batman: Arkham Knight

The point of that is there has to be some plot and theme convergence eventually. In Arkham City, that convergence never really happens. It would have made more sense if they had given some sections entirely to Catwoman, like Catwoman is a thief who is entirely not interested in Hugo Strange's plans, so it would have made sense if she was the one who hung around with all the different Rogues and started Playing Both Sides. Ultimately to do that kind of criminal characters where you interact with all these rogues, you can't go far with a Hero protagonist. That kind of underworld atmosphere comes from GTA games where you are a criminal yourself. Poor Selina doesn't even get her most badass moment playable in the game, you know she marches all the way to the Sionis Mill in the middle of Protocol 10 to save the man she loves. It happens off-screen.

Them featuring in the same game is nothing to boast if they don't have anything to do. Arkham Asylum didn't have Catwoman, Two-Face, Mr. Freeze and others either, because there wasn't a role for them in that game. Like Ra's Al Ghul doesn't even get much to do in the game. He's just old, tired provides a nice Boss Fight and then puts a knife to his daughter's neck because he's an asshole. We don't get any sense of background or character, like the fact that he's 700 years and knew Napoleon on a First-Name Basis, no hint about how cool and Badass he is and that he's actually some kind of visionary. Here he's just a weird dude with a hot daughter. The Wonder City stuff is cool and everything but again its just window dressing, something like that could have formed a mystery or plot of its own game and Ra's should have been the villain of his own game.

It did not pile "Everyone up in a single plotline" at all. In the A-Plot there is Scarecrow, Arkham Knight, Simon Stagg and Poison Ivy as important characters among the "villains". The B-Plot has Harley and the Jokerclones. Two-Face, Penguin, Riddler and others were all their own side-missions, separate but equal. All of them are important for the Golden Ending, so I would not call it Padding unlike Arkham City where Arkham City just happens to have "an underground Steampunk city which time forgot". Its a huge contrivance.

For me I have just not been all that impressed with the stories of any of the Rocksteady games. The characterization is generally faithful and that leads to some memorable moments (especially the hallucination scenes), but the stories themselves are rather silly pulp material that banks off contrived fantasy elements and contorts itself to make sure you deal with a certain number of the rogues gallery. Asylum had the Titan monster formula, City had the poisoned blood and Knight has the Joker infections. Asylum had Joker give Ivy some Titan... just because. City had Freeze working on a cure but he is conveniently captured by Penguin... just because. Knight claimed that the Joker infections were untreated people with Joker's blood... including Batman even though he was the first to receive the cure.

Arkham Origins avoids all that nonsense by removing all of the contrived elements and builds a more streamlined story around the assassins and Batman's relationship with them. The primary criticism, being that Joker is really at the center of the plot, is more about being tired of Joker being in everything than a mark against the story itself. It also conveys a Batman almost being overwhelmed so much better than the mainline games because... he is literally almost overwhelmed.

edited 3rd Jul '15 2:06:15 PM by KJMackley

The problem is that they keep hinting Batman will be "possessed" by the Joker. Heck, he loses it and becomes The Joker briefly when he's more brutal that usual. But at no point does Batman ever lose control and become The Joker as the game keeps hinting will happen, and that's a cheat. That entire fantasy sequence should have happened just as Batman was about to actually kill someone.

Oh, and Hush being the next Big Bad was supremely telegraphed, just as badly as Arkham Knight being Jason Todd. That was painfully obvious.

That said, Barbara being alive was a relief. That was a huge Gut Punch when it looked like she'd shot herself. Now that was powerful.

Agreed. I feel Joker's search for a cure would have been better served as a sidequest instead of being made equally important with Strange and the Arkham City.

Even though I don't see as a better game than anything Rocksteady put out, I also agree with Origins having a better story than the 3 others.

I wouldn't disagree with this to be honest. This isn't really an exclusive problem to rocksteady's games either, it's a generally observed problem in other batman stories outside of it.

Riddler is nuttier than usual in this game. He programmed religion into his robots and made them worship him as a God.

Another issue with the game. It's become sluggish to control, because there's so much going on. I've seen it completely ignore a command so that the animation of the enemy could complete.

Am I the only person who sat through the Riddler's entire ruleset because they didn't realize you were supposed to open the door manually? And failed the racetrack because they couldn't get past that first door?

Frankly, the Riddler was right. I had completely and utterly failed that first challenge.

He can call me a moron because I'm not going to bother going through the city and picking up 300+ Riddler marks. Fuck him.

A lot of the combat additions are not very intuitive. You can punch enemies who are still on the ground and pick them up for a renewed beatdown, which is kind of redundant. And the whole "using gadgets mid-flight" takes so much coordination that by the time you've realized you can start doing it you've already reached the first knockdown. Fear takedowns are awesome, easily the coolest addition, and environment takedowns can be cool but when combat is about bouncing around the room it takes some frustrating patience to lure an enemy into the right place.

I still haven't managed the achievement that requires you to fear multi-takedown through a wooden wall. It's just so finicky to get enough people into place, and then it turns out that they aren't close enough, and while you're waiting for an opportunity, the turret you disabled comes back online and alerts everyone.

I should look it up sometime. I hacked the door immediately, not realizing I'd interrupt him. His notions of "fair" and "unfair" are pretty arbitrary since many his puzzles are apparently intended to be unsolvable. For example: any puzzle that requires you to control one of his robots.

edited 3rd Jul '15 7:53:58 PM by KarmaMeter

Arkham Origins is not a better story by any margin.

For one thing if Arkham Origins is Batman and Joker's great grand debut to Gotham society, how come Batman doesn't remember or connect Joker to an earlier incident of chemical bath? That shows up in a nice flashback (a la Rocksteady Mushroom Samba only too literal and not scary at all). Likewise, Joker's characterization is pretty odd. The whole Joker getting all these Assassins together is not really a Joker-plan at all. It's not his style in virtually any Batman story or game.

As for Batman being overwhelmed, well to be honest, if Batman was this badass at the time of Origins then I don't know why Arkham City is anything but another night in the office. If you are doing a prequel you should be mindful of scale. Likewise Batman gets these advanced gadgets like the Freeze gadget replacements well before he would have them in Arkham City. So what's the logic of Batman abandoning it.

As for how much of a cluster it is, well Arkham Origins has these stories - Batman and Gordon becoming pals, Batman and Joker starting their Tragic Bromance, Batman's grand debut in Gotham society, Gotham being taken over by "the freaks" - and so on. Ideally the game should have been set over a period of days and dealt with smaller threats and villains. It should have gone back to the scale of Asylum.

That's totally in keeping with what we see Riddler in this game series. He's the ultimate Nerd loser.

I like the Batmobile.

Finally, someone else on this board who is positive about Arkham Knight.

Didn't say Origins was perfect, only that the story refreshingly relies more on character than convoluted comic book plot. I also think one of its weaknesses is trying to cram everything into one night, which is the same flaw of City and Knight. The game also depicts some character development for the Joker himself, sending assassins after Batman was just a plan to cause some destruction but after facing Batman one on one he develops an obsession over their dichotomy. None of that kind of character insight can be seen in the mainline games.

As for Joker's origin with the acid tank, that is part of the Multiple-Choice Past. It may have never happened at all and even if it did, Batman doesn't make the connection between the guy at Ace Chemicals and the Joker until after their first encounter. Batman also never uses the freeze grenade in Origins, it's an equivalent device called the glue grenade and the DLC "Cold, Cold Heart" says the glue compound didn't keep more than a few days. It's a hell of a better explanation of gameplay concessions than Riddler's robots being calibrated to only take damage from Batman or Catwoman, and even commented on as an unfair gameplay mechanic.

Really? New villain comes on the horizon and establishes himself at the top of Gotham's Rogues Gallery is a comic-book plot. They introduced that with Knightfall where Bane in his debut run quickly establishes himself as a Hero Killer by showing how much more powerful he is over the lesser, older rogues. Then Hush did that again. Only here they use the fanfiction trick of having Joker be the new guy, him making Black Mask his bitch is also a common trope called The Worf Effect.

That isn't character insight at all, that is backstory and origin motivation, which whatever its merits is simply something that comes from plot rather than characterization. You have vastly more character insight in Arkham City. Arkham Origins even repeats the trick with having Joker singing a 50s Ballad at the credits, because why not poach on that too.

Multiple-Choice Past doesn't mean that Joker has no past. In Alan Moore's story which introduced that phrase, its used as a justification for why Joker's new origin (which Moore introduced in that story) does not necessarily contradict the one we had before, because Joker's memory is fuzzy and botched and he has amnesia. Joker falling into a vat of chemicals is the one acknowledged fact about Joker. It's only Christopher Nolan's movie where he's apparently some kind of Shell-Shocked Veteran returning from Iraq, that he has a new backstory more in keeping with the tone of that films.

The Riddler has Super OCD naturally he'd do stuff like that.

edited 3rd Jul '15 9:23:02 PM by JulianLapostat

Why would he? He never even saw Joker's face when he was the Red Hood. It's not like he'd see Joker and immediately realize the guy had bleached skin from falling into a vat of chemicals instead of being a guy who just likes wearing clown makeup.

Glue Grenades were unusable due to the resin destabilizing and falling apart not more than a week after they were made, prompting them to stop using them. This is outright stated in the DLC.

edited 3rd Jul '15 9:45:57 PM by Hobgoblin

Batman would know who he is because he has always known who he is. He is a detective after all. From a thematic perspective, it is absolutely important that Batman connect him to that guy who fell in the vat of acid because otherwise the whole theme of the games of Create Your Own Villain loses all meaning. Batman's relationship with Joker is haunted by the fact that he feels guilty about him falling into that vat of acid and not being able to prevent it.

In Arkham City, Hugo Strange says Joker wouldn't exist if not for Batman and that was absolutely the truth. Origins muddied it for no reason and gives us another fanfiction series of Fauxlosophic Narration with Joker that derives from recent comics.

That explanation makes no sense, since Batman is fighting people in a single night where that Resin works perfectly. He can simply make them on a weekly basis and have an instant production facility that produces a large base for delivery and drop-off if he ever needs it. After all the Freeze Grenades and Clusters weren't permanent either (otherwise they would cause hypothermia and kill the mooks).

A new criminal shows up, sets good guys and bad guys against each other to further their own power grab is a staple of noir, crime fiction, police procedural and political thrillers; not comic books unless they are emulating one of the others. Comic book plot is "I use science to create mutant monsters" or "After being infected with my blood it's like part of my soul gets trapped inside of you" or "Villain falls in vat of acid, emerges with bleached skin, green hair and red Glasgow Smile, decides to become a supervillain."

Joker's exact origin in the comics doesn't really matter, the game is about the Joker's first big prank on Gotham, not his origin, so anything on that is subject to vague speculation, just how the Joker likes it. Riddler was shown as the Information Broker "Enigma," which is so much more interesting and unique in the Arkham-verse than another Serial Killer with a gimmick. Their portrayal of Bane also trumps the Asylum and City version by far (the amnesia is a concession to keep continuity with the other games, and admittedly one of the weaker parts of the story).

In contrast, City kind of neuters the presence of all the bad guys because they are not in charge or really a threat at that moment, they just happen to be in the way of solving another problem. There is still no clear reason given why Strange and Ras Al Ghul got Arkham City built and what would be gained from Protocol 10. There has got to be easier ways to kill off the scum of Gotham. Hell Scarecrows plan in Knight would do a lot more to accomplish that and was 90% simpler in concept, planning and execution.

As for the glue grenades, their short shelf life means he isn't going to have a bunch in storage just because, and won't quickly manufacture some unless it is needed on these kind of big nights. The entire game series shows him having to retrieve certain gadgets he didn't bring along with him at that exact time. After getting the freeze grenade, identical in purpose but will actually be useful after weeks or months in storage, there is no need to bring glue grenades too.

edited 3rd Jul '15 10:16:34 PM by KJMackley

Not really. In real-life Al Capone didn't become a threat by putting Lucky Luciano, Arnold Rothstein, Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger against each other in a scheme to become the Big Bad of Chicago. You don't have any such silliness in Goodfellas or Casino. Even the flashbacks showing Vito Corleone's rise to power in The Godfather Part II are much more subtle as is Michael's gradual corruption.

In comicbooks, being a supervillain is some kind of underworld class privilege and if you want to be the new top-dog you have to take down all the rest to show The Hero that you mean business. That comes more from wrestling and boxing, consider Mr. T in the third Rocky movie than anything else. In fact, Bane in Knightfall the classic story that introduced this plot, was modelled on wrestling performers, then later you have Hush. Before that, every new villain was introduced by actual writing and storytelling. Like Ra's Al Ghul made himself by Batman's second Arch-Enemy simply by popping into the Batcave and saying "I know where you live", he also had a unique design for being a supervillain who didn't exactly dress like a supervillain or have scars and masks. He was also a brand new kind of threat for Batman, on a significantly different level than the other rogues. Bane and Hush were neither of these things, they were gimmicky villains who don't really have potential for many different kinds of stories.

That's not comic-book plot at all, that's character origin and backstory. And that part is important because once established it plays a major part in characterization of later stories. Batman's backstory is "I will become a bat and avenge my parents in an incredibly impractical way". That's comics as they come but you cannot change or alter that in any fundamental way. Joker's chemical bath and Batman's role in the same, once established in continuity (as in Arkham City) is another example.

The greatest Joker story, The Killing Joke deals with his origins, so it very much matters.

edited 3rd Jul '15 10:37:41 PM by JulianLapostat

It's an exaggeration that is common in media depictions, if maybe more subtle in real life. What you're talking about when it comes to things like Comics!Bane is more a new person coming into town with their own army and starting a war in the criminal underworld, which is certainly a lot more theatrical but is a different idea than assimilating into a group and taking over. The Godfather has Michael show up and arrange the assassination of all enemies of his family, securing his control over those assets. The Gangster genre thrives off things like Klingon Promotion and You Have Outlived Your Usefulness.

The Joker in Origins starts the story already impersonating Black Mask, we don't know his process to get there. For all we know as the Red Hood, before the Joker persona, he was already connected to Black Mask's group and familiar with their infrastructure. It's kind of hard to impersonate someone if you just show up and take over their life.

The acid bath that is supposedly so vital to his origin is often ignored in certain adaptations as being unnecessary to even bring up because the Joker was never a good guy and it doesn't make him suddenly more interesting that way.

edited 3rd Jul '15 10:47:46 PM by KJMackley

I CERTAINLY felt like the A Plot and B Plot of Arlham City converged properly. Protocal 10. Batman decides that he needs to save Talia, and not stop the bombing. He has all but broken his #1 rule here. He orders Alfred to give him Talia's location and Alfred refuses because Gotham needs Batman. THAT was one of the strongest moments of the game.

And Knight almost did have a pileup of villains. They didn't know what to do with half of them and just shoved them into sidequests. Blech. Simon Stagg is NOT someone I'd include in the list of 'villains' considering what a pansy and how little of a threat he is. If he's a villain, might as well include Dr. Young from Akrham Asylum as a villain too.

I also wouldn't put the Joker Clones and Harley in the B Plot. They have their own Plot Cul De Sac that added virtually nothing to the overall plot; Funny with its Joker!Try Hards but not really needed at all. The ONLY reason it exists is to give the bakctsory of Jason and to put Robin in place to be used as a Damsel in Distress for later and neither of those required the Jokerclone plot.

And, still, yes, Arkham Knight is padded. The game really didn't need an absurdly long Underground Batmobile segment that, for no logical reason what so ever and NEVER to be mentioned ever again, Massive Drill Boss Fight. A boss fight. With a massive drill. Which adds nothing. If you can't call that padding, You clearly do not understand what padding is.

I stil don't understand why Arkham Knight writes Catwoman into a 'I'm in love with Batman' role. They had a flirty moment or two, but the end of her segment is framed more as 'Sigh. I guess I gotta go do the right thing' rather than 'I need to go save the man I love'. Their kiss and 'I can't be with you' moment in Knight came COMPLETELY out of nowhere to me. Particuarly since I kept wondering 'Oh, so we're just pretending Talia never hapened? Ok then...' Kind of liked that Arkham City had a playable male protag and (barely) playable female protag that were rather platonic. It was a nice change from typical video games and how Catwoman is often percieved.

edited 3rd Jul '15 10:43:11 PM by InkDagger