YMMV / LEGO Batman Trilogy

See here for YMMV specific to DC Super-Villains.

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• Annoying Video Game Helper: Conan O'Brien will be around the non-planet hub areas in Batman 3. However, his little speeches about each area constantly loop and never change, tiring the dialogue and making you want to murder him. He's an invulnerable NPC, however, and unlike Alfred in the previous game, he cannot be muted. And if you're customizing characters, you'll hear the same speech a few times over.
• Base-Breaking Character: Conan O'Brien's inclusion in LEGO Batman 3 has been a little controversial. Some don't mind him being in it, since he's One of Us and a funny guy, whereas others think that his position as Mission Control shoehorns him in slightly. This changed when the game actually came out (see The Scrappy).
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: While the first game had plenty of silliness in both the path plots and gameplay, all of it at least was thematically connected to either the level areas or the Batman mythos. Then there's the game's Gratuitous Disco Sequence during the level "In the Dark Night", which inexplicably features some sort of giant disco bot. While it's used to progress through the level, it has no direct link to Batman or his villains, only appears in one small area, and never gets referenced later.
• Broken Base:
  • Several characters being recast in LEGO Batman 3 has been divisive.
  • The fairly heavy presence of celebrities in Beyond Gotham has split the fanbase. While people are seemingly happy with Adam West as the Citizen in Peril and Stephen Amell reprising his role from Arrow (if perhaps being underused), Kevin Smith is more divisive (some fans find him funny, others think he is okay but unnecessary, some wish he wasn't in it at all). Seemingly the one thing that everyone can agree on is that Conan O'Brien is fairly annoying.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Killer Croc vomiting up Doctor Fate's helmet, after implying that he ate him.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Firefly has a fair number of fans despite having a more minor role in the plot of Beyond Gotham.
  • In Beyond Gotham, you can't go wrong with the Green Loontern.
• Even Better Sequel: LEGO Batman was a good game with some great starting points, but when 2 came along, we got a (slightly) widened ensemble cast complete with all the improvements that had been made since the first game, such as free roaming. Oh yeah, and actual voice acting allowed for a better plot.
• Faux Symbolism: The Gotham City hub world in Batman 2 has the hint of a sunrise or sunset in the background. Whether it means something or is there to look pretty is unknown.
• Game-Breaker: Superman can't be killed (by anything without Super-Strength, at least), can fly, destroys everything he touches in the overworld, and has four different abilities. Wonder Woman and several other Super Heroes count but Superman is unlocked while the main game is still in motion.
• Good Bad Bugs: A bizarre glitch in Lego Batman 3 causes planets to become fused at complete random, completely screwing up their appearance, collision detection, and physics in hilarious ways. Want to swim in midair on the moon or walk upside down on the Hall of Justice ceiling? Now you can! Certain fusions also result in impressive Scenery Porn; Oa, in particular, appears to have collided with the planet it's fused to.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Lego Batman 3 has Braniac mind control both Batman and Superman at separate points (with Superman being the final boss). Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League would have the same thing happen, but this time no big speeches where able to save them, resulting in more tragic consequences.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In Lego Batman 2, when you finish the first act (capture The Joker), Superman appears (late) to help and mentions that Batman should be more careful about destroying the city when he fights supervillains...then sometime later comes Man of Steel and its infamous final battle...
  • Lego Batman 3 has an Early-Bird Cameo of the Arkham Knight Batmobile, which only purpose in the game is to be destroyed to build the Burton Batmobile. The Arkham Knight Batmobile's negative reception turns its destroyable nature into this.
  • In Lego Batman 3, when you visit Zameron, Green Loontern offers you a Gold Brick for helping him with his tour and remarks that maybe the next game will have Pink Bricks, referencing the pink color pallet. Then comes LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2, where the Red Bricks were replaced with Pink Bricks.
• Ho Yay:
  • Joker is rather...flirty with Luthor.
    Joker: Oh, Leeeeex? [holds up kryptonite] It's a boy!
  • Goes even further in Beyond Gotham, when some of the heroes and villains get a particular emotion corresponding to that of a Lantern amplified. And Joker was hit by "love"...yeah, you know how this will turn out.
  • Robin making a heart at Batman in the trailer for Beyond Gotham.
  • One of Joker's random chatter lines in Batman 3 could be applied to this context.
    Joker: It was the Batman who made me the happy soul I am today.
• I Knew It!: After Stephen Amell let slip that he was doing more voice work for a DC game, many people guessed he'd be in LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham. They were right.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • The Joker is the zany but brilliant Arch-Enemy of Batman. An expert schemer, the Joker regularly threatens Gotham City with his various crimes, from kidnapping Commissioner Gordon to gassing all of Gotham, often assisting his allies himself and accepting any help that he's offered. Teaming up with Lex Luthor in the second game, he uses his chemical skills to fabricate Kryptonite, using it to track down the Batcave and steal the real Kryptonite stashed there and uses his laughing gas to hypnotize the citizens into voting for Lex, the duo then putting up a prolonged fight with the Justice League. Later playing a big role in the Legion of Doom breaking into the Watchtower, he happily assists the heroes in saving the world from Brainiac, even after forcibly becoming more affectionate in the process. During DC Super Villains, he joins the Legion in fighting the Crime Syndicate, with him and Harley Quinn volunteering to recruit Black Adam, fighting off Shazam and Superwoman in the process. Eventually, after trashing Apokalypse upon arrival, he once again gleefully joins forces with the heroes to take out Darkseid.
  • Catwoman is the expert cat burglar who acts as The Dragon to the Penguin's plot to take over Gotham City with an army of machine powered penguins. Responsible for stealing a diamond to power the machine, she and Penguin evade the GCPD and steal the diamond, with Catwoman making her escape upon being cornered. Evading and pursuing Batman and Robin, she then distracts Batman by kissing him, using the moment to toss the Diamond to her cat. Upon being delivered the diamond in jail, she uses it to bribe Penguin and Killer Croc into freeing her, continuing to aid her boss in his scheme. Eventually managing to unleash the penguins, they proceed to fight the Dynamic Duo, with Catwoman doing the physical fighting. Later games would have her successfully break out of Arkham after a failed first attempt, and acting as the Team Mom to the Legion of Doom, willingly helping Batman fight off the Parademon invasion.
• Memetic Mutation: "Bruce, it's been five years, you still owe me 16 dollars." "…FUCK OFF!"^Explanation YouTuber eyeyazar's video "Why LEGO Batman 2 Was The Perfect Videogame Sequel" has him dub over Superman's arrival with this exchange. Other videos would meme this by putting it over other Superman and Batman interactions, as well as bringing to mind the Superman/Batman: Apocalypse animated movie, where Superman tells Batman that he'll pay him back $50,000 for Supergirl wrecking his Batcomputer in her confusion ("On a reporter's salary? Sure.").
• Moral Event Horizon: Lex Luthor easily crosses it by trying to murder everybody in Wayne Tower, because Wayne snubbed him at the Man of the Year Awards.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • When you finish the Hero side of the Joker’s chapter in the first game, a brief cutscene plays of Joker in his cell, putting a flag gun to his head before pulling the trigger. Yes, a suicide joke is in a Lego game.
  • Just the Joker’s face in general from the first game, with his overly-detailed teeth and the lines at the sides of his mouth, which really put the "monster" in Monster Clown. His redesign in later games, where his smile is less detailed and goes no further than his cheeks, is much easier to look at.
  • If you listen closely while free-roaming Arkham Asylum in the first game, you can hear crazed, maniacal laughter behind the waltz music. This is followed by a women either laughing or crying, a child's laugh, and a man screaming. This becomes especially eerie if you turn off the game music and all you're left with is the maniacal laughter.
• Padding: One of the villain levels in the first game, "An Enterprising Theft", involves The Riddler and Two-Face stealing a laser from Wayne Labs for their heist on Gotham City Gold Reserves. Once they arrive they use the laser to destroy the ice bridge they created, but it fails to destroy the front door and the laser ricochets back to the cannon, destroying it, making their efforts in the previous level entirely pointless.
• Polished Port: While the DS version of Lego Batman: The Video Game had to make several alterations to accommodate for the DS' hardware limitations (such as replacing the cutscenes with slideshow panels and changing the level design), it is nevertheless a solid port that has more characters than the console versions (45 in the console version, 70 in the DS version) and new exclusive content such as the speedrun-based Villain Hunt mode.
• The Scrappy: While Conan O'Brien was something of a Base-Breaking Character before launch, after the game came out fans and critics came to dislike his role, since the jokes got old fairly quickly and he was seen as shoehorned in.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The random but regular gang fights in Batman 2. You can be walking around the Gotham open world, and a group of villains can spawn at any time, which will trigger another piece of music which quickly gets annoying. The music can be turned off and the fights can be avoided, but it's a pain nonetheless.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • In the first game, using Joker's joybuzzer on somebody will reveal their skeleton as they get shocked. Use it on a rat found in some levels, however, and it still shows a human skeleton.
  • The Joker-Copter in Batman 2. Its blades don't even spin.
• That One Level:
  • "Zoo's Company". Lily-Pad Bouncing Segment. That is all.
  • "An Icy Reception". Almost the entire level is situated on catwalks over a precarious Bottomless Pit, and some of the platforms have rather dodgy hit detection. Filling up the Super Hero Bar is more or less impossible in story mode due to the incredibly strict amount of studs you need. It certainly doesn't help that Mr. Freeze is That One Boss who can kill both players in less than one second. To top it all off, it's the second level.
  • In the first two LEGO Batman games, there are several chase levels. Be assured that, if there is flying involved — whether you're piloting an aircraft or playing as Superman — you will be intensely frustrated.
• That One Sidequest: Arctic World's minikit canisters on the ice slide, where you have to pass through five or so gates. You only get one try, and if you mess up, you have to restart the lengthy level again.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Firefly doesn't play as big a role in the story for Beyond Gotham as the rest of the Legion of Doom do, and thus feels a bit wasted. The scenes he is in are generally considered to be good.
  • In 2, you can't buy Supergirl until you've collected 250 gold bricks, which means 100% Completion. With no more challenges, levels or side missions to play, most players won't be using Supergirl at all.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • LEGO Batman 2 was promoted with having other heroes from the DCU available, but, in the story, only Superman and his supporting cast get any focus. The rest of the Justice League only show up near the end.
  • They implement the traditional Kryptonite weakness in LEGO Batman 2, but don't utilize Metallo as a boss fight nor do they include the character in the game. Metallo is included in LEGO Batman 3, but only as an unlockable character with no plot importance. Finally rectified in LEGO DC Super-Villains where Metallo does go up against Superman.
  • The Dark Knight DLC for LEGO Batman 3 takes place in the car chase sequence from the second film, but the famous truck flip stunt from that film was just relegated to a comic panel cutscene. Who wouldn't have wanted to see that reproduced in LEGO?
  • The end of Bizarro's DLC for Beyond Gotham ends with Darkseid being beaten offscreen.
• Underused Game Mechanic: Despite focusing on the antigravity mechanics in the promotional material, Lego Batman 3 doesn't actually have many antigravity segments at all. The only areas to have antigravity is a short segment in Space Suits You, Sir and a few of the hub planets, but that's it.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Due to the first game being predominantly based upon Batman: The Animated Series, with music and locations from the films utilized, Hush, a character who had no presence outside comics media at the time, was a surprise. The same also applies to Killer Moth, who, compared to the vast majority of the villains featured, is much less well known.
  • Among the massive cast of characters, LEGO Batman 3 includes;
    • Obscure silly characters (Detective Chimp and Condiment King).
    • Un-superpowerd celebrities (Kevin Smith and Conan O'Brien).
    • Daffy Duck with a Green Lantern ring (named "Green Loontern"), as seen in an episode of Duck Dodgers.
    • Terry McGinnis, along with some of his Batman Beyond co-stars, can also be purchased and unlocked.
    • Even among the Batman Beyond characters, while most of them made sense, Bonk's inclusion over more iconic characters such as Zeta, Ten, Shriek, Curare, or the Stalker raised a few eyebrows.

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