Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Batman: Arkham Knight

Joined
Feb 28, 2011
Messages
4,099
Location
Chicago, IL, Kwa
Then again Rocksteady couldn’t really deliver with AK, so... meh.
Arkham Knight was great.

Aside from the fact that it had one of the most disastrous launches of any AAA game in the last decade, I found it merely okay. The writing was a substantial dip from the prior two games, and the emphasis on the Batmobile was misguided. Art direction was really the only area that it delivered.
 

Dexter

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
15,655
Aside from the fact that it had one of the most disastrous launches of any AAA game in the last decade, I found it merely okay. The writing was a substantial dip from the prior two games, and the emphasis on the Batmobile was misguided. Art direction was really the only area that it delivered.
Well, I disagree with most of that:
I've been playing this after I got my 1080 GTX. I've been expecting it to be a mess, but it's been stable 60FPS at 4K with details maxed and I haven't really run into any issues. It's a lot better than I expected, certainly much better than Arkham Origins. I'm not sure how I should arrange the games, but I think it would be Arkham City > Arkham Knight > Arkham Asylum >>> Arkham Origins (although maybe Asylum gets Bonus points for being the first and getting the gameplay perfected in the sequels to work).
I went into some more detail here: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...ight-back-on-steam.90253/page-41#post-4700636

But let's say I don't know how you can rate the writing of a game where the Joker turns into a Muscle-headed Bane-copy that didn't play to his strengths as a villain at all as much better than one having Joker possessing Batman, while he tries to mantain his sanity and not have him "take over". And the least said about Arkham Origins, the better.
 
Joined
Feb 28, 2011
Messages
4,099
Location
Chicago, IL, Kwa
Origins was bad, no disagreement there. I also would t say that the plotting of any of the main trilogy was in of itself bad, but the actual dialogue and direction of AK was inferior to AA and AC. Also the characterization of the actual Arkham Knight was poor and just an entirely unnecessary and obvious bait and switch.
 

Rahdulan

Omnibus
Patron
Joined
Oct 26, 2012
Messages
5,104
You guys are both weird. Arkham Origins had some of the best writing in the "series" imo. I already talked about that upthread.

The only real problem with Origins was the clunky controls.

I found Origins to be criminally underrated, largely because everyone saw it as "just more City" so they glossed over the fine print. It was also pretty buggy from what I read online and some of those bugs were never addressed because WB Montreal studio was clearly just a stand-in for Rocksteady and I doubt WB cared that much.
 
Joined
Feb 28, 2011
Messages
4,099
Location
Chicago, IL, Kwa
The plot of Origins is schizophrenic. It starts off with the bounty hunters plot line. Then completely forgets about it for most of the game aside from boss fights, favoring instead to do a Joker origin story because “can’t have a Batman game without Joker!” (Although it admittedly did have a problem with most of its villains being much more C-list than the other games, so I can partially forgive this).

I’ll also never forgive their treatment of Deathstroke. What an absolute hack job on a great character.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
Patron
Joined
Jan 12, 2004
Messages
11,538
Location
Black Goat Woods !@#*%&^
Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
The plot of Origins is schizophrenic. It starts off with the bounty hunters plot line. Then completely forgets about it
Strongly disagree. The bounty hunter backdrop is always there; the game begins with this (almost insultingly) simplistic premise and then deepens and widens with a ton of other story. It's as if the writers themselves are echoing the coolness of Batman's response. "So 8 super-assassins are competing to kill me in the next 6 hours. So what else is new, I have real work to do." None of the other games get substantially deeper than "[Name villain] is gonna blow up a bomb!!!".

I’ll also never forgive their treatment of Deathstroke. What an absolute hack job on a great character.
No argument here.
 

AW8

Arcane
Joined
Mar 1, 2013
Messages
1,852
Location
North of Poland
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
But let's say I don't know how you can rate the writing of a game where the Joker turns into a Muscle-headed Bane-copy that didn't play to his strengths as a villain at all as much better than one having Joker possessing Batman, while he tries to mantain his sanity and not have him "take over". And the least said about Arkham Origins, the better.
That was only his final gag in Asylum, while Batman getting Jokerized is the entire plot of Knight.

The story in Asylum is presented as just another night in Batman's career. Nothing changes and Batman just methodically defeats all the villains and secures the island. Knight on the other hand continues on the same track as City and tries to make it the grandest, most epic Batman story ever and it ends up pretty nonsensical. The "mystery" of the Arkham Knight only has a single suspect and its resolution is so barebones there's almost nothing there.

It's also a terrible take on Batman and his supporting characters. Instead of celebrating the Bat-family it characterized Batman as a grumpy loner and that his colleagues should be better off without him.

In Asylum, Batman enters Killer Croc's lair and places a sonar device as well as explosives. When he's found what he came for deep within the lair, he uses the sonar device to find his way back and the explosives to bring the chasing Croc down. The madman had already predicted he would need the trap for Croc. Now that's Batman.

In Knight, Batman locks up Robin inside the hideout that Harley Quinn had already breached, and just leaves him there in the now compromised building. Later on Scarecrow simply walks in and kidnaps Robin, forcing Batman to surrender himself. The World's Greatest Detective just gives up at this point and doesn't even attempt to rescue his protege. I don't know who that was, but it wasn't Batman.
 

Sam Ecorners

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 19, 2012
Messages
1,302
Location
Gallbladder of Western Civilization
But let's say I don't know how you can rate the writing of a game where the Joker turns into a Muscle-headed Bane-copy that didn't play to his strengths as a villain at all as much better than one having Joker possessing Batman, while he tries to mantain his sanity and not have him "take over". And the least said about Arkham Origins, the better.
That was only his final gag in Asylum, while Batman getting Jokerized is the entire plot of Knight.

The story in Asylum is presented as just another night in Batman's career. Nothing changes and Batman just methodically defeats all the villains and secures the island. Knight on the other hand continues on the same track as City and tries to make it the grandest, most epic Batman story ever and it ends up pretty nonsensical. The "mystery" of the Arkham Knight only has a single suspect and its resolution is so barebones there's almost nothing there.

It's also a terrible take on Batman and his supporting characters. Instead of celebrating the Bat-family it characterized Batman as a grumpy loner and that his colleagues should be better off without him.

In Asylum, Batman enters Killer Croc's lair and places a sonar device as well as explosives. When he's found what he came for deep within the lair, he uses the sonar device to find his way back and the explosives to bring the chasing Croc down. The madman had already predicted he would need the trap for Croc. Now that's Batman.

In Knight, Batman locks up Robin inside the hideout that Harley Quinn had already breached, and just leaves him there in the now compromised building. Later on Scarecrow simply walks in and kidnaps Robin, forcing Batman to surrender himself. The World's Greatest Detective just gives up at this point and doesn't even attempt to rescue his protege. I don't know who that was, but it wasn't Batman.

Just so happens that Paul Dini, who worked on batman stuff for decades, wrote the first two games and some hack wrote the knight
 

vortex

Fabulous Optimist
Joined
Mar 25, 2016
Messages
4,221
Location
Temple of Alvilmelkedic
Knight was based on a comic but it was too obvious twist. Although, I think Knight was alright. Batmobile got stale soon after introduction.
I think next game should be sans batmobile.
 

AW8

Arcane
Joined
Mar 1, 2013
Messages
1,852
Location
North of Poland
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Just so happens that Paul Dini, who worked on batman stuff for decades, wrote the first two games and some hack wrote the knight
Yeah, and Dini is a great Batman writer. But in all fairness, the ending of City is pretty bad. Talia's surrender and Clayface's reveal make no sense, and Hugo Strange is complete letdown in both gameplay and story.

And it also started the trend with increasing the stakes to nothing less than epic levels: No one of importance died in the first game, while in City both Joker and Hugo Strange bites it.
 

DJOGamer PT

Arcane
Joined
Apr 8, 2015
Messages
7,350
Location
Lusitânia
Then again Rocksteady couldn’t really deliver with AK, so... meh.
Arkham Knight was great.

Nah. Asylum is the only one that is worthwhile, and that's because it's a short, tight game.
City has nice improvements but again they expanded to much and in very bad way as the game gets way too repetitive by the middle. It only got much worse after.

I think next game should be about Batman Beyond

Fixed.
 

Dexter

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2011
Messages
15,655
Just so happens that Paul Dini, who worked on batman stuff for decades, wrote the first two games and some hack wrote the knight
Nah. Asylum is the only one that is worthwhile, and that's because it's a short, tight game.
Asylum is the most video-gamey of them all with the most Un-Batman story. Everything is about Titan, which was a stupid concept to begin with and I can just repeat doesn't fit Joker as a character or his style at all:
7e9fa2d48eeb80427bba80f985a2cf88.jpg


It's like he came from one of those bad "Batman Unlimited" Merchandising cartoons or something, where you can tell they wanted to sell toys really badly:
maxresdefault.jpg

Bane is more of the person that injects himself with shit to become huge and breaks people's spine. The structure of the game was also very game-y, you had several separate areas that you can't enter from the beginning and have to go through in order, and every section contains a section boss, most of which were Titan-transformed henchmen (that you had to fight 4-5 times), one of which was Bane (which was basically a cloned Titan henchman fight). Then you had Scarecrow (which was the most interesting of the bunch), Croc (which was also rather similar to the Henchmen fights), Ivy and the disappointing and uncharacteristic finale with "Titan Joker".

Now don't take me wrong, I didn't dislike it and would still praise it if it wasn't about a comparison regarding which were better. I think it did a lot of things right and especially a lot of things first that inspired the rest of the series and other gaming franchises. But as I've said a few pages ago, the main reason I'd rate Asylum lower than City and Knight aside from the story bits is that after I've played through City/Origins/Knight I actually went back to it and the fighting felt clunky in comparison, like they thought of something great but didn't perfect it yet, and the enemy and boss variety that appeared in City and makes these fights tougher wasn't available yet.
 
Last edited:

AW8

Arcane
Joined
Mar 1, 2013
Messages
1,852
Location
North of Poland
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Everything is about Titan, which was a stupid concept to begin with and I can just repeat doesn't fit Joker as a character or his style at all:

Bane is more of the person that injects himself with shit to become huge and breaks people's spine.
I think you're overstating Titan Joker's role in the story.

Joker's grand plan was to flood Gotham with the Titan formula, turning the people into mindless hulking beasts and just cause total chaos.
When Batman stops this plan, he instead kidnaps Gordon (off-screen and with no explanation) and his new plan is to have Batman fight Titan Gordon which would be pretty funny. Unfortunately for Joker, Batman dives into the way of the dart meant for Gordon and takes it himself.
Robbed of all his fun, Joker shoots himself with a Titan dart to have a big showdown between himself and Titan Batman.
But Batman foils even this when he uses the antidote on himself, leading to the final boss fight.

Is Titan Joker a disappointing boss fight and mostly just the developers making it easy on themselves by having you fight Joker in the exact same way you fought Bane? Yes. I would have loved something more creative.
Does it go against Joker's character? Not at all. It was a spur of the moment crazy act by a sad clown. If any Batman villain is randomly gonna inject himself with a dangerous (proven fatal in the sequel) experimental serum, it's Joker.
 

AW8

Arcane
Joined
Mar 1, 2013
Messages
1,852
Location
North of Poland
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I’ll also never forgive their treatment of Deathstroke. What an absolute hack job on a great character.
Origins Deathstroke? I thought his portrayal was good. Honorable assassin that takes the job on Batman's head and holds no grudges after losing. Whereas his portrayal in Knight was awful, just some asshole out for revenge on Batman all of a sudden.

It's silly how a beginner Batman manages to take down Deathstroke before he's even faced the Joker for the first time, but that's the price you have to pay when your story is "Batman's first encounter with a super-criminal... make that 10 super-criminals and all in one night!".
 

Vityaz

Augur
Joined
Oct 7, 2014
Messages
169
I’ll also never forgive their treatment of Deathstroke. What an absolute hack job on a great character.

Still better than Tankstroke in AK. And even after leaving the tank, he goes down in one cutscene punch. A fucking travesty.

At least the boss fight in Origins was(and looked) somewhat fun.

But they shouldn't have used him so early in the game tho.
 
Last edited:

anarch

Barely Literate
Joined
Sep 25, 2019
Messages
2
Each subsequent Arkham Game builds on the previous one and delivers more of the same but better and richer. I have no idea how anyone could rate them in any different way than 1 < 2 < 3.
 

Swigen

Arbiter
Joined
Dec 15, 2018
Messages
1,014
No, for real though? Arkham Knight was free for PlayStation Plus members last month and I couldn’t be arsed to add it to my library. But this month I added The Last of Us Remastered and MLB The Show. :cool:
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
Patron
Joined
Jan 12, 2004
Messages
11,538
Location
Black Goat Woods !@#*%&^
Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Bah, AK is worth playing unless you are too edgy to tour Riddler's death trap race tracks.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom