Batman Arkham Knight turns five this year and I finally got my hands on it.
Two Sides Of A Coin
After a long time, I’ve finally managed to get Batman: Arkham Knight up and running on my system and went on to finish the game. Back when the game launched, there were a plethora of issues regarding framerates and performance. After numerous updates and patches, the game is finally in a playable state. My system consisting of a Ryzen 5 2500U and an RX 560X could barely keep up with the normal settings at a 720p resolution. Keeping the technical problems aside, let’s get to the main gameplay.
The Good
The core gameplay loop consists of four pillars – stealth, combat, traversal, and the Batmobile. Credit where credit is due, Rocksteady has nailed the feeling of being Batman. The combat feels tight and responsive with a forgiving difficulty that helps to give a sense of power fantasy. The stealth has also been expanded upon with more gadgets added into the mix. The traversal is also familiar with consists of gliding for the most part which is also pretty good. The Batmobile, although overused feels good and responsive. The Batmobile’s fast speed is complemented by destructible environments. You’ll rarely encounter a seemingly nonsensical obstacle when riding such as a tree or pillar that is non-destructible. But sadly, this is the end of everything good.
My major gripes with the game are the side quests and padding in the quest lines.
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The Bad
I wouldn’t really rant a lot about meaningful side quests in an open world because it’s actually become the industry standard to litter the game world with 30 variations of the same activity. But the Arkham Knight takes a really great approach towards it. The game’s side missions are questlines that involve arresting side villains such as Two-Face, Firefly among many others. The familiarity with these characters gives you great motivation to tackle these quests. Although, you’ll soon find out that these are just multi-part side quests with mostly, the same activity is repeated multiple times over and over. Firefly requires you to chase him 4 times, Two-Face requires you to stop 4 robberies and things like that. The final showdown is really underwhelming as there is nothing such as a boss fight. The reward is just a cutscene of batman taking them to GCPD and handing them over.
The Side Missions
The riddler missions are really well constructed and test your skills of the game mechanics without being too obtuse and demanding. One major point of criticism is that the trials are self-contained parts rather than a part of the world itself. This holds true for most of the game and gives a feeling like the world is just a backdrop to the campaign instead of a place meant to be explored. To prove and solidify my point, let’s take a look at everyone’s favorite, a classic, GTA Vice City.
In that game, there’s a ramp near the road leading to the Malibu Club. While traveling around there, you may want to scale up that ramp and see what’s up there. Going up, you find a kind of a path that will after a few jumps lead you back down. Then there’s a bike in a corner near the ramp which triggers a mission that involves you to beat the course. This is how you do open worlds, a place that is fun to explore. Although the Arkham Knight has outpost liberations and stuff like that in its defense, but I hope you get the point.
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Quest Padding
One more point is the excessive padding in the main quest. Although most games have some padding in the quests which ultimately hides away in the face of better content but it’s not the same with Arkham Knight. Even after completing the story, I strongly remember all the points when the game forced fetch quests and meaningless content down my throat. Batman’s allies just can’t seem to hold themselves and keep getting kidnapped every now and then. One could argue that the motive behind this is to give the feeling of hopelessness and helplessness but for some reason, I came out frustrated more than anything else. There is also a lack of variety in the gameplay with a really noticeable absence of boss fights in the main quests which aren’t even at the level of its predecessors.
That is what I felt after finishing every nook and cranny in Batman: Arkham Knight. What are your thoughts on the game? Tell us down in the comments. For more gaming content, stay tuned to the Profaned Otaku.
