Batman has always been my favorite super hero and it's not just because I think he looks awesome. I've always felt a deep understanding of the character. Not the whole orphan billionaire aspect but the crippling loneliness. I guess I've never really talked about it but I have, and still do, have a constant feeling of being alone even when I'm in a full room. Bruce has this same thing. He has everything a person could want but never feels he can truly be himself because if he did a broken man would be all there is and he knows he will never be repaired. I thought that the Nolan movies did a pretty good job of capturing this side of Batman but Rocksteady nails this aspect of the character with their games. I stand by that the Arkham games are the best use of the Batman license since the Animated Series and in 2019 I still feel that way. Arkham Asylum is my favorite game in the series and I recently played it again and wanted to talk about it some. So let's talk.
I want to start with the story because I think that is the strongest part of this game. I know the combat changed the way action games were played but damn the story in this game is amazing! Having Kevon Conroy and Mark Hamill as Batman and Joker was something I wanted so badly and it was everything I could've asked for. Joker taking over the asylum seems like an obvious thing to do but they have so much fun with it. Revolving the game around a new thing called Titan was so smart and it made it feels like this game stands on it's own and it's not just some rip off Animated Series thing. And I think that's the most important thing this game does, it sets its self apart and they made their own version of these characters. Having Joker take the formula and turn into a Titan wouldn't have been something a movie studio would've gone for and it was so awesome to see them just go for it in this game! I thought the moments with Scarcrow were very good and they did a good job tapping into the Wayne's death without putting too much of that stuff in there. My opinion when doing a fresh take on a character like Batman you need to dress stuff his parents death because this could be someone's first Batman experience. The Scarecrow levels do a great job of of showing that he does have fears and is a human under the mask.
The way they tie all the villains into this game is so smart and it does a good job of not feeling like a Batman greatest hits. Letting Zsasz have a decent role was something I loved because we haven't seen him represented in any main stream stuff outside of Gotham. Giving Poison Ivy the biggest/hardest fight in the games was the right way to go and Bane was perfectly done! The Killer Croc fight is so tense, especially on hard. You have to tip toe through his lair and the music gets super loud when he pops out and its' great! The smart use of Clayface was good and some foreshadowing for Arkham City. I really like Harley as a character but I think she's the weakest of them in this game. I liked her a lot more in City and Knight. It seems like she had better lines and more personality in those games. The ending to the story is a bit lame in that it just ends without a big reveal but that's fine. We did get Scarcrow still being alive and the radio call about Two-Face but that's it.
I want to touch on the look of the game next. And when I say look I don't mean graphic, I mean the character models and the environments. This is a dirty looking game in the best possible way! Since the whole game takes place on Arkham Island we get to see it all and there are some very dark emergents to that place. Characters just die, and it's shown. Early on one of the guards that turns on you to help Joker is found dead and it's brutal. There are hallways covered in dirt and blood. The character models are bleak and barley have a clean spot on them. Like the Joker probably smells like shit by the end of the game! It fits the wold they were trying to create and I'm glad they went that way with it. It's also constantly raining when you go outside because of course it is, it's Gotham! The world they created just feels right and I think it has a lot to do with how it looks. I also want to mention how awesome the art in this game is. And I'm specifically talking about in the menus where you can look at the character bios. My God that is some of the coolest character design of these characters I have ever seen!
So the combat, goddamn it's so good! I remember first playing this game the night it came out and thought this might be a big deal and was right. It captured the fighting style of Batman really only seen in the comics. If you are into Batman then you know he is a master of combat but outside of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice you haven't really seen it. You can hear bones crack and every hit has this really satisfying "thud" to it. And as good as the combat is, the stealth is done just as well. Being able to hide in the shadows and pick dudes off really feels good! It was the first time in a game that I really felt like the essence of Batman was captured in a combat sense. And since then it's basically been copied and used for a lot of actions games. The Middle Earth games both used it and they pulled it off just as good.
So this playthough of the game I decided to go for all the achievements and I had not done that before. So that meant going for all the challenge rooms and my God those damn things are hard! I guarantee I spent more time in those than I did the main game with finding all the Riddler stuff and playing on hard. You technically have to find a lot of the Riddler stuff to unlock all the maps so. The Predator maps weren't bad but those Extreme combat rooms almost gave me a heart attack! I got so mad and I rarely get mad at games anymore. They basically ask you to be perfect and it's a bit much in my opinion. I get they are meant to be tough but they can be just a bit too tough when you aren't asked to do anything even close to that in the campaign.
I played the Return to Arkham edition of the game and it looks great, runs great, and glad I could play it on an Xbox One. It's currently on Xbox Game Pass so if you haven't check it out before I highly recommend doing so. All the Arkham games are on Game Pass and who knows, maybe I'll do one of these on each of them. I'm currently going for all the achievements in Arkham City so we'll see how that goes. Cause damn I missed a lot of that side stuff when I first played that game! I hope you enjoyed this, thanks for reading, and I hope you have a good one!
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