MovieChat Forums > Batman: Arkham Knight (2015) Discussion > Arkham Knight Pros and Cons

Arkham Knight Pros and Cons

posted 9 years ago by ExplorerDS6789
10 replies | jump to latest

So, I've finally gotten around to playing the game, and I've comprised my own list of pros and cons:

PROS:

1. Graphics are outstanding.
2. Voice acting is superb.
3. Gameplay is cool, but some nice new moves.
4. The environments are pristine.
5. The Batmobile was a nice addition to the game.
6. The inclusion of Lucius Fox. The Bat-Gadget man.
7. Nice to see Cash has a much safer job this time around.
8. Some SMART criminals. They see Batman and quickly haul-ass outta there.

CONS:
1. TOO. MUCH. BATMOBILE. I think everybody will agree that Rocksteady got EXTREMELY carried away with the inclusion of that car in this game. You need it to do almost EVERYTHING. It's like they were so proud of themselves they wanted to shout over and over, "look, we can do action drive sequences now!" Yeah? So can Rockstar North, and Grand Theft Auto V is a better game than Arkham Knight because you're not constantly driving around in a super car fighting tanks.
I want to be BATMAN, not his car! This is NOT Grand Bat Auto: Gotham City!

2. They took everything that made Arkham City cool and screwed it up! Instead of proper villain battles, like we got with Mr. Freeze and Ra's al Ghul in AC, we get tank battles. Again, it was Rocksteady compensating for the fact they spent so long on the Batmobile that they couldn't create an engaging story or work on developing their characters.

3. THE RIDDLER. God, I HATE that guy! I know he's supposed to be annoying, but GOOD GOD, they overdid it this time. Once again, you get to hear that snarky voice of his bait you whenever you find one of his clues. Remember that feature of Arkham Asylum? Remember how they took it away in Arkham City? Well, it's back. Man, and I thought Harley Quinn was annoying. She was thankfully downplayed in this game, just so we could have more of that jolly green jerk. I swear, if I meet Wally Wingert in person, I may have to slap him. Or resurrect Frank Gorshin and slap HIM for making the Riddler so popular.

And also, why should you bother to do his challenges this time? Remember in Arkham City, Batman had to solve all of Riddler's challenges to save a group of innocent medics and guards? Well, this time it's to save Catwoman who was STUPID enough to get herself caught by Riddler in the first place. She does NOTHING but make quips and sarcastic comments. I say let her die. If she was stupid enough to get herself into that situation, she deserves it. We didn't care about Catwoman's inclusion in AC, and we don't care about her here. They just put her in to be eye candy.

4. Not bringing back Paul Dini to write the story. The game developers were all, "ah, we can do it just as well." Obviously, you can't!

5. Characters we DON'T care about. Jason Todd? Really? If you recall, nobody cared about him when he was introduced, so they killed him off. The Arkham Knight was a very uninteresting character himself, and making him Jason Todd just made us turn away even faster.
Deathstroke? WHY is he in this game? Firefly, I can understand, because he ties in with the firefighter subplot, but why is Deathstroke going after Batman? He never held a grudge against him. We did not need to see that guy again.

So was this game worth the wait? Yes and no. No for overuse of the Batmobile, horrible character development and redundancy. But I guess those prideful idiots at WB and Rocksteady don't care what the fans and their customers think. But then, they probably tested the game with a bunch of drooling teenage fanboys who played five minutes of the game and then went home and masturbated to it. Batman: Arkham Knight is a letdown and a giant case of BLUE BAT-BALLS.

[–] velasmarco 9 years ago

I just hate the explosive punch and glowing sword attack effects. Once I changed the batmobile controls. I began to like the game as opposed to being annoyed. Oh and stop with the joker.

[–] ExplorerDS6789 9 years ago

I just hate the explosive punch and glowing sword attack effects.

Probably just done for effect.

Oh and stop with the joker.

Well to be fair, he CAN be helpful in parts of the game where you can get stuck. But at least this time his character is pushed aside for Scarecrow and Arkham Knight.

[–] Leesha92 9 years ago

Overall I enjoyed the game, didn't think it was awful, but it definitely was a letdown.

I really enjoyed the inclusion of the dual batman battles. It was fun to swap between catwoman and batman or nightwing and batman, as it added a new way of combat. And I didn't mind the story.

I'm in the minority that says I LOVED the way the way they included the Joker in the game. When I first saw the Joker appeared I groaned and nearly threw my controller at the playstation. But the more I played the more I enjoyed the use of the Joker as an insight into Batman's increasingly disturbed mental state. And he was handy in same tricky parts, giving you little clues on how to move ahead. And I'm so glad Mark Hamill came back for one last hurrah. Not that Troy Baker didn't do a good job in Arkham Origins but Hamill has been with the group since the beginning of the modern animated series and all through the Rocksteady canon Arkham games.

The batmobile was fun. I actually liked the Riddler challenges and how they used the Batmobile to solve the challenges. But the novelty definitely wore off after the first Ace Chemicals segment and eventually it just turned into a chore to use it.

And that brings me to the biggest negative about the game: Everything seemed to fall flat just as they were gaining momentum.

The way the game was advertised was that all the villains were coming together, putting aside their differences to come up with a plan with the Scarecrow to finally take down the Batman. I was really looking forward to an Arkham City style villain battle off, where you have to get through a series of villains to get to Scarecrow.
But that was not was delivered. Instead, the villians (except Harley Quinn) were regulated to these stupid little side missions, many of which were incredibly lame. Stop Two-Face robbing banks. Yeah, in your face Batman! Stop Penguin's illegal arms trade. Ooh, that'll REALLY get ole Bats in a twizzle! Hush has gone to SO much trouble to look like Bruce Wayne, threatening him and spending months and years murdering people to collect and surgicially ssew on body parts to look exactly like Bruce Wayne, all for it to accumulate into a *gasp* sneak into Wayne Tower, hack the computers and transfer millions of dollars of into Hush's bank account! DUN DUN DUN!!....*yawn* boooo-riiiinnng
Yes, doing all the side missions unlocked the 100% Knightfall ending but c'mon, kinda a lame tradeoff for such drag of missions.
And Harley Quinn was wasted in this game. She should have been used as Scarecrow's lackey, driven by complete insane sadness and revenge against Batman to get back for the Joker's death.

The Arkham Knight's reveal was a totally wasted opportunity. I already (correctly) guessed that the AK was Jason Todd before the game. I felt so strongly about it that I just knew I was right. So I was interested to see how they would reveal him. And I liked the reveal but again the momemtum fades. Batman and Todd have another flipping tank battle and then Todd pisses off. Where does he go? He isn't mentioned or seen again until the brief shining moment as Red Hood saving Bruce Wayne from Scarecrow and then effs right off again without another mention. The main character, the main , mysterious character that the game is named after, is revealed and then never even thought of after. I was like, da frig is he and what happened to him?

Again, overall I enjoyed the game. I have definitely played worse that's for sure. The graphics were easily the best of the games, the story was enjoyable enough that you wanted to find out what happened next, and the Joker was smartly done. But it was let down by overused Batmobile tank battles and flat villain use.

[–] ExplorerDS6789 9 years ago

And is it just me or did they make Batman a colossal douchebag in this game? I know he's a quiet, serious guy who is used to working alone, but it's like, every time he refuses help from someone, he ends up getting into an even bigger mess. In Arkham Origins, he was a stubborn, impetuous young man who felt he didn't need any allies. Then Alfred is almost killed by Bane, which makes him change his mind. But now it's come full circle: Bruce is now a stubborn, impetuous old man who feels he doesn't need any allies. I swear, twice before Oracle is kidnapped, Robin demands Batman let him help, but he refuses him. Then Barbara chimes in and it goes something like this:
Barbara: "I really think you should let him help."
Batman: "I really think you should mind your own business."
It's like, 'I'm Batman, nobody can tell me what to do.'
Robin should've defied him and said, "I'm helping you anyway." At least Nightwing had the guts to do that when Bats tried to refuse his help.
Oh, and I love the part where Batman locks Robin in a cell and then tells him about Barbara's "death". But that wasn't enough. These actions allowed Robin to get kidnapped, forcing Batman to surrender to Scarecrow and reveal himself. Probably should've rethought that strategy there, Bats.
And look how he just gave up on Jason and replaced him almost immediately. And not dealing with Joker way back when pretty much makes Batman responsible for all the people the clown murdered.
I guess the Arkham series was meant to chronicle Batman's mental decline, because with each game he seems to lose more and more of his sanity, so by Arkham Knight, he's completely nuts.

[–] velasmarco 9 years ago

Well, with some critical thinking, it seems obvious he doesn't want help so they don't end up dying during the hardest night of his life. Since he's had a Robin die before. Yet his team never feared death.

[–] velasmarco 9 years ago

Agreed 100%. Its a great game but being Batman should involve the cave and batwing. I thought Nightwing would ride along in the car. When I heard the first or sentence from ArkhamKnight. I basically knew who it was. I thought the villains would be all in one setting putting their minds together. The Batcave and mansion should've been infiltrated. Bane and his army or Ra's would've fit perfectly. The enemies and their fortification of an area was the easiest to deal with if it werent for those turrents. In other games, joker had bombs on the gargoyles or heart monitors. Arkham knight wasn't creative in planing with all he knew about Batman's limits. Characters like Death stroke wouldn't just walk along into a jail cell without resistance. And so on. The city has short buildings. But the game rocks, thankyou for putting the 2016 movie skin.

[–] bradnorton 8 years ago

I'm in agreement with you almost whole-heartedly.

Like what the hell happened to Todd?

~This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time.

[–] Kitarl 8 years ago

I agree with pretty much everything you're saying. I will say though that I enjoyed Todd's inclusion, but they really should have just made him the Red Hood from the start and got it over with. The Arkham Knight smokescreen did nothing for me. I was especially disapointed at the reveal because they'd gone to great lengths to sell the character as someone new. It's called LYING, Rocksteady. You're on notice for that.

Far too much Batmobile. I didn't mind being able to call on it at will and drive instead of glide, that was fun, but the sheer number of plot relevant missions that involved the use of the Bat-tank... just too much. Less is more, yo.

I didn't enjoy the pseudo Jokers and the unsatisfying conclusion to that plot. Did Batman really just stand there while a crazed half-pint school teacher put a bullet in an unconscious person? No. Dude would have bateranged that gun out of his hand and knocked him senseless. I was absolutely infuriated with that scene.

The ending was kinda hit and miss. I didn't mind the idea of Batman's identity becoming public knowledge, but I'd have preferred a subplot of him recruiting replacements that actually had a pay off. Maybe reveal a new batcave with him standing in front of a group of people to act as Gotham's new protectors. Robin, a redeemed Red Hood, Azrael, so on so forth, telling them it was time to go to work. Shades of Batman of the Future.

Who loves ya, baby?

[–] AgentBlue 9 years ago

Im pretty much with you on all of this, especially the Batmobile!!!!! God its so annoying cool sometimes but yes, I also hate the fact that you need it to defeat a bunch of the bosses like Deathstroke and The Arkham Knight. would have been awesome to have the boss battles like in City. Still a good game though.

Lose the Game!!!!!!!

[–] cheezbaalz 9 years ago

Stop claiming that we share your opinions, Jason Toads story arch is one of the most popular Batman stories and I love Catwomans inclusion in Arkham City.