4/5 ★ – OliviaDaggers's review of Batman: Arkham Knight.

What a game. I have completed this game multiple times to 100%. I have around 240 hours on PC I believe and 80 hours on Console I think. I will at least play this game 100% through once a year. I got into the Arkham games when I was 13 or 14 I think. First one I played was Arkham City. I was fully immersed in the world the second I started playing and from then on I was hooked into the rest of the franchise. These games mean a lot to me they have been my comfort games for years. If I feel down I will hop on Arkham City or Knight and escape my mundane life to be The Dark Knight for a little while and it's so fricking cool each time. Arkham Knight is not the perfect cap off to the series far from it but it is my favourite game in the franchise and is in my top 10 games of all time. Issues: 1. The story is not perfect by any means it leans very hard on the Arkham Knight (The character not the game) being a secret even though to any fans of Batman lore it was fairly obvious who it was. It would've been better to have the reveal happen early on in the game and have batman deal with jason being alive for longer and then struggling with the guilt of that. Instead it happens near the end and we get very little time to linger on it and it feels rushed 2. We get Joker again. It's not a criticism that I have personally but it feels worth mentioning cause it's the 4th Arkham game with Joker and we also assumed it was done after Arkham City and with opening of the game having us burn Joker but oh how we were played for fools. I will go deeper into the Joker part later. 3. Side missions being a bit underwhelming. Coming from side missions in Arkham City like the Identity theft (Hush side mission), Watcher in the Wings (Azrael mission), Cold Call Killer (Zsasz mission) pretty much every side mission in Arkham City was enthralling but moving over to Arkham Knight we have Man Bat's mission where we have to capture him out of the air three times and then we cure him. No boss fight or anything special (other than the very piss yourself jumpscare we get first time we meet him and also a cool little easter egg), Firefly who had a spectacular boss fight in Arkham Origins which downgraded into chasing him in the batmobile 3 times without much happening during the chase and then he's captured and one last egregious example. Our reward for taking down every Militia Watchtower/Checkpoint/Mines/Armored Trucks. A fight against Deatstroke. Most who played Arkham Origins and experienced the pure awesomeness that was the fight against Deathstroke in that game would reasonably be excited. I sure was! Then what we got was Arkham Knight Cloudburst boss battle version 2. This was the final nail in the coffin. The side missions weren't all bad but there was a bigger number of undercooked side missions than there were good ones which again stung seeing as it was both the end for the franchise and with City having such fantastic side missions. 4. The Batmobile. We all begged for the Batmobile for years and we finally got it! Turns out it was too much. The game was riddled with the tank fight gameplay that was added with the Batmobile even having stealth batmobile sections. Now I can see where they're coming from it didn't bother me so much as it seemed everyone else but I will agree the batmobile took up a lot of space in the gameplay specifically the tank battles. That's as far as the issues go at least from what I've heard and also felt while playing. There is the complaint of having to do every side mission in the game to get the true ending and while I see the issue not every has the time or feels compelled to do every side mission especially with side missions being underwhelming, me personally I see it as appropriate that spoiler warning Batman can only give up the mask when he has put every single criminal back where they belong. It feels very appropriate. Another one is the riddler trophies. It's been a complaint since Asylum I believe where there is just too many and I understand how that feels like an undertaking for sure. They could and should definitely lessen it. Me though I have gotten all riddler trophies in both Arkham City and Knight multiple times. It's a challenge I welcome every playthrough and wouldn't be the same without them.