3/5 ★ – vr_'s review of Gotham Knights.

There is a pretty good game buried under some of the most convoluted menu systems and upgrade paths. I think locking the characters' traversal skills behind a skill tree that took me over 9 hours to finish with all 4 characters is a little bit ridiculous. I understand combat abilities, but not being able to glide as Batgirl from the onset of the game really does not help sell people on how enjoyable their experience playing will be.I do have to add though I did not play the launch version, and it seems like some of the more annoying aspects of forcing the player to engage with excessive amounts of open world content have been reduced. I was shocked to re-watch old reviews and hearing that what I already found pretty tedious was at one point even worse. Had I played the original version that required 10 premeditated crimes to be completed with each character prior to unlocking their knighthood ability, I probably never would have experimented with different characters, or possibly abandoned the game as a whole. In the games current state, where I didn't have to pay attention at all to the currencies I was picking up or what new weapons I could craft, the game was enjoyable enough, I just wish the time and effort that went into systems that no one really asked for was put elsewhere, crafting the game into a more enjoyable streamlined adventure and ironing out some of the bugginess. Reminds me a lot of the 2022 Saints Row reboot, but definitely not as bad, specifically with the cast of Characters, being a worse version of a game the developers have made, somewhat cringey 2022 dialogue and the icing on the cake, the overuse of purple neon. It's crazy how WB Montreal made an extremely competent Arkham game with Origins, yet all the mechanics that carry over from that game are done so much worse, grappling and jumping have so many animations that magnetize you to specific locations, and gliding feels pretty damn awful. The biggest issue with this game realistically is that reversal is not fun. I ended up playing as Batgirl for the most part, because even though her gliding was nowhere near as good as even Arkham Asylum, it was definitely the “lesser evil” of traversal options. I initially enjoyed playing as Robin, but his traversal mechanic was so awful I never wanted to play as him in the open-world as it just made getting around feel extremely tedious. Unlike Saints Row (2022), In Gotham Knights the characters actually seem to have a reason to like each other, and occasionally but head in a realistic way. Although the dialogue is at some points cringey, it also is at some points pretty decent. While it does kinda resort to modern day storytelling need of having characters have mental health issues, panic attacks grief etc., contextually it fits in the plot and it isn't done horribly. Yes it was usually pretty cringey, but it didn’t feel out of place, and it did add depth to these characters. Like Saints Row (2022) Gotham Knights also adds a bit of LGBT flavor and representation into the game, however unlike the former, I think it's done relatively well. I don’t at all have any issue with this stuff and don’t think it shouldn't be in games, rather I feel that sometimes the inclusions feel a bit cheesy and forced in order to present the publisher as progressive, rather than the developers or publishers actually caring. In this case though, it seems pretty genuine and while someone could argue its inclusion is unnecessary to the larger plot, I would argue for that exact reason its inclusion is positive as it acts as set dressing depicting real people. The progression in this game reminds me of both Genshin Impact and Saints Row (2022). I hate when main story content is gated off by needing to complete the same repetitive open-world activities. This results in me hating those activities and begrudgingly interacting with them, rather than deciding on my own “Volition" (hahaha :P). It's never a good thing when you make an open-world game, and while playing it I wish it was linear. While doing the open-world stuff, I constantly felt like I was re-trading the same 3 areas of the map, and nothing ever felt distinct or unique in the game. This is also compounded by the fact that nearly every story mission takes place in an indoor area, making me wish I could just remove all the tedious open-world stuff, cutting my total playtime down in nearly half, and just play the story missions, as that's where the game excels. The biggest annoyance in gameplay however is that some enemy types are just not very fun to fight, and there's not really much variation either than what outfit they happen to be wearing. Boss fights also feel more like something out of a hack-and-slash game rather than a fight in which I need to learn an enemies moveset and appropriately anticipate future attacks. As for buginess and jank, the game has a fair amount. Sometimes subtitles would flicker when they were supposed to disappear, and in nearly every cutscene characters' clothing would clip. Everytime I switched characters without fail, the new model would T-pose for a second before resuming their default idle stance. Animations sometimes also looked extremely odd, such as jumping or while gliding. Batgirl's cape would seemingly change models when it goes from loose to taut for gliding, which was always extremely jarring to see the fluid animation and distinctively shaped cape instantly transform into a completely different shape or gliding. While these were far from game breaking, it's definitely a shame to see them. Animations overall are kinda mid, had this game come out in 2013, I honestly may not have even noticed, but by today's standards (and even 2015 when arkham knight came out), it's a bit disappointing. None of these issues really impacted my enjoyment of the game at all, but they definitely are rough edges that make me understand how this isn't really a premium product, but what has been lately… The best part of the game is the plot, and I was actually quite surprised at how many variations of cutscenes must have existed based on who you were playing as. By the later half of the game, I spent most of the main missions as Batgirl, and there is a lot of dialogue that isn't just generic dialogue that could be related to anyone, but stuff specifically directed towards Batgirl and her backstory. This is something many games I have played have been too lazy to implement, so seeing it here was quite a treat. I wouldn't have been surprised if while playing as Red Hood and talking to Talia if there was no reference to the fact he was resurrected, yet I was pleasantly surprised to find she did specifically mention this. Moments like this definitely cut through the muck so to speak, and elevated my experience from being a janky game to a janky game with charm. Visually the game is pretty mid, and while a lot of the characters' outfits were cool enough, I personally disliked the over reliance on most of them being extremely hi-tech or armored as opposed to some more basic costumes. While Arkham kKnight gave Batman armour, it was optional, and at least he had a good amount of classic choices. As far as characters go, I think the portrayals of the Bat family are far superior to their appearances in Arkham games, and they are definitely more fleshed out with their own personalities. The villains on the other hand were okay, nothing awful but nothing great, so I preferred previous iterations over what this game had to offer. The biggest tell of this being a relatively middling experience for an open-world game is that once I finished the main missions and the three side villain cases, I was done with the game and didn’t feel like really navigating the city any further for collectibles or anything. Had the environment felt a bit more unique and had traversal been more fun I probably would have wanted to continue for 100%, but as it stands, I think I have gotten as much enjoyment out of this game that I can and progressing further may make me like the game less.