Batman Arkham Asylum: 12 Years Later

[Music] thank you to squarespace for sponsoring this video good evening ladies and gentlemen this is tonight's entertainment i only have one question how good do you think arkham asylum really was because by the end of this video you might be rushing off to replay it or you might wonder how a game like this could have ever been critiqued so little and inspired so much to come [Music] [Music] we're here to question everything for instance why are we here let's wind the clocks back 11 years these game developers and publishers wouldn't dare throw a high budget at any superhero property there's never been a well-received batman game and the only reason they have this license at all is because gary oldman's visit to the dark knight tie-in game got it cancelled developers far more established than rocksteady have tried and failed and no one has ever truly succeeded so what do you do you play it safe and that's what this introduction is it's not about the plot the plot's about as complex as the joker being the joker no no no no this is a sideshow a microcosm of the world and design rocksteady had come up with to break the mold we can follow their logic you want to appeal to every batman fan well why don't you combine his gothic comic book stylization with the actors and personalities from batman the animated series and then sprinkle in some tough realism the mass market associated with batman after the dark knight blew the world's collective mind yes mark hamill as the joker kevin conroy as batman and arlene sawkin as harley quinn the trifecta that everyone already knew and loved going in the trifecta all in the same place and that was the point you're going to make a batman video game and you're going to make a good one you've got 21 months and a budget that about reflects the chances of this game taking off you're not going open world but you are going to provide a uniquely focused batman experience on a smaller scale that means combat detective work and stealth now where to put it a more linear uncharted type game doesn't come with the benefit of being able to routinely reuse assets and levels a metroidvania though if you want all of batman's villains in the same place and you want it to be taken seriously where better than arkham asylum it ticks every box but make sure to close the gates rocksteady places arkham on an island shut off from the outer world and so the bats trapped in a cage this introduction could be characterized as a literal descent into madness you know joker's going to escape you know who's really in control and you know you're falling deeper and deeper as ever more spined iron doors lock behind you there's no help there's no escape but there is tension now let's get this party started in 2020 there's little question rocksteady did it they broke the mold so viciously the mold [ __ ] evaporated much like this guy's spine but the two go hand in hand every fan every player remotely familiar with arkham knows this room for me it was because this was the combat arena provided in the demo and the only button i pressed more than restart checkpoint was attack we're talking about a system that was so special it's been replicated to the point of universal understanding imitation is the sincerest form of flattery let's have a look anyway for old time's sake arkham's combat works by having seamlessly flowing attack animations lock on to specific targets in a crowd approximated to your direction input it's called free flow and to doubly justify the moniker flow is amplified by a vast expansion to attack power and range once you successfully perform three consecutive strikes as you become focused onto the rhythm the free flow does too now needing only one blow to knock an enemy down the first repetition of three it'll take to keep them down for good this incentive makes the focus state of free flow the ultimate aim of combat that sequence of perfectly timed knockdowns is pursued for victory and because it'll feel like victory it'll look that way like nothing else ever could which presumably was the idea in arkham intrinsic motivation that being the subjective urge to look cool teaches you the best way to play without having to say a word understanding how we got here can only begin with rocksteady's initial pitch a rhythm game and yes that means something just as ridiculous as it sounds you'd have to fight to the music like guitar hero if you beat the villains to death with it the remnants of this concept are clear in the rhythmic nature of the fight itself get yourself up to pace and keep it that way things changed when the ambition did and i assume when the acid wore off if you want to be the batman in a serious more believable world oh yes you have to reflect a mastery of hand-to-hand combat but humanity too no bombastic bashing like web of shadows and to work with that the corpse of rhythm could help tie complex fighting techniques to a single button input one for attack one for defense how better to speak to the sense that batman has long since mastered the art of combat than contrasting brilliance with simplicity how better to compound on that than by making defense look like an attack believable and yet again reflective that batman is in total control for you though there's no need to create an impression simplicity and control creates remarkable accessibility for a system so visually complex if you want to make an unproven genre sell to unsure buyers you might not want to scare them off with satan might sob as we know from action games alike powerful characters in video games are always balanced by powerful enemies which in arkham is a matter of numbers with a formidable batman utterly outnumbered you can create a reasonable level of challenge and an appropriate sensation simultaneously how does the phrase go it really makes you forging on from the combat trials in intensive care you'll be elegantly introduced to a series of key mechanics and characters where many games transparently and nonsensically force tutorials archimappedly contextualizes stealth with a believable encounter against victor zazz and detective mode by rescuing guards from toxic gas you move in quick succession putting out one fire straight to the next by the time you have a chance to breathe you're already choking that's the idea [Music] arkham's rap in pace builds a palpable sense of emergency but now it's something so much more oh you look nervous is it the art style you want to know how they got it it's gray it's also brown which makes it very 2009 and yet amongst the gears of wars and call of duties of the world arkham asylum manages to look absolutely mesmerizing 11 years later where its contemporaries now look like vomit on a screen in the same way you can tell tony pepperoni's art style is art deco because he protects art decosville batman's is of course also art deco and gothic too rocksteady's goal was to combine the comic book style with realism that meant gothic extravagance but believable texture and detail they nailed the graphics but it's the art that sells it out here we can see the touch of lovecraft a dummy thick moon drenched in saturated green madness and ancient power are the themes of bloodborne batman brought them into that same moonlight with its own eldritch tablets a haunted chronicle the asylum was to be as mad as those whom it houses so come to arkham west and enter the penitentiary swarms of beasts locked in claustrophobic cages their screams drowning out all but the oppressive music the inspiration for this place came from a single question what if twitter was a place that's a yikes from me in arkham north intensive treatment displays victorian architecture the industrialism is imbued with horror inside a gaping mechanical beast churns at its core even the doors have spines in arkham east the mansion is distinctly gothic vast halls gargoyles lightning after ivy's had her way with it the red green color contrast combined with the depth of field puts this game in every frame of painting territory but why why gothic for the batman historian there's plenty to say and answer but in arkham you shouldn't forget what gothic architecture was designed to do the basilica of sandini is a familiar face for regular viewers of the channel but what they might not know is that this is where gothic truly began spires that reach into the sky vast windows mathematically perfect archways flying buttresses and lines of holy statues all served a purpose to evoke ethereality to speak to something greater it doesn't have to be god it could just as easily be the devil perhaps something eldritch much of the power of gothic architecture comes from its mathematical perfectionism but the horror-oriented twists on it sometimes like to twist in more ways than one they take the james charles approach because absolutely nothing here is straight the designers were so opposed to symmetry they even integrate crooked edges into the trees the holy becomes demonic it's no coincidence gothic art is often accompanied by the deep chance of a choir it's no coincidence that exact voice is what defines the soundtrack of arkham asylum and neither is it a coincidence the statues of divinity that compose the gothic style service a symbol of worship the caped crusader is a rather unsubtle connection but deeper is batman's symbolic nature as his best writers arkham's creative director and wayne himself understand batman is a symbolic embodiment of the ideal of human willpower in that he contains an appeal and a power that almost no other superhero does rocksteady understand exactly what batman is and arkham asylum is his home its atmosphere is so thick you have to swim through it and that bewitchment is addicting you might worry depressing too but only in the most charming ways arkham elegantly interweaves moments of levity like the joker whose constant commentary follows you nearly everywhere and his minions harley's a fun time but it's his thugs who take the cake they're written in a distinctly comedic fashion almost spitting images of harv and marv somewhat self-aware criminals reveling in their own stupidity wow look who it is yeah big bad batman come on tough guy come and get us oh look at him stuck out there ain't you got a cat to rescue from a tree or something that's right go on get lost we're in control girl finish you off arriving at the mansion for the first time is quite a trip you can hear those same thugs talking smack when you find another way in too but for now we gotta get to the medical facility all the way over in arkham west again of the five buildings only one is visited any less than twice you'll be heading between them routinely backtracking sounds like a ball doesn't play like one though it may miss its potential as we'll come to see but despite the inevitably repetitive nature of traversing the asylum time and time again rocksteady reflect the state of the story in the asylum itself announcements from the joker continually entertain but nothing is predictable as the stakes raise from fists to guns to redditors all the way up to snipers and plants that completely change how you tackle the journey you thought you were the only one who could learn the strength to escape geoffrey jokestein's private island and now i'm gonna tell everyone who was on his flight lot [Applause] nothing could punctuate progression more than the island undergoing such profound visual and mechanical changes from ordinance to the green party's hentai of choice arkham's madness bleeds into stark reality before the night is done well here we are hey scram bats this is my me time where's gordon wouldn't you like it i'm over here shut up ah you crazy [ __ ] there are three doctors to rescue in the medical facility dr young dr chen and dr kellerman three colors on the floor lead to each of the three wings darksiders fans are having ptsd flashbacks because we know this setup only leads to shameless padding but not here asylum provides a surprise in all of them for one it's a trap in another a room choked in toxins you have to pump out and then an explosive gel pen to kill everyone is contextualized by the joker and every journey has a different surprise sharp satirical advertisement or a knifeman popping out of a present excellent contextualization repetition failing to be repetitive and even the backtracking taken care of arkham asylum just will not let you get bored whatever the route we've seen it here we're gonna see it happen time and time again tonight incidentally the medical facility was another victorian inspiration a call back to the horrors of 19th century medicine bars on the windows white tiles and cruel doctors madness bleeds through these cracks enjoy the sight while it lasts detective mode is a household name kinda like how dark souls is in many ways celebrated for the achievements of something that came before this is eagle vision and in the asylum there's a very good chance you're putting yourself at a varying degree of disadvantage if you're ever not using it you need it to follow trails you're going to use it to find collectibles and it's an obvious choice against armed enemies trouble is where eagle vision has some level of beauty to it detective mode reduces the asylum from a painting to a programming window would you rather look at this or this it claws at the soul of the game and it smites half the reason you have to explore it oh it'll make finding everything easier but isn't part of the joy of exploration seeing it too uninterrupted often in games very little can be interacted with and yet exploration that requires both interaction and uncertainty is encouraged all the same visual consistencies are the obvious choice to keep you on the right track but that comes with its artistic disadvantages why is every climbable surface painted white when they're only some such color and detective mode you avoid the problem ironic as that may be but after having secured believable visual coherency detective mode makes it pointless by covering it up so why is it here at all well you'll surely have to ask the same question of tomb raider shadow of mordor and witcher 3 just to name a few the answer is the same every time it's an accelerant finding a trail of hooves or cigarette breath is unlikely to create interesting choices within any pre-existing gameplay system and so free of the frustrations of a forced animation or cutscene the process is skipped believably contextualized by a character's skill supernatural ability or technology detective mode was a first in that sense but it was only following eagle vision's footsteps to apply the same accelerationism to stealth all stealth encounters cyclically contain information phases planning phases and execution phases where from the player's perspective each is ideally as distinct as possible but can intertwine spontaneously if execution goes wrong or new information is presented this process is crystal clear in arkham and as is typical the interesting choices are usually made in planning the button skill is tested in execution and what skill is tested in the information phase very few games make this an engaging process at all ghost recon's drone is used the same way in the first encounter as the 2000th for most ubisoft games the information phase contributes nothing but immersion metal gear solid 5 is an example of a game that breaks this mould as interrogations have you make choices and can reveal objects you are unlikely to have seen before there's no drone in this game for a reason deus ex is another example through rpg mechanics secrets can be revealed security systems can be warned and obstacles can be turned off before you even step inside arkham isn't an rpg nor does it have the wide playing field metal gear solid 5 needed in a single room interrogations would seem rather pointless and in every game you see detective mode what do you find in common tightness that includes small scale encounter zones within a larger open world when the information phase can't produce interesting choices the tedium of scouting is skipped with mechanical contextualized omniscience acceleration that is why this game has detective mode because stealth for batman is tight uniquely so too predator is yet another one of rocksteady's brilliant innovations and though it may look a few dance moves away from a glow-in-the-dark skeleton shitpost it certainly plays the part a simple description of predator includes the words verticality and stakes every arena has a high ceiling gargoyles from which to hang and multiple levels of elevation where the thugs lie if you're detected death is likely your only option is to quickly disable the opponent if he's alone and close but if there are multiple lines of fire it's over without a quick escape that's what the gargoyles are there for that and places to hang or hide from with arenas like this swooping down from the darkness above creates a distinctly bat-like sense but more importantly a believable reaction in your enemies theatricality and deception powerful agents to the uninitiated as their numbers trickle down one by one and every shadow or unchecked corner could cloak the beast that takes them they do the rational thing they fear and in their terror they turn to the herd for protection these are violently immersive distinct ai changes coincidentally coined the escalation mechanic for us escalation is more than just immersion when everyone's huddled together explosive gel suddenly becomes a much wiser choice that's interesting in nearly every complementary take i watch or read authors praise the way predator encourages complex planning ability and the footage they'll typically use to back that up is a trap with the explosive gel not unreasonable you can use sonic batarangs to lure enemies into place and if they're wearing suicide collars anyone you take out acts in the same way of course that means you should lace their bodies with high explosives because we wouldn't want to kill anyone now would we you could even go so far as to lure someone next to a railing and pull them off which incidentally is how i met my wife wouldn't call it a complex plan or any of them but reward is proportional to risk and if you're discovered setting these up that risk is often death executing plans feels incredible that way intricate or not i only have one question where is harvard sorry the question is why undoubtedly there is the odd occasion where a sonic batarang is worth your while and if you have the time to rig tony toblerone's rib cage with 20 kilotons of tnt you should always do so but you can't extrapolate a representative experience from the top one percent of instances and nothing's going to change the fact that gargoyles inverted takedowns and silent killing stragglers are the least risky and yet most effective strategies low risk high reward the formula for an easy exploit so easy in fact that i doubt most people even realized how ridiculous it is until the game decided to tell you around three quarters of the way in joker riggs the gargoyles to blow and following this encounter predator arenas start including far fewer gargoyles at a baseline rocksteady want you to know what they've encouraged you to miss and it's not just complex plans more so it's the majesty of the level design itself you'll notice the impact immediately traversal becomes a considered process because the path from a to b is one strung throughout complexly changing sight lines as enemies patrol between several layers of verticality escape becomes a concept beyond pressing the grapple button you'll need a way out because that suicide collar is going to bring everyone down on you almost immediately the route you choose will have consequences through opportunities and obstacles grates become genuinely useful for unseen traversal vents to a similar effect complex plans become worthwhile plans that is the formula for depth so why is it just a gimmick when you're shimmying on the side of a railing to remain unseen like in splinter cell you can only wonder how rocksteady ever thought they could design so much but gives so little reason to use it without question gargoyle use should have been without consequence twice per encounter at most with every time subsequently triggering the bomb they'd be reduced to consumable resets instead of a safe space to hide from both the thugs and the depth itself but you can see why rocksteady might have been reluctant predator is almost an entirely standard stealth sandbox where the almost is accounted for by all emphasis being placed on what's new glide kicks gargoyles and inverted takedowns create the sense of batman and you'll consistently feel it because it's the best strategy by far that's why no gargoyles is just a gimmick because predator had to make you become the batman and in doing so it betrays itself a shot to the foot but this is not a suicide even today when the novelty of brilliant innovation has long since worn off arkham stealth remains a deeply immersive satisfying experience it's uniquely earned its title predator this is the only horror game where you are the monster oh jesus [ __ ] [ __ ] alright maybe it's both after having told the doctors to calm down because now isn't the time for fear it came later don't be surprised i told you arkham asylum does not let itself get boring be scared for now we face scarecrow his shadow cast on the wall scuttling while sanity escapes the inmate's skulls demonic voices batman's parents dead tormenting bruce for not being man enough to save them rocksteady don't make horror games but they hit all the right notes for a compelling five-minute portrayal of scarecrow and an emotional window into the caverns of batman's mind alright i'm putting the word out 500 grand for the crow dead as a boss fight scarecrow takes an unconventional approach there's nothing to punch here rather the test is of timing and of patience a glimpse is all it'll take for crane to giant test fetish you without the happy ending each move you make becomes more complex and harder to fit in the time window as you creep through the ring items will be incorporated progressively in shallow but novel ways following their explosive introduction never could have expected crane to whip around so suddenly you're expected to think on your feet and that maximizes the immersion and the tension both almost borders on fear sounds like a pretty smart way to pull off scarecrow if you ask me but this is just the symptom of a much larger philosophy to portray every villain such that their presence in the story and the gameplay is believable at a baseline notice the absence of mr freeze though originally intended it was decided his presence simply wouldn't fit with the asylum why would frieze help joker and if he wouldn't associate with ivy either what reason would he have to go after batman i wish he made it in i'd have someone reasonable to tell exactly who was on jeffrey jokestein's flight log oh come on man if you hear the name bane you're gonna feel the pain he's coming after you bruce wayne he's stronger faster clinically insane tom hardy had to put on a lot of weight for this role and yet he only has about five minutes of screen time though the fight is true to bane's character mechanically rocksteady's offering is too shallow to support the boss on its own batarang and dodge that's all you got no because so begins arkham's reliance on deferring to goons i have my suspicions as to why but we ought to seize this opportunity you can fight like a younger gamer with nothing held back admirable but mistaken the goal of arkham combat is to maintain free flow which means the goal of the designer is to challenge it for someone whose third most played game on steam is batman arkham knight and so for someone with a thug body count in the high millions you'd expect arkham asylum to be a barely tolerable downgrade that i mastered in seconds not at all that's what i expected too after realizing shadow of mordor is borderline unplayable coming back from shadow of war but asylum challenges uniquely counters are the most basic way to threaten free flow and unlike every following entry counter windows are unforgivingly tight no cancelling attacks no earlies no lates you're gonna get your ass kicked in asylum coming back from night even coming back from city you must strike with far more care to make room for any given counter a process doubly encouraged by critical strikes which reward rhythmic pacing with bigger combos arkham's next trick to challenge free flow happens on a more complex level through tougher enemies do you want to know why they use a knife guns are too quick you can't savor all the combat depth but actually you can because in contrast to the knifes and tasers gun racks must be preemptively engaged to counter the significant danger to free flow presented by firearms for as long as you can take the heat of whipping between high value targets stun evade and attack free flow is never broken you can assume then that challenge increases in close proportion to the density of potential free flow disruptions presented by number tougher enemies firearm racks and the odd box for goons to chuck a batman bane becomes the blueprint for one of them the titans throw bodies they charge you they have a ground pound difference is you can mount them and direct their flailing arms into other enemies it's exactly the extra spice that the combat needs but i can't help but wonder were they based off bain or was bane based off them just because a betrayal is faithful doesn't mean it's good this time i break you batman's is both arkham's caped crusader is calm collected and wise he isn't enraged like the dark knight or completely batshit insane you're looking at something far closer to the cool as ice envisioning from his animated appearances an icon of fortitude any fan of the characters should appreciate the superhuman feats of willpower bruce displays in the asylum no matter how many times crane shoots you up with the cheese touch batman's cure is the strength within how are you doing this you've suggested enough toxins to drive dead men insane what are you that's what gives him his idyllic power he is incorruptible pauldini's work no surprise this composed equanimity only makes batman's bursts of badassery that much more compelling by contrast in the few scripted opportunities he gets to be one step ahead of the player which is pretty much the only reason i can forgive rocksteady having the 32-inch gold-plated bollocks to pull a because i'm batman in a believable universe it's best to plan ahead for situations like this a secret it's me remember smooth i can't tell if i would have liked it more if you just said it i think i would have hang on a minute what's going on here no not this [ __ ] [ __ ] again i told him to stop calling him i thought it was the joker who wanted to say that more importantly yes yes get on with it ready for your first one good but be careful don't cut yourself on this sharply observed portrait so you did it ridley is more along the lines of scarecrow i hesitate to call this betrayal genius but it is absolutely brilliant to literally characterize the collectibles as an extension of a batman villain who would do just that the riddles apply to nearly every visually compelling location in the game they're a fantastic means to encourage a little thought but also to soak in the environment itself these are the one collectible type that detective mode makes harder to find not easier despite having nothing to do with him tapes meanwhile are often attributed to riddler too and if we're talking collectibles they cannot be ignored each tells an interesting short story about their respective villain in audio format and i believe asylum was one of the first games to realize letting it play as you continue walking is the only way you're ever going to get anyone to listen joker retells his seduction of harley ivy retells her seduction of every heterosexual man in a 200 mile radius and riddler yeah i don't know who wrote this man but it sounds like a green text may i test you with one very well what is it that walks on four legs then two legs and finally three legs a human beat as a baby crawls on four legs as an adult walks on two and in later years it uses a cane good try but the answer to all three is a baby true it crawls on all fours but cut off its legs and it can only wiggle on two limbs give that's not how riddles work eddie though we are talking about a man whose idea of puzzles is repeatedly having you press the same three buttons yes the second collectible type that can be attributed to riddler are the trophies but the only thing they test is whether or not you have the right gadget it doesn't take a genius to turn on detective mode that's not a puzzle it's a green glowing progression check arkham has dalliances with being a bat zelda-like metroidvania you see at a surface glance it's got the densely packed map and progressively acquired items so to complete the trifecta it uses riddler trophies to encourage re-exploration of previously visited locations i only have one question why are there 240 questions and why have i used this joker quote three times in the same video the answer is the same for both because i just kind of forgot repeating the same shallow idea over and over again spoils it though asylum can count itself lucky because shallowness is handily counted by the lack of a point successful outcomes need to be worthwhile remember and this isn't darksiders 3 or jedi fallen order or even zelda where there's a meaningful resource upgrade or cosmetic item behind every corner it's arkham asylum where you unlock 3d models you can't load into honeyselect and a 30-second audio track of riddler being arrested for doxxing kids on reddit there exists trophies and chronicles that are actually decently well hidden i also can't praise the game enough for clayface's cameo but these instances are not the rule they're the rare exception it's more so funny at the game's expense when the riddler calls the first third of trophies you find easy yeah trust me bro you were meant to find that one they were meant to be unexciting uninteresting and ultimately pointless it's all part of the plan am i being harsh relative to their quality no relative to how many people enjoyed them all the same perhaps i am i'd posit that the reason why so many went for completion is because they wanted the satisfaction of beating the riddler the reason they wanted the satisfaction of beating the riddler is that the world is just that compelling brilliant contextualization and asylum's magic reaches down from the heavens to elevate even its shallowest system a marriage of its worst and best aspects would you like to see another because trophies are just a symptom the disease festers in the botanical gardens leave a glass in a rainforest for 50 years and what do you get a broken glass but if you're lucky something opaque blocked out by dust and dirt and lined with tiny chlorophyric particulates dang carteries of moss blow that up to charity check size and here we are the botanical gardens is beautiful but out of control we're not in a haven we're in the wild it's the very same feeling that does and was meant to define arkham asylum as a place but as a game this arborist opulence is a glittering example of how arkham asylum only plays with being bat zelda but is never willing to expand beyond its core gameplay loops there's combat there's stealth but most of what you'll be doing is exploration or better put movement with a contextual veneer of exploration coated on because it is no less hollow than the deku tree itself the underbelly feigns complexity with a no grapple rule but all it amounts to is holding the run button to automatically jump every gap the cryptographic sequencer feigns complexity with these new joker booby traps on the terminals and the word crypto but all it boils down to is swishing around the stick to make a yellow light greener the new line launcher doesn't even bother with the ruse you aim and shoot no precision no complexity it is nothing more or less than a requirement to traverse specific pathways different only from the backlorn that it has no one-off combat utility different only from the explosive gel in the same way arkham's neatest trick is pretending to be a metroidvania with gadgets tight level design and blocking collectibles behind obstacles but then forgetting that the gameplay it inspires is meant to be meaningful gadgets do not synergize with each other only two can be used in combat there are no puzzles you are only expected to aim and shoot to repeatedly press the same two buttons while walking along a completely linear pathway not boring because it's over so quickly just crap an hour away from the end of the game you're met with an elevator shaft that expects you to grapple up use the ultra back claw to pull a wall down then grapple up again and repeat the process four times it is the tutorial puzzle from a zelda dungeon there an exception to acclimatize the player to the item's nature and control but arkham never evolves beyond it this is just quick time events delaying my ascent to the top of the shaft it doesn't matter if there's a hundred jumps weak walls chasms and inaccessible grates the only meaningful difference between this and walking in a straight line is occasionally pausing to enact the same animation you've seen a thousand times before so my question is what was the point it's a tough pill to swallow but these gadgets in arkham asylum they're one of crane's illusions they exist to give you a feeling of progression but it's all an act and we fell for it the cryptographic sequencer is used to override security panels open new paths or disable various asylum functions end quote that's from the wikipedia page anyone notice anything yeah what they've done there is said the same thing in three different ways that's like saying a car is used to drive provide transport and go places wow how versatile not even descriptions of the game can make its gadgets look good why did no one question this you'll find out items that's the first half the second slice of metroidvania is level design when you have a world like this focused and tight the word people want to hear next is interconnected like dark souls you want to be able to plan a route through the asylum with understanding of shortcuts risk and reward you get depth through interesting decisions and a sense of dimension to the world a profound immersive quality asylum most certainly does have tight level design but it is not interconnected roots may be blocked off in scripted moments of change and you'll have to take a new path to get to your destination but these aren't shortcuts they aren't options either they're simply the new way to go and so the world doesn't settle into your mind dynamically as you consider its layout to find the best path forward you receive neither depth nor immersion the only pathfinding exists at a baseline you can take this map at face value the moment you step out of intensive care from one building to another there are at most three paths to take there is usually only two and of those two one is often the clear best pick i can count on one hand the number of times the asylum's level design meant anything meaningful and i'm a disembodied light i don't even have hands exploration consumes more of your time than any other pillar of gameplay but it's visually curb stomped by a violent bone cancer exam and is no different mechanically than doing the hokey pokey every 30 yards on a walk down the street it's technically gameplay the least favorable but most accurate adjective i could use and it's going to put me in the asylum not out of boredom out of madness why don't you guys leave me a comment if you want me to take this game a little more seriously here's my website you see having a centralized online hub isn't about the money it's about sending a message how else do you think joker recruits all his thugs he bombards them with scheduled posts and then sends their titan formula over with squarespace's store integration the other thing it's about is the money there's no better way to line your pockets than being able to display your products so beautifully and yet so quickly the members-only functionality is a blast you ought to know you bought it because you did exclusive content can be distributed to paying subscribers even through email squarespace's design tools are a lot like batman clean sleek fast and have no parents an easy comparison but whoever said i had to play fair squarespace this is your advantage take it 10 off at squarespace.com white light on your first purchase of a website or domain under the best definitions there is a difference between how good something is and how great something is they don't exist on a spectrum where a good is a six and a great is an eight they're two entirely separate measures we'll come to see exactly how and that's vital because i'm gonna tell you something and it might be tough to hear batman arkham asylum is timeless in the sense that it should never be forgotten but it does not live up to the hype today do i think i can say something like that and just walk away yeah you see i'm not a monster i just have the ability to observe okay okay okay let's not blow things out of proportion because by the end you might just agree with me and you shouldn't love this game any less so why don't we cut this plot up into little pieces and see just how genius pauldini really is arkham asylum is a standard batman vs villains showdown it's a classic setup with each villain defaulting to their most typical motivation scarecrow wants to scare hoes kill a croc wants to kill your [ __ ] poison ivy wants to commit genocide against vegans and if cindy lauper is a reliable source the joker and women have a lot in common one the makeup and two they just want to have fun by taking over the island and terrorizing gotham hmm no reason to be beyond being a yeah sounds a hell of a lot like the dark knight and if it works so well there then why wouldn't it give asylum the same power because it isn't like the dark knight joker's anarchism was his intellectual point and to use that to directly challenge batman's deepest hell beliefs chaos versus order in arkham asylum there is no point to joker's chaos he just does things like a dog chasing cars he wouldn't know what to do with one if he actually caught it this isn't a profound fight for batman it's one of a thousand and that way it's thematically empty it doesn't explore ideas in any sense let alone send a message it didn't need to but it was an option one that it might have been wise to take what else is there for asylum to stand on the premise and i thought my jokes were bad titan it's a chemical formula dr penelope young developed from bain's blood that turns its victims into gymshark partners joker wants them under his command to hold gotham to ransom wow the cast of fitness flop creative i guess he was a schemer after all step 1 get caught step 2 rely on batman being a [ __ ] [ __ ] step 3 immediately escape step 4 get the gym candy from doctor young an empty character with no development no dimension and hardly any screen time the only relationship she has is with bane to him she is the bruja the witch for what she did to him there could have been development a plot beat about morality a degree of tension and stakes but that might require bane and young to at any point be in the same room as each other or bane to be in the story for more than five minutes young joins frank bowles quincy sharp and aaron cash in the group of completely hollow characters batman uses to connect small snippets of information the events key to advancing the mystery include following the forensic trail of insert one-dimensional side character rescuing them getting information moving on they aren't people they're cardboard plot devices a wise choice then that this band of muppets is who the story focuses half its attention on and yet for the purposes of solving the mystery these people you spend so much time with are absent to the largest revelations on multiple occasions oracle simply figures out everything for you coulda swore a mystery is meant to present all the information to the reader before telling them the answer not have one of the characters look it up on bing why is joker after doctor young yeah don't worry batman let me just whip up her browsing history while you spend the next 45 minutes following someone's [ __ ] semen trail you owe me five bucks if they don't end up dead two minutes after you meet did the writers accidentally give oracle the prima strategy guide ah those things are full of spoilers world's greatest detective displays his intellectual prowess by scanning for peanut crumbs and phoning tech support i find myself at a simple conclusion arkham asylum story is pretty good what was it something i said the story's got itself a watchful protector and they think that's as funny as i do batman's rogues gallery translates to consistently engaging contextualization for the gameplay encounters and consistently entertaining dialogue for everything else but it's the consistency that's key pacing perhaps not the most brilliant but likely the most important part of the utter victory that is arkham asylum's handling of villains when people point to asylum as their favorite entry in the series the reasons are usually something indistinct hard to exactly measure and that's because both are among the most mystifying aspects of fiction one is magic the other is pacing asylum doesn't have an atmosphere it has a slab of pure gothic meat the man who will never kill has to cut through it with a knife it's tantamount to enchantment i can see that and i can see that it is more than the sum of its parts pacing on the other hand is no less obtuse but just as vital to arkham asylum and i can prove its nebulous nature simply by pointing out that when people say pacing in reference to this game they're usually talking about the use of villains as a whole doesn't mean they're wrong though for this might be the best pacing i have ever seen in a video game could you just take my word for it because it's tough to tell me how writers are pointed at a page equipped only with a knowledge that there should sometimes be fast bits and sometimes be slow bits what are they meant to make of that i don't know a command of pace is something i've never seen taught only learned through practice and you best hurry everyone can tell what excellent pacing looks like but boy oh boy they'll be shouting from the rooftops if you get it badly wrong here's my attempt arkham asylum is well paced because sometimes there's fast bits and sometimes there's slow bits and there's a lots of variation in the fast and slow bits which in themselves make the game unpredictable and completely immune to boredom the next fast bit may be scarecrow or maybe it's just an elevator fight maybe it's a trap or a test or ivy reshaping the island in a fit of rage who knows but its truest brilliance isn't the variable contextualization for these encounters it's the way it communicates character through them character through structure character through announcements character through dialogue there's even character in the [ __ ] locked door animations rip your flesh and so much more to see in summary villains believably contextualize nearly every happening in the game in so doing characterizing themselves deeply entertaining the player and pacing the game wonderfully i told you this game doesn't let itself get boring i've proved it near to the start and now near to the end this is its secret weapon i'm sending down a token of my displeasure of course i hope it just hurt you too badly [Music] we're creeping towards close now so there's little left to master special combo throw and take down both reward target prioritization in different ways one takes out an individual permanently the other takes up multiple temporarily ground pound trades valuable time for an instant finisher critical strikes reward rhythmic pacing of your attack inputs with more frequent special combos and finally free flow tracking distance can be used to zip out of range of enemy attacks before they can land which puts a third emphasis on target prioritization a considerably high absolute depth or so you may think the interesting decisions presented here aren't all that interesting my point being they add depth but very little time your attacks a little better so you can pick a guy to insta-kill every now and then it's there it's present but i can hardly feel it they're minor perfections to make in combat simplicity doesn't have to be a bad thing but mastery the very source of mechanical fun is paying the price bayonetta will take hours to learn how to play well tends to execute it but hundreds if not thousands to achieve absolute mastery flip the coin however batman will take the instant you're shown a mechanic to learn how to play well about 30 minutes to execute it properly and consistently and about 10 hours to achieve absolute mastery the best way to play is evident almost immediately free flow counter at the right time use special combos well critical strike generally prioritized targets from there and for all but prioritization it's a matter of mastering the button skill required to properly execute you arrive at a system closer to a consistently intensifying guitar hero than web of shadows i'll learn precision but where are my decisions without a breadth of relevant balanced options shallowness inevitably sets in once you've mastered nine tenths of the system in the first hour and spent the rest perfecting timing because there is nothing more to learn and so no room for self-expression there are no combos only one attack button and no individual attack or counter animation can be predicted or controlled which is double the problem you think it is if not every strike is the same length there's inconsistency what does that lead to frustration when the rng is to blame for failing to get that counter in when the player is to blame frustration is necessary for growth but it's a safe bet they're not gonna feel that way when they're growing to adapt to the game's [ __ ] the next major mistake arkham's combat makes is what perfect play looks like because one of the biggest threats to free flow is you it's playing well when you've knocked every enemy down your only option becomes ground pound but unlike arkham knight that attack isn't blessed with a range boost from a high combo so what if there's no enemy nearby answer you break free flow you've achieved the extrinsic goal you beat up the bad guys but in doing so perfectly you killed the intrinsic one far too often did i stop myself from playing my quickest because i knew having the entire playing field knocked down would risk breaking my combo losing my special takedown and stopping the spectacle in its tracks losing a combo doesn't have to be a stab in the gut for the player's fantasy ominously walking towards your next target can look just great but it's certainly gonna hurt your xp a major problem in the challenge mode and it will ultimately impact your likelihood of victory intrinsic motivation is devil may cry's edgy gothic lifeblood you're mastering indescribably deep combat to find the best ways of looking cool intrinsic motivation is batman arkham's lifeblood your mesmerized by combat because it looks so cool already that to disrupt the flow would be a sin the difference is the same as the difference between asylums metroidvania and dark side as three where one enchants a magnificent illusion another lets you create that sensation organically though somewhat addressed in arkham sequels it's an ontological flaw a fundamental trade-off like assassin's creed to have combat that'll really make you um little really translate the sensation of muscle and martial arts mastery yet retain that bountiful accessibility the character action games most certainly do not happen good evening ladies and gentlemen this is tonight's entertainment i only have one question how good do you think arkham asylum really was because by the end of this video you might be rushing off to replay it or you might wonder how a game like this could ever have been critiqued so little and inspired so much to come we're here to question everything for instance why are we here let's wind the clocks back 11 years these game developers and publishers wouldn't dare throw a high budget at any supervillain property there's never been a well-received joker game and the only reason they have this license at all is because scarecrow willed it so he drops the act just a little later than i do the monumental creativity to feigner crash restart the game with a roll swapped then kill you and act like it was your mistake tears down the walls between batman and the player you'll never be more immersed than you are before your final fight with scarecrow he doesn't seem to understand i am batman i am the knight i am vengeance oh well i mean i suppose that works too see you later alligator [Music] let's just do this now killer croc is an interesting fight for us because he's a microcosm of something larger you have to manage sound to avoid being jumped you have to quickly fire out a batarang to knock him back into the water you have to run to avoid being smashed which i was very good at because that happens to me at my fan conventions every [ __ ] time these mechanics become exceptionally repetitive over time the fight ends as a ball simply because it's dragged out too long but that's not the point i'm trying to make we've seen routine characterization we've seen believable characterization but only once have we seen that believability does not guarantee quality here we are now to see it again i've got plenty more of each ivy pays little attention to banal affairs and focuses all our attention on expanding her colony scarecrow skulks in the shadows only appearing when you least expect it joker torments you over the radio with jokes and schemes harley squares up as if to be a boss fight but she's unexpectedly tossed aside what's more is how believably they interact with each other game logic says third fight against scarecrow takes him out for good but it's killer croc who makes the blow he has every reason to when ivy grows strong enough she threatens joker that he's next which leads to one of the funniest conversations in the game simply because the writers are allowed to address someone who isn't batman for the 86 trillionth time well of course that is if i could ever get it to finish by now joker's snipers and ivy's plants have made the path to the botanical gardens a bat abattoir for these venus [ __ ] traps you've got three choices get to the pod in time destroy the seeker or just run away the uncertainty to the timing of it makes them a tense if overused encounter it can become slightly tiresome to fight the same office plant upwards of 50 times in a row not boring the ordeal's over quickly but it's not especially engaging towards the end either believable not always good we gotta get to the root of this problem turns out ivy doesn't like you fisting her children yeah apart from lava me and corrosive toxin zelda by all means that's what fifi the flower thought is the plant will plant its plant into the ground to plant more plants and true to form these behave behaviors snares response zip from one end of the arena to the other when she's done with the bdsm she busts out the uh plant lasers explain that one dawkins this attack pattern comes with a periodic opportunity to slap her around the head with a batarang a time window far tighter than it may seem phase two's up next ivy recruits simps to keep you from harming her an excellent spice up to the snare phase but sorry lads she's taken a challenging fight not bad with ivy down joker's ready for guests if anything can signify the importance of the party it'd be that the thugs here aren't hostile they'll welcome you in but not before they check if you're on the guest list of course i see you hey he sounds fun at parties so does joker but arkham asylum is about to prove us wrong through the bounties of all natural bodybuilding joker's new plan is to get a gym shark sponsorship and use the money to fund small businesses in gotham being a [ __ ] ass [ __ ] and known monopolist batman isn't too pleased a theatrical set up for a theatrical fight unfortunately the roids he of course didn't take have completely disintegrated his testicles and the fight is actually a show i should remind you that every boss fight in the game was designed around the characters themselves from bane's bullheadedness to scarecrow's lsd addiction but joker batman's moral nemesis chaos versus order he randomly chucks explosive presents at you while you beat up hordes of endless goons oh yeah that screams joker to me seriously it does that's exactly what joker would do they believably portrayed him they believably achieved being [ __ ] rocksteady are agents of creativity but they could have been more surgical so what is believable and excellent simultaneously well this is where things get a little crazy in more ways than one you see there was this movie it was pretty obscure for the time directed by some nobody called piss stolen and at the end of this movie no one watched was a fight with a clown no i know what you're thinking that's not jeffree star hold on let me check the imdb oh yeah an agent of chaos must be bulgarian or something all seems inconsequential right up until you realize the escaped throat cancer patient has something that looks remarkably like detective mode and that the bulgarian guy's personality was reflected in the mechanics of the fight itself and that the mechanics of the fight itself were exactly the same ones as in arkham asylum the creative twist was that the clowns of the hostages not the doctors [ __ ] suit gary figures it out but the swat team doesn't so to save lives he has to not only stop the criminals but also the police simultaneously he'll have to creatively use his explosive gel detective vision and back claw to do it in tight that's a final encounter specifically designed by the writers to seem specifically designed by the clown to reflect his character they did what arkham does with arkham's mechanics using arkham's reliance on deferring to goons it's such a shame no one watched this movie because otherwise rocksteady might have had something to take inspiration from you see the dark knight puts emphasis on the man over the muscle every move he makes is maximum effect for minimal effort this batman plays 4d chess with his fists and it is cinematic brilliance but nolan merely adopted the style video games were born in it molded by it rocksteady had the creativity to use every aspect of the game's design for characterization but too rarely and insignificantly did that apply well to gameplay a true shame when even a shadow of the dark knight would have outdone some of the bosses we had tenfold a good joke when a shadow of the dark knight describes arkham asylum's gameplay so well already and what does that leave us with something very good indeed that discovered believability doesn't guarantee quality and neither creativity nor novelty guarantees you're immune to the punishment of time a wonderful enthralling combat system throttled by shallowness an admirable but hollow attempt at bat zelda and an immersive stealth experience scared of its own depth but it also leaves us with something that knew only worship you know why and you know it's a fact you either fail a groundbreakingly brilliant idea or you succeed long enough to see yourself become repeatedly replicated by people who don't understand the original context that made it work it's already happening to the souls-like structure one day it'll be retired from the factory farm with the right adjustments according to the character arkham provided a baseline to express prowess from middle-earth all the way to china and yet it has also provided an easy default for titles that might otherwise have done something creative with their characters and worlds it has to repeatedly tragic effect inspired spider-man to shackle himself from free and wondrously expressive brilliance to shallow small-scale brawling i didn't realize asylum's impact until i was already a man by then it was nothing to me but tiring everything was original once that's why we remember where everything begins that's why we idolize it because brilliance is beautiful and it should be rewarded the originality the novelty the brilliance made it a wildly different experience in 2009 than it is today everything it was demands respect its legacy made it great but i'm left with a conclusion i don't want to have to make the asylum's metroidvania was always a killing joke yet you'll be spending more time travelling than anything else its gadgets are pathetic the plot is forgettable and the boss is a mediocre for most of arkham the novelty is gone and this game is overrated but what should that mean it doesn't point to any particular quantification of quality only that whatever that may be is less than its perceived reverence obviously but what is obvious is not what people do with the word overrated a 10 out of 10 becomes an eight that's still fantastic yet dark souls 2 and mankind divided are all too often demonized simply because they're disappointing relative to the sky-high expectations of the franchise emotion finds itself on the internet it amplifies itself in a feedback loop and one idea becomes another surprise people with your failure and only the most thorough penance can provide redemption for most it never comes but surprise people with your success and you'll become a legend so in explaining why overrated is no synonym for bad we are reminded of how this game earned its worship introduce a little passion upset the established order in 2009 this industry showed us that it's full of people ready to believe in this genre it was the most critically acclaimed superhero game ever made until only its sequel it is gilded rendered in marble and stands valiantly in the hall of video game legend i do not believe the experience that is arkham asylum can live up to that reverence today but perhaps that's only a testament to its greatness it wasn't the game the superhero genre deserved but it was the one it needed all those years ago if the dark knight was a symbol meant to inspire then arkham asylum isn't the best batman game ever made but it is the greatest thank you for watching next time we review uh batman arkham janitor that's the one right oh and i also forgot to tell you something batman arkham asylum really made me feel like batman yes it did i felt like batman i felt like a rich kid with issues it made me feel like ben affleck i cheated on my wife 16 times in the first hour alone but that might have been a drink induced hallucination or scarecrow's fear toxin i don't know because i'm too busy next time we determine what emotion spider-man miles morales truly evokes special thanks go out to alan's song benjamin carter bishop nelson chino daniel weiland elijah hayden nathaniel haskins fabian flack fernando marquez g series gurneel kang i know lucky john lemley caleb doss l hudson lex williams linus newman marty and mr t with some tea newts soren six six warthole austin novosel chase baker effect fully abbey adam abawela alexandru friptulayak alcis world andrei baltuta bossian 2-2 brandon harris brendan mcdonald cameron bowen chance tucker christopher richardson combat wombat dj dan walker darren chambers devontae williams dominic jaworski drop zz dubstep gutter fan 92 eli weaver flip slip me dick george fitz boodle glorious sexy beast gwyneth hamish holy shift jake jonathan tunnell joshua w shriner jabba gironi jairus purins justin kevin phillips laser crystal leon cartendale lucas 04 liu bermeer mitkov matophobia michael gamel my whisky face nathan nines norman broy's sci rackin hock shade the last great opium den yuriyara heap vladimir obikov attila david gibson and zed zzzzzzz2468

Channel: Whitelight

Views: 416,945

Rating: 4.9307556 out of 5

Keywords: batman arkham asylum, arkham, joker, batman arkham asylum gameplay, batman, batman arkham asylum review, batman arkham asylum critique, batman arkham asylum 12 years later, arkham review, batman arkham asylum 2021, batman arkham asylum 2020, batman game review, arkham game, arkham game review, batman arkham asylum analysis, batman whitelight, arkham asylum whitelight, batman arkham asylum retrospective

Id: uRiNlt4vJYQ

Length: 61min 37sec (3697 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 31 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_]

I played this for the first time last month and thought it was excellent. Just finished City this week, but missed the more focussed environments of Asylum, although City is also very good.

[u/Rhadegar]

That game totally blew my mind when it came out. I really didn't expect to be as immersed and intrigied by it as I was. One of those "spend all night without realizing" games. Since then plenty kinda copy its model, but when I played it again recently it still felt like something special.

[u/Jotakin]

Is it just me or has this guys style gotten more nonsensical over time? I get that he's trying to push his artistic skills in a more cinematic and clever output but I think it's hurting the viewing experience

[u/420BoofIt69]

I like White light. But his videos have become more hit and miss recently. His attempts at humour are more numerous, and less successful. It gets quite grating.

Solid analysis though most of the time.

[u/cohrt]

Arkham asylum came out 12 years ago?

[u/muduke]

Don't mention Rocksteady to me. I'm still mourning the loss of the Batman Beyond game that doesn't exist.

[u/BigfootsBestBud]

Don't know what people are complaining about, his videos have always been like this and I find them really well thought out and interesting.

It looks like people have a problem with how "inconclusive" he can be. For me, the impression was he only really talks about games he loves or has a complicated relationship with.

I enjoyed this video just as much as the others.

[u/Cranyx]

Why is everyone suddenly copying Raycevick's "X Years later" format?

[u/MontyAtWork]

I feel like this series has let me down from how high the original got me.

When I began Asylum, and subsequently completed it, my thought was "That was AMAZING! It was like playing through a long episode of the show, or playing through an entire Batman comic!"

Then every sequel just let you... fuck around as Batman. I get that the idea was "be Batman, decide what he'd do" but... I'm not Batman. Bruce Wayne is. I wouldn't do what Batman would, I wouldn't make his decisions, because I'm not him. So, when I was between story missions and necessarily wasting time and generally screwing around as Batman, I just felt like I was Generic 3rd Person Hero.

In fact I'd go so far as to say that I haven't felt like Batman in a Batman game since Asylum because Batman doesn't screw around. He doesn't just faff about from mission to mission whenever he feels like it. He doesn't just see Generic Group of Baddies 11 and decide to clear it on his way to the next fetch quest. He's the World's Greatest Detective. Batman doesn't just fly over a group of criminals and decide to take them down - he knew when and where they were gonna meet and was in place before the criminals even got there.

It's actually one of the primary reasons I think Batman, more than any other hero, should NEVER be an Open World game. Batman isn't Batman 24/7. The dude does have a life outside of being Batman, and that life needs to not only be maintained but returned to. He's not Geralt who can just choose to keep doing another job instead of eating, sleeping, or returning home. Which is why Asylum was great - it was plausibly time constrained and geographically constrained. The sequels lost all that feeling and really became not only similar unto themselves but too samey with all the other Open World 3rd Person Games that have become the norm the last decade.

If Rocksteady drops the Open World format entirely, and goes back to a linear Asylum style game, I'll preorder it Day 1. Until then, I feel like Asylum is the best Batman game ever with the second best being Batman Vengeance.