Batman: Arkham Asylum Critique - Finding the Bat

foreign the 25th of August 2009 was a dark night for the Batman locked in an insane asylum overtaken by Psychopathic clown forced to confront his deepest trauma by a doctor dressed as a scarecrow learning that the hospital Wing he funded was Ground Zero for corruption abuse and a sickly superhuman serum hunted through murky sewers by a human crocodile hybrid watching helplessly as innocent people die on his watch unable to be everywhere save everyone all at once but uh what can you do with Batman specifically well one of the main goals of the game in in general is to really feel like you are Batman when Rocksteady brought Batman Arkham Asylum to E3 in 2009 they were fighting for their voices to be heard every single interview online is overtaken by noise horse throats and Speedy interviewers off to see the next big thing they were a small fish in a big pond a barely known studio with a game coming out in the year of Assassin's Creed 2 Uncharted 2 a Modern Warfare 2 and really how could a licensed superhero game actually be but out of Arkham asylum's Darkness was born a brand new video game Batman with love craft care and color injected into his veins in the hearts of his enemies a pulpy Full Throttle swing into madness where on repeat playthroughs you can trace the lines of code Rocksteady Lee to find their Batman and give his world a voice we are the Batman not a copycat not a video game character with Batman's pus painted on top not a version of Batman the Batman for me this is by Batman you punches Batman skulk as Batman kickers Batman uses tools experience his fears see the world through his eyes detectivision comes with its flaws sure but we're still Batman and you just need to look at the elusive depth of the free flow combat system to note how we analyze some situations as Batman we think like Batman not quite like The Dark Knight or the Caped Crusader not yet despite This Bat being in action for a decade when the game opens those Evolutions are saved for few future games but here right at the beginning of the series in 2009 we are the Batman but what the hell does that even mean let's face it Batman is complicated he's got issues he's dark he's got problems and he overcomes them all which is what people love about him but he has no superpowers the question of what makes Batman Batman has cropped up time and time again and while I don't think there's a right or wrong answer there's definitely versions of the character I think are boring and versions of the character I think are interesting billionaire Batman that's always prepared for everything boring surface level a Batman always on the verge of cracking interesting tense merciless Batman that kills boring charmless a Batman whose greatest superpower is his discipline interesting inspiring often I find myself going back to the answer provided by Comics writer and fellow Scott Grant Morrison when Kevin Smith asked him what it was about Batman that made them fall in love this is what they said it's a long quote but it's so good so stick with me you can take it even deeper they said look at Christ Christ is God made flesh whether you believe it or not it's a story like Batman both make us feel something they press a human button that's really important with Christ they took God and nailed him to Wood they took the most spiritual thing you can imagine the high highest most abstract beautiful thing and they nailed it to Wood you can't be God without knowing what it feels like to be nailed to Wood you're not God until you know what it feels like to be a mouse caught in a trap and have your neck broken because until then your knowledge isn't complete that's what's inspiring about Christ no matter how bad you're hurting no matter how bad the flesh is crushing you and destroying you no matter how much you're losing it Christ says I am here with you I am at the darkest I'm hung here coughing my lungs out with you Batman is like that it's the idea of I can watch my parents shot dead in the street and everything will go to chaos and I will make meaning of it I will use all of my resources to make it into something positive and good I'm going to be a hero in this and Batman will always speak to that Superman's different because he's of the light but Batman's of the dark like Christ he's down in the dark with us and he's making sense of it all it's significant Morrison along with the artist Dave McKean created the graphic novel Arkham Asylum a serious how on serious Earth in 1989. today is better known simply as Batman Arkham Asylum which yes makes finding copies of it online very confusing in the story The Joker has taken over Arkham and Batman needs to fight his way through some familiar faces to bring it back under control it Loosely inspired rocksteady's game 20 years later and when I say loose I mean it there's no Titan Two-Face is a key character Amadeus Arkham is Central to the plot with more page time given to him than Batman it's also dark darker even than the game because it's so serious no Camp no cheese instead focusing on the twistedness of the Asylum the art swirls off the page bleeding into maddening colors and shapes delving into the psychology of the bat it's in here that we find a Batman push to the brink we're going to be walking through rocksteady's Arkham Asylum in detail but alongside it I want to tell you the story of a series House on a serious Earth this is because while both exist independently of one another I think it's really interesting to consider the nightmare that hell Rocksteady find their Batman so spoilers ahead this is a commentary and critique of Batman Arkham Asylum hey Sharpie love what you've done with the place that's Warden shop to you this video is going to act as a love letter to Arkham Asylum in a lot of ways but nothing is a bigger Love Letter to Batman than this game so I want to kick off by looking at his presentation looking back on the Arkham series as a whole package makes Arkham asylum's opening even better Batman's been in action for a few years it's just another night Joker had a rampage took the mayor hostage but he was recaptured pretty quickly almost without a fight suspicious we're picking up immediately with the series main focus Batman and the Joker even Arkham Origins developed by WB Montreal not Rocksteady hyper focuses on the relationship between the bat and the clown but that's not the only thing Asylum prioritizes Arkham Asylum doesn't just want you to feel like Batman there you go I said the thing but it wants you to feel his Inspirations to appreciate his history a series House on Sirius Earth is the inspiration sure but it doesn't stop there Batman suit is a big-eared version of Jim Lee's design best known for Batman hush with the gray color and yellow utility belt giving him some vibrancy reminding us of the game's keenness to bask in his comic book aesthetic the cinematography of the cutscenes even gives you shots that might as well be ripped from Lee's Pages areas are announced to you with flapping 2D wings that whoosh on screen and off again understated but noticeable even the pause screen wants to impress you a quick jab of a button and boom black and white outlines sketch out across the screen and navigating the menu is an art form in itself with bold contrasts Never Letting you forget Batman's comic book Origins the first 10 minutes is an exposition crawl that acts as a streamlined tour through this version of Batman the Asylum Barbara sharp Bulls Gordon Joker and a couple of his other Rogues You could argue that it's a little slow but I think it's entirely necessary there are hundreds of versions of the bat out there so Arkham needs to draw its Line in the Sand as quickly as possible and it does so with a sense of adoration pauldini Kevin Conroy Mark Hamill and Arlene Sorkin are brought over from the Animated Series to give some legitimacy to the writing and these versions of Batman Joker and Harley Quinn but this Joker specifically is very different there seems to be but need to take my temperature I'd be happy to drop my pants in the Animated Series Mark Hamill's villain and Kevin Conroy's hero first met in a season 1 episode Christmas with the joker it opens with Joker in Arkham he sings Jingle Bells Batman Smells before jumping on a rocket ship Christmas tree and escaping and yes that is a real sentence that I wrote despite carrying a lot of the camp and fun Factor over from the Animated Series Arkham's Joker is far more disturbing in this opening he doesn't even do anything he strapped down incapacitated babbling and joking but we're taught one of the most important things about his character here how much he craves the attention he's getting this is a dream come true for him look at all of these people here just for him he should be honored but something about their behavior implies a serious sense of danger Warden Quincy sharp treats the joker as a bomb waiting to go off dozens of guards level their guns on him despite the fact he's chained up we hear that lethal force is authorized if he tries to make a break for it a doctor checks his condition just to have the bejesus geared out of him he scanned for what happens by Cold unfeeling machine not frisked by one of the guards in case they get hurt one of the guards Frank Bowles is so stressed he's openly drinking on the job is is nobody gonna do anything about that oh I forgot Arkham's as corrupt as the Guitar World Cup the lights go out for just a moment showing us how rickety and old the Asylum is despite the gadgets and Tech it's incapable of containing the Joker before they even have a chance to flicker back into life Batman is there with his hand around the Joker's throat prepared paranoid you might think Arkham asylum's opening is slow but it's a master class in characterizing his people monsters and setting anyone could go a little mad in here and by minute 10 it becomes anything but slow welcome to the madhouse Batman I said a trap and you sprang it glorious but first every step Batman takes to Arkham's Halls is watched by The Joker he's exposed in here sounds like he could do with this video sponsor atlasvpn if you're not using a VPN right now then chances are your information is being sold online your personal data what sites you go to what your browsing habits are none of it is private and you're opening yourself up to malware having a VPN can fix all of that and Atlas is the best deal on the market right now they're running a huge discount which means you can get a three-year subscription for just 199 a month with a 30-day money-back guarantee it took me less than five minutes to get started I signed up downloaded the VPN activated it and boom not only am I protected but I could watch Matilda the Musical on Netflix over the holidays it's not available in the UK and do you want to know the best part it also lets me save money no seriously plane tickets hotels they all have different prices depending on where in the world that site thinks you're from it's called price discrimination and is going to get worse but more importantly games have have different prices too geez Australians you're getting charged to the nose they're using Atlas vpn's limited time offer of 199 a month I can have more security more online freedom and spend less on gaming easy choice right so click the link below to sign up today and help the channel out thanks again to Atlas VPN and all with the video Batman's nightmare doesn't begin with his entry to Arkham it begins here with Joker's Grand reveal he set a trap and we sprang it gloriously he set fire to Blackgate Prison to have his personal Army of goons move to Arkham he took the mayor hostage so Batman would come and get him he blackmailed Frank balls into helping Harley Quinn take over the security system and he's just getting started Arkham Asylum gives us a joker that's affecting because he's ripped straight out of Batman's amygdala that's that's the part of the brain that processes fear it doesn't matter it was clumsy warplay in this game The Joker is prepared his machia bloody Valiant he's not just kidnapped a family and planted some bombs he's got a plan a proper plan with layers and steps and backups he's got plan B's C's right through to Z and Beyond this Joker is so dangerous because he's not just a wild card this time he's thinking like Batman and with his arms outstretched Arkham Asylum explodes into one of Gaming's strongest opening hours before the tutorial is over we've watched the Joker win taking down Victor zaz met Harley Quinn fought a Titan mini boss met Killer Croc had a lift dropped on us be mocked by The Riddler stealth detectived punched grappled and saved people all in the game's first building before being Unleashed into the Hub world there's a fundamental strength to choosing Arkham Asylum as a game setting it leers at a player offering opportunities for tightly knitted pacing with a crooked hand opportunities that broadening to an open world Gotham would limit there's a contextual reason for tossing villain after Villain at our hero they've all been locked up in his prison for far too long the Asylum hasn't treated them it's tortured them made them worse the second Joker and Harley unlocked the gates on their cells they naturally seized their chance at Revenge this means that any time the story deviates any time Batman is torn away from the goal of Stop The Joker we don't feel bogged down by busy work this is the goal this is the power fantasy soaring up to gargoyles and land ending on zaz saving Jim Gordon finding trophies to track down the Riddler because it all leads to the same objective on doing Joker's damage regaining control of the Asylum that means Rock City can front load its first hour with a whole host of disconnected faces without undermining the joker as the juicy big bad seeing is how I'm feeling generous I'll give you this one for free dare you end this pull the plug stop me once and for all the game is a long sequence of princesses and other castles but we barely notice because of how stuffed it is with charismatic unhinged foes and scenarios Batman comes face to face with Joker five times before the final confrontation and each time the Joker gets away with a painted smile and wave here mere moments after he takes control of the Asylum Joker stands on a shaky platform and dares actually dares bats to knock him off drop him to his Doom end it all and even though it means a long cold maddening night in Hell Batman refuses leading to Joker revealing another stage in his lengthy plan Titan a super serum that turns patience into monsters this is where Rocksteady unequivocally tell us which parts of Batman's character they are most interested in his no killing rule his discipline and restraint and his unyielding belief that everyone can be saved even the Joker this is a belief has played with across the whole series making it feel purposeful and planned even when split across two independent studios in fact there seems to be a concerted effort to reinforce Batman's status as a hero outside of just taking down the bad guy's Gotham Knights the older I get the more I find it's something I look for in my superhero stories The Killing Joke is a masterpiece sure but I don't need or want every Batman story to be that sometimes I want to be reminded that my heroes are heroes Gotham Knights that they save and inspire people they don't know as part of the story rather than just a side quest they don't just beat up thugs in the street Gotham Knight Arkham's opening is all about the villain introductions and all about the saving numerous scenarios are given to us where we save doctors janitors guards patients and criminals we stop zaz from killing a guard we rescue thugs from poison gas oh whoops uh don't worry I'll come back for him there are lots of moments in the story where Batman puts a momentary pause on his Joker Chase to go and help regular people and yeah if the gameplay loot was boring if the combat was on satisfying if stealth was frustrating those diversions might be a mark against the game but we all know that's not the case it's a testament to rocksteady's confidence in those systems to their wholehearted approach to reminding us we are the Batman that we get to enjoy saving people rather than see it as a task to be checked off a list it's all part of the game's enthusiasm about being a living comic book hey someone held bad baby up off the floor that enthusiasm even carries over to failure if we die the super villain of the hour steps into our game over screen not just mocking Batman but mocking the player because of how it's framed and they're so entertaining that sometimes I would let myself get killed just to see what poison ivy or scarecrow had to say for themselves Asylum relishes these villains Rocksteady might have designed darkum with the Batman fantasy in mind but by the time the opening ends and the game opens up it's hard not to feel like the bad guys are the reason the game exists in the first place Paul dini all but confirmed that this was a starting point during development in a 2009 interview with the guardian he said quote we knew that Batman would be going into Arkham Joker would be the ultimate villain and who Batman would encounter along the way and from there we kind of opened it up a little bit to say okay who really challenges Batman in this scenario what villains can we bring in everyone at Rocksteady understood the importance of tone Arkham was going to be grown up scary while keeping the camp and there's something to be said for how these villains are given a visual identity that leans on this attitude and is explicitly Arkham scarecrow Harley Croc Bane Joker Ivy every single one of them feel like the Animated Series has grown up and grown teeth Harley and Ivy are hypersexualized but I don't think there's any malicious intent there they're victims of rocksteady's immaturity a studio still incredibly early in its career a grown-up scarecrow means a mask with thin threads that look like terrifying teeth while a grown-up Harley means a sexy nurse's outfit we were still a few years out from Jimmy palmiotti's run that revamped the character and actually wait can we focus on Harley for a minute because returning to these games made me seriously question 14 year old me young Monty did we really think this was sexy or was it just Jessica nigri's cosplay that did it because for a start this is how she was animated by one of the devs sauntering around in a ball cap suit and second in 2022 Harley's animation just like every other character in the game is stiff incredibly stiff playing the remastered Edition shows it off best and regardless of the technical limitations of the Xbox 360 it turns out that this beautifully was kind of the point to take the words right out to Xavier Corbin the lead animator's mouth they were quote hand animated to capture an abstract feeling they all look fantastic but alongside that is a plasticky aesthetic that strengthens this focus on a living comic book Harley's pigtails are rigid they flop around like rubber strapped to her skull her mouth gapes and flaps with each word today it might look a little dated but the over-the-top tone and art style is so captivating that it adds to Arkham's Vibe it doesn't take away from it just yet color bleeds through the island there's a reason Comics separates colorists and illustrators an understanding of what Shades which Hues bring a moment in a character to life is key to the reader experience Arkham Asylum understands that tenfold the color palette changes depending on who's in control at particular moments at the very beginning it's all Grays and dark Blues because Batman's in control transitioning to waves of green and purple when Joker takes over just to be saturated by a dizzying sea of greens and reds when Ivy is injected with Titan Croc sewers are a gurgling brown and green scarecrow's nightmare levels swirl with diseased beige brown and yellow the environments breathe with whichever character is in charge that abstract feelings Xavier Corbin discussed earlier isn't just limited to the character animations it's in every beat and hum of the experience it's pulpy and hyper-exaggerated this game just like a series House on Sirius Earth usurps realism is not interested in giving us a realistic Batman that could exist in our world Nolan's films have already done that instead it wants to give us a real Batman that can only exist in the world Rocksteady have designed parts of the Asylum are warped and unwieldy some of it reduced to runes and Rubble the landscape is uneven there's a stack of graves outside that are so full that they make the ground seem bulbous and writhing assets like doors and desks seem big far too big to see natural disproportionate to Batman's size he is 6'2 how the hell is a little Doctrine nerd supposed to get up to that desk now I'm not going to argue that this was on purpose it's probably because Batman is a big guy with a big cape and if these objects were regular sized the Collision detection would break the game but Arkham's atmosphere is so thick that suspending your disbelief isn't just easy it's immediate sure these doors are massive Arkham's built on Gothic architecture big doors were a part of that or maybe there's traces of scarecrows fear toxin in the bat system system so everything looks a little bit off or maybe none of that matters because its effect is so impressive it makes the Asylum dwarf Batman closing around him squeeze him as The Madness of the Knight reaches boiling point and as we leave intensive treatment stepping out into the cool night air of the grounds were met with the big bare arcs of the Moon swallowing up the sky acting as a silhouette and a mission statement this is a game that will let us find our Batman the pages of a series House on Sirius Earth dissolve into madness almost immediately the year is 1901 an 11 year old Amadeus Arkham climbs the stairs of his Mansion bringing dinner to his mother she's bedridden suffering since the death of her husband a frilled shadow of who she once was Mother he calls out it's me I've brought you something to eat I've eaten Elizabeth Arkham rumbles please Amadeus says I think you should try to eat some of this Eaton his mother snaps back I've eaten I've eaten black squirming beetles push out from between her teeth their legs snap and their wings phrase they fall from her mouth years later Amadeus thinks about the beetle how it's a symbol of rebirth how somehow some way his mother thought that eating beetles would protect her from something but even then he understood the significance of this moment he thinks how his mother had been born again reborn into that other world the Dark World The Mad World We flash ahead to present-day Gotham it's April for first Jim Gordon stands on the rooftop of the Gotham City Police Department the bat signal penetrates the night sky he's waiting for the Batman sorry I'm late Batman states in the rain in the Gloom he's a formless shifting Shadow there's been a ride at Arkham Asylum Jim says the inmate sees control of the building we don't know how it happened but they're holding the staff hostage they're demanding to see you to talk to you personally a phone rings Jim warns Batman that it's the Joker Joker what do you want Oh I think you can guess the Joker's voice cackles out of the speaker we want you in the mad house with us where you belong and what if I say no Batman asks well we have so many friends here sweetheart say hello to Pearl a voice a woman's voice sobs over the line such a crybaby isn't she Pearl is 19 years old she wants to be an artist she just drew me a beautiful house she drew it with this pencil there's a rattling and a scratching over the line this pencil that I've just sharpened open your eyes wide Pearl oh they're so beautiful so blue so the only thing louder than Pearl screams are Batman's you have half an hour oh and bring a white stick there's a click The Joker Is Gone leaving behind the rush of the rain on Batman's cowl I'm going in there Batman says but Jim can sense the hesitancy in his voice I understand that you're afraid Jim says Arkham does have a reputation afraid Batman thinks on it Batman's not afraid of anything it's me I'm afraid I'm afraid that the Joker might be right about me I'm afraid that when I walk into Arkham it'll be just like coming home 1920 Amadeus Arkham is returning to his family home after his mother's funeral he writes in his journals how she slashed her own throat to the pearl-handled razor he thinks how it was for the best he opens the doors to the mansion He has inherited and starts to make his plans he vows to help people to treat the people who suffer as his mother once did that night he dreams of beating Wings he starts by working at the state Psychiatric Hospital of metropolis he meets with Martin Mad Dog Hawkins he listens as Hawkins tells him about his crimes about how he mutilates his victims about the childhood abuse he suffered at the hands of his father it was the Virgin Mary's idea Hawkins tells him it was the only way to stop them from spreading their disease and why do you cut your arms with a razor archimasks just just to feel Hawkins says just to feel something Arkham wonders how many more people are like Hawkins men whose only real crime is mental illness trapped in a penal system with no hope of treatment he resolves to move back to Gotham with his family and to transform his Mansion into an asylum where's Gordon wouldn't you I'm over here Jim Gordon has been captured by Harley Quinn our mustachioed Damsel in Distress is waiting in the medical facility for someone bat-shaped to come and rescue him but Harley's locked off the main entrance so we need to go the long way around which means there's plenty of time to talk about the game's approach to Collectibles real me this who has two thumbs and has had his morning coffee yes Edward nigma The Riddler and more importantly your intellectual Superior that's right this [ __ ] The Riddler Edward nigma E dog Arkham asylum's most ingenious characterization and definitely its least bad villain seriously aside from breaking out of prison Enigma doesn't actually commit any crimes at least not in this game yet he's perfectly grating we never see him we only get his voice transmitted from an undisclosed location but he spent the past few years preparing for a night like this a night where the Batman is stuck in the Asylum with nothing better to do than crack a few optional riddles Arkham Blends a collect-a-thon with the Riddler's neurosis and obsessive compulsion to be the smartest guy in the room each trophy collected or puzzle solved leads us one step closer to the Riddler's real location eventually resulting in an off-screen arrest there's no boss fight with a riddler or final confrontation if I'm being cynical he's seen dressing for a treasure hunt but if that's the case he's really good scene dressing there are five types of collectibles in the game riddles to solve trophies to find interview tapes to listen to Joker teeth to destroy and Chronicles of Arkham I think we can all agree that three of these Collectibles are fantastic The Riddles the tapes and the Chronicles the other two the trophies and the Joker teeth are a grind but why is that you know who he is more important I know what he is I think it comes down to Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation intrinsic motivation is where a player wants to do something because of the inherent satisfaction of doing that thing it's fun in and of itself because of a variety of reasons that we will look at later punching as Batman feels great so the player is intrinsically motivated to seek out fights and punch bad guys extrinsic motivation is where a player wants to do something because of the reward they'll get at the end of it that could be experience points loot Money More Story whatever when we talk about Arkham's Collectibles there's one overarching extrinsic motivator that ties them all together beating the Riddler the goal of defeating him is more valuable and more rewarding than the act of collecting itself the interview tapes give us incredibly entertaining insight to the gamescast of big bads filling Us in on their history like getting to hear Harley Quinn fall in love with a joker or or Killer Croc eating catch's hand that's the extrinsic motivator we want to find them so we can hear more but the act of searching for these tapes isn't satisfying in itself because usually they're just sitting on a desk or a bench illuminated by detective Vision The Chronicles of Arkham are a bit more of a challenge but similar in their outcome with just a couple of exceptions they're all found either on the main path behind walls or through vents the fun Factor comes from the detailed voiceover that we get from the captivating story that it tells but the physical act of hunting for them isn't interesting because of the lack of variety once you've knocked down one wall you've knocked down them all meaning these are mini puzzles with a solution you already know the reward is extrinsic not intrinsic Joker teeth are infuriating tiny chattering gums clap along the ground each area in the game has up to 20 of them the majority of which are just thrown in corridors we'll walk through on the way to the next objective and those that aren't are tucked away in corners we miss forcing you to do a full sweep of levels you've already conquered in the end game when we see them there's barely any time to think before we toss a batarang and Destroy them no challenge nothing cool to see no player creativity no intrinsic or extrinsic reward outside of XP and then there's the Riddler trophies themselves out of 240 Collectibles these make up 101 of them less than 50 percent but damn does it feel like more The Riddler hardly brought his A-game to these because there's no Puzzles here nothing to figure out they're less of a treasure hunt and more of a scavenger hunt because there's no satisfaction to collecting one aside from Little Goblin part of our brain that likes to see the percentage go up there's simply nothing memorable here don't believe me well riddle me this you stand in a room and activate detective Vision event in the corner of the room lights up you crawl into it and find a green trophy in the shape of a question mark argue a in the medical facility B in the penitentiary C in the botanical gardens too slow the answer is D all 3 the Cave's intensive treatment and every single section of the island this is the most common way you will find a Riddler trophy those of you who watched by Quantum break critique know I love my spreadsheets and my stats but this time the numbers ended up being kind of depressing to collect them all you need to fully upgrade the cryptographer and all of the gadgets which means there are a good chunk of trophies saved for the end game by that point trophy hunting loses a lot of its Allure because in the final hour there's nothing else going on no villains on the prowl no goons to fight no stealth sections to creep through just Batman vents electric panels and weak walls to blow up we find the troll fees in the same way we find The Chronicles of Arkham and while that repetition can become quite chilled and meditative while listening to a podcast a challenge anyone watching to sincerely tell me you were motivated by the act of finding the Riddler trophies at no point was I seeking them out because that was the fun thing to do I was seeking them out because I was motivated by the extrinsic factor of taking down the Riddler I'm losing patience you're cheating you must be generally I think there's a couple of directions you could go in with Edward nigma Paul Daniel's version from the 2022 movie is one of them he was so pathetic that it was sad and borderline sympathetic that version explored how damaging his compulsions could be when they were warped by a sociopolitical agenda he wasn't enjoying himself he was on a crusade and that painted his mental state is explicitly tragic asylum's version is much more fun he enjoys his compulsion he's pleased with himself it gives him meaning and purpose so we don't need to feel guilty about hating him he's a hypocrite in the butt of a game-long joke we're encouraged to see him as irritating every word out of his mouth is patronizing or insulting with every riddle solved he'll accuse us of cheating which is ironic because we learn that he's a cheater himself inventing riddles with random answers and historically cheating at quizzes his role as an antagonist his characterization is the number one motivated for 100 completing the game his assholery is so effective so juicily performed that we want to beat him if there is no voice acting if the Collectibles just existed in Arkham's world without the Riddler popping up to Marcus every now and then I wouldn't be nearly as interested in collecting them all there is one collectible that flies in the face of all of that isn't there the most important set of challenges in the Riddler's Arsenal The Riddles themselves they're the only collectible that gives us an extrinsic and intrinsic reward they're interesting to complete and what we get for doing so is often very very cool when entering a room a riddle will flash up on screen in green writing when nigma makes his presence known he tells us not to quote cut yourself on this sharply dressed portrait hahaha love a good pun what this means is we need to wander over to a portrait of Warden Sharp and scan it boom riddle complete a simple little tutorial to make us think critically Force us to use our surroundings and the World building to put the pieces together for the rest of the game The Riddles will vary in difficulty but because we can't rely on detect a vision to give us the answer we need to think like Batman we need to be the world's greatest detective we need to observe we need to interpret and that experience is satisfying in its own right but the best part is we need to explore lower the asylum's detail to look for the little Stories the Easter eggs the hints at a grander more fleshed Out World waiting in Gotham City Firefly two-faced penguin Catwoman and many many more beloved characters come up as answers to the riddles we get to see Killer Croc's cage where he enjoyed a daily lunch we find where scarecrow stored his fear talks and preparing an elaborate scheme to conquer Gotham they're just a cheeky excuse for Rocksteady to guide us to Easter eggs and for a chunk of them we are rewarded with character biographies and gorgeous hand-drawn art of friends and foes rocksteady's way of showing us how they interpret characters that didn't make it into the game The Riddles are fun to crack and we get cool rewards they're intrinsic and extrinsic that's why we remember them so fondly well uh okay that's half true because not every riddle leads to an Easter egg or something cool to see a handful of them lead us to perspective puzzles using detective mode we need to find question marks painted on the walls and floor is lining up a DOT with a curved line when the damn thing works come on Edward that is totally lined up these work because they're used so sparingly barely 10 of the riddles come in this form so they're a nice change of pace and a neat challenge there's a similar mindset to the Easter egg riddles they require us to think be observant and angling Batman into position with various gadgets working around the level design is the closest thing to a mechanical puzzle Asylum ever gives us that's still only half of the story but Batman's made it inside the medical facility by now so we better catch up with them what's going on they were talking like they control is it true the Joker escaped unfortunately yes but not for long that saves Aaron cash the hook-handed head of Arkham security and Penelope young Chief psychiatrist of the Asylum and the head of project Titan Titan was originally conceived as a serum to cure criminal Insanity driven by her desire to fix the Joker once and for all young accepted an anonymous donation from a Mr Jack White the Joker in Disguise funding her research because he has his own plans for Titan our hunt for more information starts in the basement of the medical facility the place where Titan was conceived there's another extrinsic reward connected to the Riddler's Collectibles experience points all the Joker teeth we destroy all the trophies we find it all adds up to give Batman a little booster meaning he gets stronger through exploration not just through kicking ass asylum's upgrade system is nice and simple harking back to them good old video game days when there is no gear no good garbage loot just unlockable useful abilities it's a quality rather than quantity approach Gotham Knights XP adds up to give us a skill point each skill point unlocks one upgrade they're not all created equal when faced with an extra batarang or a new stealth takedown I think we'd all pick the takedown but end game Batman definitely feels stronger more flexible more agile than early game Batman upgrades give us more options and while later games in the series will make this Evolution more visceral and detectable there is a growth the throw the free flow takedown the remote batarang the proximity detector for explosive gel none of this is gifted To Us by the main story we need to earn it and unlock it and because we earn experience points through fighting against the Riddler there's a connection between besting him and being the best bat possible and speaking of the best let's look at combat a ring of salt has been drawn around Arkham Asylum to keep out evil spirits Batman brushes his fingers through it breaking the circle and hears a voice cut through the darkness why don't you sprinkle some of that on me honey are you not just good enough to eat Batman states that he's here he did as the Joker asked release the hostages you heard him folks hit the trail guards doctors janitors they file out of the grounds The Joker grabs a woman at the back of the line bye Pearl let's do it again sometime Pearl Batman looks at her but her eyes they're fine April Fools Batman stairs rage just rage oh listen up tight ass Joker reaches down groping Batman but Batman spins around Take Your Filthy Hands Off me what's the matter have I touched a nerve how is the Boy Wonder anyway as he started shaving yet the Joker steps forward and places his hands on the door to the Asylum April sweet is coming in he sings pushing into the welcome area let the Feast of bowls begin a miasm of shapes lines bodies faces meet Batman's gaze a party is in full swing we are outside of logic outside of Reason outside of space and time and structure what are the inmates eating what are they touching there are no recognizable voices or faces on the page just a concert of textures Dr Cavendish the asylum's warden steps forward Joker he barks I've had enough of this madness but the Joker looms over him like a specter so much larger a white void in makeup enough Madness enough and how do you measure madness he grabs Cavendish face kiss me Charlie ravage me but no tongues here not at our first date I'm warning you Canada shouts but the Joker Cuts right in you're in no position to issue warnings Charlie not with your guilty secret you told me you released all of the hostages Batman growls well we insisted on staying Batman a woman appears to his right lighting up I'm Ruth Adams a psychotherapist here and this is dark Cavendish Joker laughs our current administrator and a man who just loves to administer currents to ECT patients I have a duty to the state Cavendish rumbles well while we're discussing Duty it looks like someone's just done theirs on the floor Joker pulls aside a table to reveal Two-Face Harvey Two-Face he's naked ragged clumsily shuffling a deck of cards a puddle of urine flows from underneath him I'm sorry two-faced mutters I couldn't help but it takes so long to decide so many options I I'm really really sorry what have you done to him Batman asks is lumbering Shadow staring at two-faced with pity done Ruth Adam's friends he's being cured she goes on to explain that they're trying to tackle two-face's obsession with Duality once he relied on his coin seeing the world as binary flipping it for every big decision but he took that away instead they gave him Dice and cards but Batman says right now he can't even make a simple decision like going to the bathroom without consulting his cards it seems like you've effectively destroyed the man's personality doctor Two-Face pulls the tower card from his deck an omen of danger ahead you must admit Batman says it's hard to imagine this place being conducive to anyone's mental health and your techniques don't seem to have had much of an effect on the Joker Dr Adams takes a deep draw of her cigarette The Joker is beyond treatment in fact we're not even sure he can properly be defined as insane she goes on to say that the Arkham staff are beginning to believe that the Joker might Harbor some kind of super sanity a brilliant new modification in human perception he has no control over sensory information he receives from the outside world and he can only cope with a chaos he receives by going with the flow he recreates himself every day The Joker interrupts picking up an ink plot from the table what do you see Batman Batman stares at the ink plot he sees a bat nothing he hushes I don't see anything stop wasting time the silhouette of a black mask appears Out of the Shadows take off his mask I want to see his real face The Joker snaps back that he shouldn't be so predictable that is his real face and besides he wants to go much deeper than that tonight I want him to know what it's like to have Sticky Fingers picked through the dirty corners of his mind so let's start with some word association hmm he prods Dr Adams She hesitates but Batman reassures her go ahead doctor I'm not afraid it's just words that's Spirit Joker cackles I like a man who can take the pressure sorry Jim down down into the morgue we go pursuing Harley Quinn to rescue Jim Gordon there's a secret down here a twisted shape of human cruelty waiting for the bat no not Bane we'll get to him in a minute someone far more vicious and calculating Jonathan crane AKA scarecrow brings with him some of asylum's most memorable beats injected into the game haphazardly like his fear toxin even all these years later his introduction is chilling a dead Jim Gordon the room tilts cockroaches Scuttle across the floor the asylum's morgue Whispers and laughs at us Thomas and Martha Wayne spill onto slabs if this is a horror game I'd be criticizing the hell out of it the lack of agency and the perspective shift are an obvious gimmick but this isn't a horror game it's not out to truly terrify us it's just out to unnerve us more about the character work and less about the gameplay showing us the dreamlike Hayes that Batman is lost in as he navigates Arkham's tunnels and sells even when scarecrow and his toxner off screen the game wants us to consider how maddening a knight in Arkham would truly be this is where it begins asylum's Batman Embraces the rigid stoicism of the past which means he says very little across the game despite the ability for Kevin Conroy's voice to jump the soul out of Jesus there are a few moments where he shows his fear his confusion his sadness because he's Batman rocksteady's bat is all about the power fantasy our hero is down in the dirt tortured by scarecrow but he doesn't blink he just keeps going it's the visuals of reliving his parents murder of thinking Jim's dead that offer an insight to how he thinks and what worries him without the game needing to State it openly in the text later we will see how this characterization might backfire but when it comes to scarecrow it works and once he manages to rescue Jim from Harley we even get a glimpse at his self-doubt you took longer than I thought he's out of control he's trying to prove something I'm not sure I can stop him this time scarecrow and Joker are the least of our problems though because one of Arkham's deepest Secrets is just around the corner Bane strapped up experimented on the bruja Dr Young has slowly been draining the Venom from his blood to create Titan this cues our first boss fight so as Bane breaks free let's talk punching I have a confession to make I think I kinda suck at Arkham's combat going back to the game after 14 years of series iterations and copycats made me realize just how reductive my memory of it was I thought it was going to Breeze through this game it's just mashing square and occasionally hitting triangle right the animation and sound design does all the work wrong in 2016 asylum's creative director Sefton Hill set up an AMA and talked about the inspiration for the game's combat system quote combat initially started out as a rhythm action game it was based on my love of classic martial arts movies they have this lovely Cadence to the combat which I'd never seen done in a game even though we removed the Rhythm action requirement the core of that idea lived on through free flow Arkham's combat is a rhythm game for Batman's fists it might not be a spectacle fighter like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta but there's a similar reward for understanding and using it well Batman looks cool and we feel cool the face buttons and a couple of triggers can all be used but typically the focus is on square and triangle the goal isn't just to survive an encounter but to get through it with as much Flair as possible without taking a hit the design of free flow lets Rock City achieve something that I would have thought impossible it lets Batman be a crowd control fighter and a one-to-one brawler simultaneously the beauty of this system is that none of Batman's moves are designed to take down lots of baddies at once you're forced to fight independently but while you might start by throwing a couple of punches at one grunt if you're aware of your space and angle the left stick appropriately we can fly around the room launching bats from henchmen to henchmen don't let weaker iterations of the hit counterform formula taint how you remember Arkham's combat it's not just a counter simulator that's what copycats like Shadow of Mordor and Mad Max failed to understand there's no punishment in those games from just relying on square and triangle in Arkham there is you lose your momentum and you miss out on the fun Factor mashing square and occasionally triangle is a recipe for Success there's nothing wrong with that strategy it's very accessible but what it does is give you an inferior Batman to the cool swishing catapulting version that skilled players can create Batman's discipline his focus on holding back is a factor during gameplay and I think that's brilliant he's always just an inch away from losing control what makes him interesting is when he doesn't and to achieve a free flow combo we need to embrace that a skilled Batman is deliberate no slamming your thumb into square or else you'll swing it to an empty space and it will kill your momentum and cancel free flow instead you need to remain calm under pressure calculate where enemies are and tell him which direction to go each punch Echoes with a brutal satisfying crack different sounds Herald different outcomes like the end of a fight or a mid-battle takedown but when we talk about the rhythm of Arkham's combat we don't just mean the musicality of it the sound design we mean the movement and the framing of that movement too if Batman just looked like a pinball the entire time he would become exhausting to keep up with and he'd lose that sense of deliberateness so to make sure we're tuned into the ebb and flow of battle the game employs animations that have variations in length and occasional slow motion that lets us scan the room for where to go next what grunt looks ripe for kicking counters only finish off an enemy if their invisible health bar is extremely low or if they're the last guy in the room otherwise they do no damage at all I sat and just countered for about 15 minutes and despite bats spraining elbows and slapping Joker's men around none of them went down which means you do need to think aggressively Batman's a predator after all he needs to be in control of a fight at the risk of getting too granular it's important to note that enemies won't try to hit us if we're in the middle of a counter animation this means that just like the moments of slow motion it's a chance to catch our breath it means we won't get frustrated if one of these baldy bastards interrupt our cool moves in another game I might criticize this for being too easy too staged but context is everything we are the Batman we're breaking legs and arms these criminals are scared of us they sound scared so you can easily read them as being hesitant there are moves that can be interrupted three in fact the ground takedown is long coming in at about three seconds so there's plenty of time for a grunt to March over and give bats a shove this means we're disincentivized from focusing on just one enemy if we do we'll likely take a hit when we try to finish them off Batman's gadgets the batarangs and grapple also lock us into an animation and this is a part of combat I like a lot less neither of them are that cool or that useful that's Ryan's momentarily stunned henchmen but the freeze bats in place and it's a minimal reward for the risk of getting punched in fact gadgets simply aren't an effective part of Batman's Arsenal in combat not like they will be in future games that's not the only problem asylum's award-winning combat has a good doctor won't be a problem much longer say we cut him down we release Bane from captivity he's able to access his Venom again his muscles bulge and Creak under the room weight and he tosses Batman into the next room as a boss Bane is serviceable we can only do minimal damage so the goals to wait for him to charge toss a batarang and leap out of the way on his own he's fine but Asylum commits my biggest boss fight sin again and again tossing Cannon for the Riders to make up for lackluster bosses we approach this fight the same way we'll approach the Titans for the rest of the game so with that in mind let's talk enemy variety Titans are introduced more commonly the further into the Asylum we descend often surrounded by thugs unfortunately these big boys don't work with a crowd because he can't counter them which means their greatest crime is the breakup free flow you're busy leaping about enemies and that a big random swipe will happen that you have no way to prevent so you spend a lot of time keeping away from them rather than leaping into the thick of it riding them around the Arena as they laboriously flail weeding out regular goons is Fun the first time but dull VI it's slower with less animation variety and less sense of skill and momentum so using these guys flies in the face of everything that makes fighting so fun aside from the Titans we've got regular grunts Knife Guy stumpaton guys Gun Guys snipers lunatics and Ivy's plants eight enemy types all in pretty good how's that for variety but they're not all winners so let's count them down regular thugs or bare knuckle Brawlers they're gifts from the game to help us find out what kind of Batman we want to be a skilled flash in the dark or a careful defensive counter machine knife-wielding enemies need to be stunned before they take their licks they can't be countered and whip up a frenzy dealing decent damage so they always need to be a priority well not always not if we Face the goons with stumbotons they don't just block damage hitting them without stunning them first can hurt us they're not just an enemy to fight they are a hazard during free flow making vulnerable means we need to stun them and flip over them first I friggin love these guys and hate these guys if a grunt gets a hold of a gun the stakes reach an all-time high facing them head on is a suicide mission especially when playing on hard so typically Asylum liters stealth Arenas with them instead but sometimes weapons lockers will be thrown around combat rooms they add to our spatial awareness we need to constantly monitor those lockers and the henchmen near them while still keeping an eye on every other enemy in the room the only problem with them is they're not used enough during encounters lunatics are a pain in the ass they leap in her back for a long time forcing us to mash X to throw them off and they won't be knocked out unless you go in for a take turn what's surprising is the story never tosses them in alongside Blackgate prisoners instead that scenario was tossed into the challenge Maps as much as they get on my nerves they're relegated to the penitentiary and roaming the grounds by the last couple of hours they are part of the furniture calling Ivy's plants and enemy type is generous I will admit they're dotted around outside spewing slow floating orbs of stuff that hones in on Batman while we race to the next part of the Asylum they go down with just one hit and have a long wind up before attacking so getting rid of them is pretty easy snipers also just live in asylum's crowns coming out a particular scripted moments and hunkering down in watchtowers they are deadly but less combat and more stealth and maneuverability part of the world to get around rather than fools you must take down which add some much needed variety to the telegraphed Arenas elsewhere Jim get back to the mainland it's too dangerous here I don't like leaving you here radio claims he's planted Bombs all over Gotham Gotham will Panic you're needed there we're ready to go now sir with being defeated and possibly drowning I know Batman doesn't kill but feel like we should check on him no Batman and Gordon learned that Joker's planted Bombs all over Gotham ready to go off if the cops stick their meddling noses into his party again all of this adds to just how prepared Joker was for tonight we'll later learned that the bombs are a mere distraction nothing there to really hurt people but if anything that adds to just how calculated Arkham's Joker is he went out of his way to plant thick bombs for the gcpd to find while plotting the Asylum takeover and he still had time for a chuckle Gordon sets off to the mainland to search for them and Batman realizes that he needs to upgrade his tools if he's going to confront Joker so what better time to explore the game's Metroid video mechanics 1910 Orca moves his family back to Gotham he thinks of Michael and the angels their battles against the old Dragon Lucifer he plans to bring light to the old corridors of his childhood to fill the mansion with patience he plans to prove that reason will triumph over the irrational his daughter Harriet is plagued by nightmares he blames the Lewis Carroll that she's been reading he hopes things will settle once the refurbishment is complete as he stands in her bedroom he looks down a playing card the Joker back in present day Batman sits opposite Ruth Adams The Joker gleefully dances around them as she prepares to throw words at him mother she says pearl handle revolver gun father images Flash in Batman's mind with each syllable that tortured Knight the Knight he lost them the night they died he grits his teeth father death and stop he shakes trembles and falls to the ground stop the Joker laughs in the past Arkham thinks about his studies his travels he scoured the globe for great minds to learn from Young Crowley they teach him about the darkness of the human mind and what he might learn from it when he returns home for Christmas the house is quiet the construction is almost complete the phone rings its Metropolis Penitentiary telling him that Mad Dog Hawkins has broken out of prison they want him to help them figure out where he might go he tells them it's not his problem Harriet's bad dreams are getting worse Arkham Comforts himself with the knowledge that all intelligent and beautiful children suffer from bad dreams he almost wishes she would never grow up in the present the clock Chimes 10 30. it's getting late The Joker says tying to begin tonight's entertainment The Joker lays out the game Hide and Seek the Batman has an hour to find somewhere to hide and when time is up all of his friends will try to find him they're all here you see Croc Mad Hatter Clayface I don't take orders from you Batman growls so the Joker shoots the security guard in the head oh what a senseless waste of human life Joker laughs leveling the gun at Dr Adams now Batman run or the good doctor gets it Batman runs he runs through the winding corridors of the Asylum he runs through the wards he runs through the cells but his mind's still pulsing with the trauma Dr Adams ripped out of him he sees the cinema the gunshots the pearls he hears his mother's voice it's too much he no longer inhabits the darkness he's drowning in it he needs to snap out of it he needs something that's going to shock his system back to reality just like Mad Dog a century ago he needs to feel something he grabs a piece of glass from the floor Jabs it right through his hand it seems to work in the pain he finds Clarity but as he shuffles up the corridor he moans to himself Mommy what follows is a perfect example of how eager Rocksteady were to add notches to their belt and hype up the experience of being the Batman the Easter eggs patient interviews returning voice actors they're all neat touches but combine that with a cameo from the Batmobile and a visit to a Goddamn bat cave and you've got a recipe for 15 year old meat have a whale of a time again it's like every opportunity the game's given to have fun and treat the player it takes his presentation and structuring is so confident and effective that there's even time for a bloody because I'm Batman joke a third of the way through of bat cave on Arkham Island I built it years ago it's best to plan ahead for situations like this it's me remember that's Barbara Gordon AKA Batgirl AKA Oracle my future wife and our voice in Batman's ear in the Arkham verse a lot of the big Beats from the comics are Canon Joker did shoot in paralyzed Babs like in The Killing Joke Jason Todd was beaten to death with a crowbar like death in the family I think it's an interesting choice to give us Oracle but not Alfred but this was the euro pre-new 52 Rocksteady were clearly inspired by a lot of older bat Tales so they brought Oracle into the fold to establish a bit of history for their Batman this was after all a few years before Gail Simone's brilliant Batgirl run gave her back the cowl her involvement in the story is frustratingly minor she's an expository mouthpiece there to give bats someone to explain his next steps to so we the player know what our goal is fair enough but I think there's a missed opportunity to make her more the Joker's plan is predicated on Batman having one bad night in the Asylum and eventually transforming into an insane monster with the joker there are some dramatic parallels between his plan and Alan Moore's famous story a story that scarred Bruce and Barbara and Jim so it would make sense for Batman to confide and Batgirl the harder the game gets offering some more substantial glimpses To The Man Behind the Mask instead Barbara Gordon is here to explain the finer details of Joker's plan to us just in case we miss it if Joker gets his hands on this he will create an army of a thousand Baines Joker crazy enough to do that what am I saying you've got to stop him it hardly ruins the game but going back to it all these years later with my I heart Barbara t-shirt on I wish Rocksteady gave just a little more love to her dialogue so he can get a better sense of her relationship to Batman is it Collegiate sisterly or like the Abomination we got in The Killing Joke movie so anyway yes bats has created a secondary bat cave on Arkham Island prepared for a situation just like this it's a minor diversion but one that gives us little face time with the bat computer and Gifts us with a new and improved grapnel we learn all about Dr Young's experiments her new chemical Titan is derived from Bane's Venom but she's transformed it into something completely different Joker wants to steal her formula to create an army of insane Bane's under his control if we want to stop him we've got to find her and her Formula First luckily we know exactly where she is she told us Arkham mansion but whoops Joker's locked it down and we can't get in through the front entrance unless we want to kiss a henchman's ass Batman doesn't want to do that so we've got to find another way in through the roof so I've got another question for you while Batman wrestles with this vent is Arkham Asylum a metroidvania and if it is is it a good one pausing for a dramatic effect while you type out your comment and like the video okay so I think Asylum is a metroidvania but I don't think it's a great one like this 2021 article on the gamer claims in it Eric Switzer wrote playing Asylum now I have even more respect for its brilliant level design than I did as a kid it's rare for a 3D metroidvaney to find critical success it's rare for a 3D metroidvania to exist at all and Arkham Asylum is still a shining example of how to take upgrade driven exploration focused metroidvania style gameplay and apply it to a 3D action game it might even be the last game to ever do it this well it's a pretty common take but I want to interrogate it a little bit I've discussed metroidvania mechanics on this channel before but there's a good chance this is your first video of mine and I want us all to be on the same page so I have a measuring stick that I use to figure out if a game has decent metroidvania mechanics it's not a hard and fast rule but I'm yet to find a game it doesn't work for a good metroidvania gives the player a skill or upgrade that does two things the first is it builds a better hero for example in Jedi Fallen order Cal earns the push ability he can now push Stormtroopers off of Ledges or he can force a guard break this makes him better stronger the second is that it opens up the world Cal can also use push to drop bridges that lead to new areas opening up the world needs to feel substantial for example if Batman uses explosive gel to knock down a wall with the Riddler trophy behind it I wouldn't say that opens up the world it just opens up this wall there's nothing wrong with it it's great woohoo we're a step closer to punching Riddler in the face but it doesn't broaden the Asylum however if Batman uses the explosive gel to progress further into the Asylum then that opens up the world foreign Asylum has a whole bunch of gadgets but they don't all achieve these two goals some of them open up the world but don't build a better hero and others build a better hero but don't open up the world so to make sure we're thorough I want to examine six of the gadgets the Sonic batarang and the remote batarang aren't given to us by the main story we need to invest our skill points to unlock them both are solid tools and the bats are snow when preparing for a stealth section especially the Sonic batarang it can be lodged to near a knocked out Thug to lure his Pals over and if you upgrade it fully it can automatically zap them knocking them out the same goes for the remote batarang if an enemy is blocked or out of view like a sniper you can send it careening through the air to stun him and NAB some precious seconds to get closer both build a better Batman they provide relatively useful options to overcome various obstacles the game tosses are away but what they do not do is open up the world on the flip side there's the line launcher and the cryptographer the launcher opens up the world because it lets us pass over long gaps it unlocks the second half of the botanical gardens the cryptographer unlocks various pathways through the main Asylum deactivating security gates neither are useful in combat or Stealth at least where they're paced in the story you could say that the line launcher could let Batman cross an arena quickly but it'll end with him slamming into a wall rather than gracefully transitioning to a gargoyle or vantage point with the cryptographer Batman effectively might as well be given a right key card to let him get past the security gates and all you would lose is the Wii minigame when you wangle the lines about these open up the world but they do not build a better hero You could argue that they lead to the means of building a better hero because they both unlock Riddler trophies and those Riddler trophies give us XP and honestly that is fair enough but then we're back to the same problem with those trophies there's no intrinsic reward when we collect them because the solutions are always far too simple hack a console shoot the line launcher at a wall the First new Gadget we get the explosive gel takes both boxes not only does it unlock locations like the bat cave but it's also a key tool during the stealth sections and for good measure it's necessary for finding collectibles 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 and this baby the back claw is the most impactful Gadget in the game it does everything need a box moved sorted need to pull an enemy over a railing so he bumps his head no problem want to Grapple an enemy during combat it's a little clumsy but hey it can do it is that weak wall too high up easy you need to pull down a high vent it's got you the back claw doesn't just open up the world and build a better Batman it comes with a later upgrade that does it bigger and better in the second half of the game if every Gadget was treated like this Arkham Asylum could be one of the greatest Metroid veneers ever made but despite the many many ways that it kicks ass as a game I think it struggles with its metroidvania mechanics we often praise Asylum for bringing some incredible 3D metroidvania design to the table but I think what we're really praising when we say that is its level design which we will get to Arkham's metroidvania stuff lives and dies on how its gadgets heavily rely on the Riddler and his Collectibles to feel as important as they do if you were to play through it and ignore every single Riddler collectible you would barely use a third of them and I think that's a damn shame but what the gadgets do let us do is let us pull this vent off so I can kick that henchman's ass I am Vengeance Vic The Joker Waits with some of Batman's famous villains I say we go after him now Bark's black mask but the Joker reminds him that they promised the Batman an hour he's only been gone 10 minutes Professor Milo Paces this is ridiculous he grunts what do you think Dent Two-Face just looks out of the window transfixed the Moon is so beautiful he says it's a silver dollar flipped by God and it landed scarred Side Up see Mad Hatter scratches his head Joker we're bored oh well right then Joker sneers let's just pretend it's been an hour April 1st 1921 Amadeus Arkham returns home one night to find Madness waiting for him mad dog Hawkins broke in while he was away at work he sees his wife's body first mad dog was here is carved into her stomach she's in pieces strolling around the room Harriet's head is missing he scans the room looks at the doll's house in a doll's house looks back camley placidly he puts on his mother's wedding dress it all seems perfectly rational he kneels in the nursery abattoir and vomits Amadeus Arkham worries that he might be ill Clayface drips around the ward naked he slicks a long line up the wall pieces off him drizzling off and bleeding into the concrete my skin is sick Batman he says it's rotten and super Batman reels back I just want to share my disease he reaches out tries to touch the bat's face Batman panics he lashes out with a swift kick to the shin and Clay face his leg shatters he collapses to the floor still melting the Batman keeps running next is Dr Destiny he squeaks into view confined to his wheelchair Clayface would normally push him around but now he's screaming a couple of rooms away clay face Destiny Whispers entering a large room covered in mannequins fine don't answer me then you dirty rotting bastard I don't need you I can easily find someone else to push me he does to get past him Batman kicks out to the firm boot the wheelchair spasms and Destiny flies forwards down the stairs collapsing in a heap the Batman keeps running next is scarecrow dragging his Pitchfork tiny Sparks shoot up from the ground he looks like a stick figure awkwardly posed Batman halts and stairs scare crew stares back as if frozen by his gaze the Batman keeps running he no longer belongs to the dark so he fumbles for a light switch and has a tiny bulb bursts into life Illuminating the Gloom he traces his fingers over the walls and floor of a cell who did the cell belong to the ramblings of a Madman a journal Amadeus Arkham's Journal Whispers Arkham mansion stands in direct contrast to the dilapidated white corridors and Wards of the rest of the Asylum it's grandiose garish Gothic filled with varnished wood libraries and trophy cabinets Warden Quincy sharp lives in the lap of luxury here with a roaring fireplace and soft carpets he's transformed Arkham Asylum into a shrine dedicated to his ego paintings of him hang on the wall a statue of his Idol Amadeus Arkham is thick and looming welcoming you to this domain even comparing the Mansion to the grounds tells you everything you need to know about Sharp's arrogance outside are called metallic watchtowers spikes are stuck to roofs but inside the Mansion what we get is a feeling of comfort sharp simply doesn't believe that he needs to reinforce his office or the journey to it with security gates and impenetrable doors Because he believes himself to be Untouchable hilariously The Joker and his men have capitalized on this they're here in full swing tearing the place apart in a desperate attempt to find the Titan formula this was once the home of Amadeus Arkham the asylum's founder a serious house on Sirius Earth tells us all we need to know about his own personal descent into madness but just in case you haven't read the graphic novel The Chronicles of Arkham are here to spell out the corruption and hypocrisy at the heart of his institution I took a walk around my Island I pass by the penitentiary and felt nauseous at the thought of the filth they've contained I looked out over the Gotham Bay and in the distance I saw lights no doubt boats bringing more filthy degenerates to my city it's through these Collectibles this side quest that we get a really affecting story that gives us a parallel between Batman and the man that Arkham once was both had their family murdered both turned that darkness that hate into something hopeful Batman wanted to extinguish crime and Gotham altogether and Arkham wanted to treat the criminally insane where they part is Arkham's fate in astounding detail the Chronicles depict a man who created the Asylum with the best of intentions but after his attempts to cure his family's killer failed his entire outlook on his patients became twisted and malformed eventually becoming a patient in his own Asylum Arkham's Chronicles give us an example of a Batman gone mad the game seems to draw a comparison between Arkham mansion and Wayne Manor it's here the Scarecrow appears for a second time gassing bats and setting him off on another Magical Mystery Tour through his trauma the corridors remain decadent but the the assets are replaced with vases and wood shelving That's Unique distinctly not Arkham before finally transforming into Crime Alley here we see once again the corpses of Martha and Thomas Wayne it seems like Asylum wants us to think of Bruce Wayne alongside Amadeus or does it because as you collect eacharkum Chronicle the story changes it transforms from a 20th century tale to a present day one eventually addressing the player directly some of these Chronicles could not be written by Amadeus Arkham instead they've been carved into slab by the warden Quincy sharp believing himself to be possessed by Arkham's founder at what point the Chronicles stop being Arkham and start being sharp is unclear but regardless what these stories tell us is the Asylum is not fit for purpose everything that happens in this game is a result of the corruption and brutality taking place under Quincy Sharp's watch he calls the patience Vermin he tortures and torments them out of some belief that he's an avenging Angel and worst of all he's a serial killer the Beast was too strong his animal savagery nearly cost me my life I took my frustrations out on a lone patient his case notes suggested here is a paranoid schizophrenic his pleas as I beat him to death suggested much more sharp actively describes some of his murders but the game's fantastic environmental storytelling shows us that the numbers are greater than we could ever imagine human skulls are buried in the walls we see a stack of them outside Killer Croc cell some of the guards joke that the basement of intensive treatment is a layer where Croc is allowed to patrol and sometimes patients will get lost down there the tone of these conversations is skeptical we don't get any real proof that anyone in Arkham knows the sharp is killing off patients but the game's subtext leads us to see the Asylum a Sharp's personal hunting ground is more cruel and evil and some of the criminals locked up in here but here is the difficult question what does that mean for Batman that man brutalizes the poor and mentally ill and Hollywood has a celebrating a sociopath that's what Benjamin Dixon wrote in 2019. it's a joke that's long past its funny by date and a take that's as nuanced and interesting as Superman is boring because of how strong he is and Captain America is an allegory for fascism I've seen the criticisms of how Asylum tackles mental illness how it reinforces Dixon's belief but I think that does the game a disservice and wrongfully projects Rocksteady as some sickening Studio that laughs at those who are suffering there is an absolutely brilliant article on the Royal College of psychiatrists titled Dr Christina Fawcett on the Batman Arkham series an incarceration of people with mental illness now you might immediately think with a name like that Dr Fawcett would tear the series to shreds missing that all-important Fantastical Lair the cloaks each minute of game time and World building but is quite the opposite quote Arkham is depicted in a manner that already presumes its failure as a space for rehabilitation by positioning it in Victorian buildings with old-fashioned torture styled devices it makes all the treatment feel outdated and ineffective because it's the brutality of the past we don't get a counter to that we very much see the dangers and threats of the system in a way that justifies Batman's violent interventions it justifies the way he engages with the space as brutal nothing else works so you may as well send in a guy with a big bat cowl to Bunch people I couldn't agree more with what Dr Fawcett says here she's perfectly described the environment Rock study have purposefully created for us to run around in the entire game is slavish in its attention to detail and nodding to its Inspirations so the Arc of Asylum we get is the one pulled from Grant Morrison's writing this is the Arkham Asylum of the DC Universe to my knowledge we've only ever seen one version of the Asylum that's healthy and fit for purpose a version led by a cured sane Joker in Batman White Knight but even with all of that in mind the game's handling of the subject matter isn't perfect wants an army a horrible Twisted Force to destroy Gotham but he couldn't do it without the formula I hid it but so now he has venom and your formula formula God he has gallons of the stuff there's a lab hidden in the gardens it's locked off but the security key codes for the entire Island are in the warden's safe what else is Joker planning how should I know you think anything he says makes sense we eventually find Dr Young in Quincy Sharp's office saving her from Victor's eyes she goes to get her formula but we're far too late Joker got there first stealing the formula and planting a bomb that kills her over the course of the night Batman will watch helplessly as Joker commits many many murders this is a story where he fails to save everyone and it's certainly one of the areas where rocks at his focus on his sobriety his ability to mask his emotions becomes more of a frustration than a benefit I don't believe bats should be on his knees crying over Young's corpse she's a mad scientist who developed Titan BY experimenting on a patient she's hardly innocent in all of this in fact the entire series is triggered by her accepting an anonymous sketchy donation and sharp approving her inhumane work but I do believe Batman should comment on what's happening in a more personal way this is a version of our hero who misguidedly thought throwing money at Arkham would help cure the patients within it he funded the entire medical wing and tonight he's faced with the consequences for that misguidedness he put his trust in the Arkham staff to treat the likes of Victor zaz and tonight he's confronted with evidence that he absolutely shouldn't have that he should have kept a closer eye on where his money went and what happened to the city's criminals after they were dropped here the Asylum might have originally been conceived to treat people but the medical practices in its walls are vile and dated some of the henchmen have scars around their heads showing us that their brains were operated on electroshock therapy was used we see this in the opening hour of the game for crying out loud body parts are kept in jars this whole setup is A Haunted House of human horror and Rocksteady know this the subtext is screaming at us that Arkham is a broken corrupt institution that best neglected those who need help and at worst made them actively worse Through Torture and torment Riddler leads us on a jaunty walk through the asylum's corruption in the form of the patient interviews and Joker is very open about how easy it was to take over the Asylum because it's rotting to the core there are many acts but they've got a bloody good point even at the end of the game Joker is sitting on a throne made up of presumably the skulls of Sharps victims my name is Quincy sharp the spirit of amadeusaka you have done well to decipher my story and I pray it has helped you on your path I trust that through my writings you will do what is right please I implore you continue my work this city deserves a savior continue my work when we collect all of the Arkham Chronicles we are offered a legitimate piece of detective Work Sharp outwardly challenges us to figure out his identity who's been scribbling these notes down and hiding them in the walls and if we've been paying attention we can head back to where he was for one final confession the game ends with sharp getting away with claims that he was victimized by The Joker and Batman says nothing he doesn't make a single comment he doesn't reach out to Oracle to ask her to track him down he doesn't get in touch with Gordon to warn him that a serial killer has escaped the island I don't subscribe to the belief that Asylum is problematic I just think it misses a great storytelling opportunity you can't accuse the game of not taking a stance because it does the architecture of the Asylum the places Sharp's luscious Mansion alongside the claustrophobic tunnels and cells to 50 of the talking poldini wrote Into the game The Joker's henchman from Blackgate were brought over to the Asylum so we don't just need to fight torture patients instead we're focusing on regular sane criminals that are completely in control of their faculties the lunatics are the one exception to that rule they're the most annoying enemy type and the one that makes me the most uncomfortable because of how aggressive bats is but the game arms you with tools to help suspend your disbelief Batman only takes him down with one hit he doesn't Relish in scaring them and hurting them like the regular Blackgate thugs is it a brutal animation yes but it's the same animation he uses when taking down innocent people under Ivy's control later on could Rocksteady have animated a more gentle takedown similar to what Insomniac Spider-Man did when he had to fight innocent people of course but there's evidence here the Rock Steady tried to make Batman's actions speak louder than words in this Mansion Batman shows no reverence for the old architecture or even Asylum as a structure in fact he trashes a chunk of the building when he drops a bell tower on it his behavior shows us that he's understood the Asylum doesn't necessarily really deserve to be saved but he has to stop the Joker or people in Gotham Will Die the game condemns sharp and the Asylum I just think it's a waste that Batman doesn't despite the secret room in Sharp's office with some bait for a second game and a post-credits scene rock steady weren't planning for a sequel Arkham City was barely a glint in Stefan Hill's eye in 2009 so they didn't have a clue what the fate of the Asylum would be but we do learn in the sequel that it was shot down with the benefit of hindsight I imagine Rocksteady would have patched in one or two lines of dialogue to Asylum that indicated Batman played a role in that shutdown Jackie young still you know how Mr J hates the Squealer talking about Squealers oh oh somebody help me our foray into Arkham mansion is one major setback not only has the Joker stolen the Titan formula and murdered its creator but Harley Quinn's now here to tell us that she's captured Ward and sharp oh no he's such a stand-up guy we better rescue him it's time for a hunt Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat Mad Hatter sits in the Asylum kitchens huge pots and vials bubble with chemicals and gases he takes a deep breath of his pipe and as he speaks his words are thick with smoke how I wonder where you're at Hatter tells Batman how he was so glad he could make it he has so many things to say you must be feeling quite Fragile by now I expect this house that does things to the Mind Batman says nothing just a shadow where was I where am I where will I be ah yes the apparent disorder of the universe is simply a higher order an implicate order beyond our comprehension that's why children interest me they're all mad you see but in each of them is an implicant adult order out of chaos he Strokes a frail white dress draped on the floor to know them is to know myself little girls especially he takes a deep breath sometimes he says sometimes I think the Asylum is ahead we're inside a huge head the dreams us all into being perhaps it's your head Batman Batman turns to see a huge mirror he reaches out touches the glass Arkham is a Looking Glass after it says and we are you November 1921 the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the criminally insane opens its doors one of Arkham's first patients is mad dog Hawkins the man who killed his family Hawkins relishes telling Arkham what he did to his wife and child all of the Gory details repeated over and over Arkham patiently listens he treats Hawkins for six months he's praised for his courage and compassion and on April 1st 1922 he straps mad dog into electroshock couch and burns him alive it's treated as an accident these things happen Arkin can't escape the smell of burning skin but even after taking his revenge he feels nothing often he visits a secret room in the Asylum a room only he knows about there he keeps his journal up to date routine is important he thinks it diverts the Mind from the more morbid things sometimes he hears laughter coming from an empty cell he tapes up his mirror that seems to stop it but the longer he works the more patience he treats the more he feels like he's just become an essential part to some incomprehensible biological process the house is an organism hungry for madness he writes in his journal it is the maze that dreams and I am lost Ark of Asylum wasn't the first game to adopt a system like detective Vision you could arguably date it back to Ocarina of Time or Condemned criminal Origins but the most obvious influence is in Assassin Creed's Eagle Vision however the reason why even today we compare stuff like Witcher sense or wraith mode to detective vision and not Eagle Vision is because of how confident and impactful rocksteady's design of it is Quincy sharp took a bump to the Noggin when Harley Quinn kidnapped him so we need to track him down by following his blood this journey takes us across the island to the penitentiary that houses Arkham's lunatics and one more big bad for us to take on so what better time to really look at detective vision and see how it holds up all these years later bowls dropped his flask sloppy let's see what the forensic scanner picks up way way back at the start of the game just as the nightmare was being born Batman needs to track Frank balls through the Asylum by following traces of whiskey on his breath this is our tutorial to detect Division and we see Bats rifle through different views to get to one that can analyze alcohol in the air this level of detail is what makes a system so impressive the Aesthetics of it are so cool that is easy to forget just how simple it is in a mechanical sense it's covered in gorgeous little touches like having balls brand of whiskey or Gordon's brand of tobacco flash up on screen or how if we use it during stealth we can see the heart rates of thugs increase the more terrified they become something as simple as a differently colored filter adds a lot to the sense of preparedness and technological Acumen that makes Batman the hero he is depending on what it is we're tracking tobacco whiskey blood pheromones the filter will change adding a distinct pale wine around objects in the environment so it all doesn't blend together this gear is integral to Batman's role as the world's greatest detective with tiny pieces of information flashing up on screen like whether or not someone is unconscious or dead you're reminded of Batman's non-lethality in this mode and how it contrasts with the murderous instincts of his villains but what we do in our one to find Frank bowls is identical to what we'll do in hour 8 to find Quincy sharp we jump into first person mode find something to scan and then follow the blue brick road to our destination there isn't really much detecting comparing the thought process behind the riddle hunts to the thought process Behind these small detective vignettes is night and day Batman's gear does all of the deduction for us here we don't need to piece a crime scene together because the crimes are always so simple Sharps cane is on the floor it's the only notable thing in the room I wonder what I need to scan in an interview with Games Radar senior gameplay programmer Paul Denning gave us a little bit of insight as to why detective Vision was designed the way it was quote originally our forensic system was a lot bigger he said we had four months prototyping at the beginning of the project and a lot of the stuff we did for forensics we ended up dropping or leaving out because we didn't really think it would fit with the way the game was going if you look at the way the forensics works there's not much of it in there and we felt that anytime we needed to learn a mechanic it would always be thrown away straight away because you'd be past that section because of how the game is structured Rock said he decided to focus on one simple tool that did a lot of stuff at once rather than adding depth for depth's sake I don't completely agree with the arguments the detective Vision does too much for example the fact it highlights vents to crawl through or walls to destroy adds to the sense of empowerment we get when using it but I do think it lacks Dimension it might have been a purposeful decision by the team but it's still a bit of a letdown during sections like this where we're tracking down sharp or balls the there's no variation here nothing to throw a spanner in the works like a disrupter or I don't know a second brand of whiskey that could confuse us I'm really not interested in a bunch of flowers ivy just stay where you are last thing I need is you running free deep into the penitentiary we eventually find The Green Mile a long walkway leading up to a vast chamber dedicated to poison horde I mean Ivy there's a one-two punch here where she begs both Batman and Harley Quinn to release her independent of one another and both of them are so uninterested in the plight of her plants that they tell her to get lost however Harley thinking what's the harm lets her out so she can run off to the botanical gardens Rocksteady originally wanted to add Mr Freeze to asylum's rogue's Gallery but chose not to because they thought they'd have to bastardize his characterization in order to make him a threat they thought frieza's goals wouldn't align with Jokers so in an environment like the Asylum he wouldn't get in Batman's way if anything he'd probably help him there's a similar risk with poison ivy she's fond of Harley frustrated with Batman but despises Joker she's always been an equal Warrior so making her a sincere tangible threat in the comics often involve her power spilling out of control just look to Tom King's Stellar run where she takes over the world leaving just Batman and Catwoman to take her on that's exactly what happens here her villain turn in Asylum only comes after Joker injects her with Titan so we get an excuse to fight her without needing to worry about any messy character stuff there's also do you smell that smells good wow huh you know maybe detective Vision doesn't flawed after all yeah it's it's perfect just the way it is everything's perfect especially Ivy she likes detective Vision so I like detective Vision yeah mechanically it's it's great man the game offers up opportunities to use detectivision during exploration and outside of these scripted moments where we follow smells or fingerprints it reveals electrical currents under the floor or through walls so we can follow them to security panels and unlock more spaces true it does boil down to following the thing again but I like the rocks that I have tried to cram in as much usefulness for it as they can in regular gameplay death The Dark Knight dark nothing how's it hanging baths Harley strings up a couple of security guards above electrified water and counts down while we scramble to find the panels and shut off the power here there's an immediate correlation to using detectivision and completing an objective and it's not the only time the main story uses it to overcome a villain-specific obstacle it's also a key crutch during stealth because it lets bats see enemies through walls simulating that feeling of being the Batman activating it would be the first thing I'd always do at the start of a stealth Arena just so I could get away of the land and where all the Vantage points are where the explodable walls where the Gargoyles where are the vents where are the goons four important questions when plotting my root and four important questions the detective Vision answers when using the challenge Maps I like to give it a go without detective Vision just to challenge myself and while that does add a sense of difficulty I think it takes away from the sense of being a predator just a little bit you don't realize just how cool something is until it's gone I just wish there was a way to tag enemies with it because turning it on flashes up an obnoxious Split Second Sheen of white as hard on the eyes it's also useful in combat the Arkham games are generally fantastic at Illuminating important information through color coding for example the stumbotones the thugs wield are a bright shiny blue slowly stand out but if you need that extra leg up you can turn on detective mode and see which baddies need to be prioritized guns knives batons they all light up a crystal clear red so you can reset your spatial awareness during free flow it's basically an accessibility feature years before they were expected in Triple A games fancy another interview when Sefton Hill spoke to gamer Sutra he described how they found their Batman quote we started by taking facets of the character from the comics directly and said these are the things that are Batman we wrote those things on a board and said we have to make a game that really exaggerates these things and brings them to the foray detective Vision really exaggerates Batman's technical prowess and his preparedness that was rocksteady's mission and even when we're a little frustrated by how surface level it is it's hard not to look at Asylum and think yeah mission complete you did it I feel like Batman and I started just started thinking like him all the way back here hey hands up the merchandise that's my party list quiet why this miles next to certain names yeah you're the detective you tell me I can't say the same for how we take down Harley Quinn she hides up in a Control Center and we fight a handful of goons before locking her up in a cut scene even throwing her in as part of the hordes we need to battle would have been better than this it's a real disappointment only softened by the hilarious reveal the Joker is so petty that he strikes her off his party list because she was defeated by us but with Quincy sharp sadly saved and Harley Quinn out of the picture it's time to follow poison ivy to the botanical gardens let me get my Wellies the entrance to electro-compulsive therapy has Greek letters scrawled above it a childish chisel into the Rock stating discover thyself inside sits Maxi Zeus plugged into the generator wires are inserted into his temples his chest his arms his legs charging a steady flow of electricity into his body his skin is blue or is it just the light nobody can tell ah he Muses as Batman enters ah Pilgrim come into my Essence Pilgrim gaze upon the Lord thy God he holds an oak barrel in his hands hundreds of flies Buzz around it too many to count like they could swarm and overtake Zeus at any moment the fire of Heaven he says look here I've saved it all there's power in it you see Batman can't bring himself to speak Zeus takes the lid off of the barrel and even more flies burst from within he stares inside with provenance eat drink this is my body this is my blood the AC DC altar awaits let me know you in the form of a shower of Sparks he offers the barrel towards Batman here my gift to you I can give you power Batman backs slowly out of the room before returning to the Shadows again he runs with Zeus's screams echoing through the tunnels behind him Amadeus Arkham is at the Opera Wagner's parsiful his friends have dragged him out tonight because of his ill health they're hoping to pull him away from his work he worries that they don't understand he's breaking time's becoming strange back at home he takes mushrooms hoping they'll give him Clarity his thoughts come together and tell him that the house the Asylum it's alive is trying to communicate with him he watches as two clownfish glide through the air toward each other making the sign of Pisces Pisces that's it the symbol of trial and initiation just like the Beatles his mother would eat it's a symbol of rebirth it's here that our two stories Clash we see Batman fall into the lair of Killer Croc and Amadeus Arkham's Journal haunts each panel each page as Batman raises his head and looks into the eyes of a monster Arkham thinks about how the Asylum has shown him a path he must follow it where it leads he must confront the madness head on as we see Croc rumbling out of the darkness Arkham resolves to face the dragon within himself Batman and Croc slash at each other Batman is too slow too groggy too mad to stand a chance Arkham notes that he has just one fear that he's not strong enough to kill the dragon within not strong enough to face the madness as Croc lifts Batman into the air Arkham's fear grows and grows taking hold and as Batman is thrown out of the window out of the Asylum Amadeus Arkham's world EX loads with panic and Terror outside the Asylum is a statue of Michael the angel holding the spear that slew the old Dragon Lucifer as he falls Batman grabs it ripping it free he now has a weapon to fight Croc Arkham rights of running blindly through the Asylum know the mad house he writes how he can't even pray because he has no God now he hears children singing his name Arkham Arkham Arkham and then he trips falling for what feels like forever and as he does we see Batman break back into Croc's Lair he spins around and Jabs the spear right through Croc's belly penetrating the scales Croc falls back in 1921 Arkham collapses to the floor no longer able to tell where the madness ended and he began he's lost foreign Gotham why is that Batman's domain metropolis's name and design makes sense for Superman it's a city of the future where an advanced alien species solves all of your problems for you Smallville is a small humble Village DC has never been the most imaginative with names just look at Star City but why does the Batman stick out like a sore thumb in somewhere like Metropolis but Blends so perfectly with a sound and Buzz of Gotham why did Batman's creators double down on a name that could be mocked as looking like got tan for the first three issues of his existence Batman didn't Patrol the streets of Gotham he patrolled Manhattan but in the winter of 1940 Bill Finger decided that because bats were so Fantastical he needed a more Fantastical setting with a more vague name before it became synonymous with the Dark Knight it was a nickname for New York penned by the writer Washington Irving but even that isn't where finger got it no the name Gotham brilliantly was ripped out of a phone book it was the name of a Jeweler's the comics had the beginnings of the Gotham we know today with its towering brickwork and metallic twisting shapes but the city we see splashed on our pages and current issues can arguably be dated to 1989. the sketch is on screen now are from Anton first The Mastermind behind the city's Luke in Tim Burton's film and Burton is said that looking back he doesn't think Batman 89 did First's work Justice just a couple of years later the Animated Series would splash some art deco onto Gotham's wealthiest buildings but it did so in a way that contrasted the old Gothic architecture to show the clear class divide in its version of Gotham Gotham wasn't originally conceived to be this brooding pointed landscape but nowadays it's impossible to think of it as anything else even the title screen of the underrated TV show focuses on the silhouette of its timelessness Bruce Wayne billionaire playboy philanthropist CEO of went is the Batman and being the Batman he belongs with gargoyles and spiral towers and pointed rooftops unless you're doing a hyper realized version like the Nolan films the architecture is key to the suspension of disbelief but I think it goes a little further Gotham is forever a story of old versus new clashing against each other both adding to the surrealism but also reinforcing how the corruption and rot is being here forever fresh new ways of thinking are necessary if the city is going to improve a brand new district attorney a brand new commissioner a brand new type of hero they're all forces of new fighting against Gotham's poisonous past and sometimes like in the case of Harvey Dent Gotham's poison bites back so of course Rocksteady went all out when they designed Arkham asylum's environments the architecture here is part of some wider World building even though we don't see the streets of Gotham even though we're self-contained on the island you feel that Clash of old Anew in the asylum's walls the game makes it very easy to imagine what Gotham City must be like across the water because of how fully realized this tiny slice of the world is you need to stop this now before it goes too far stop but everyone's dying to see what I do next let him go now really okay if you say so that no the botanical gardens with its leafy greens gushing fountains and flourishing flowers stands with Arkham mansion as being distinctly memorable just because of how different its Vibe is from the brooding horrific Wards of the main Asylum Batman is here for Ivy we learned that Titan is being synthesized from a Venom plant hybrid and the only way to shut down this whole operation is to create an antidote so we clamber through the leaves to ask her for help but unfortunately for bats Joker and his men got here first the gardens threw setback after setback at us Joker murders the guards just a few feet from Batman parts of the level are locked off by electrified water and eventually he gets away with a chunk of Titan we're here for a while so while bat stops and smells the Roses I want to talk about asylum's approach to World building Arkham might be a facility in the most clinical sense of the word but there's more of the old in here than there is the new I referenced the dated approach to treating the patients but it's important for us to flag how much history is etched into its walls you don't need to dig that deep to find old ruins parts of the Asylum that have fallen away to time the patient interviews are on Old tape reels far too big to belong in a real 2009 World in fact the only parts of Gotham's high-tech facility that are actually high tech are the security gates and the huge metal doors that lock off certain parts the elevator squeaks and groans with just one passenger the waterways below are old-fashioned aqueducts the new is losing to the old in here barely able to make a dent in Arkham's history of disease and torment Asylum weaves its game design and that sense of history and livability in a way that's so convincing that you forget that all of this is purposely designed to be played not just wander through seeing as we're in the botanical gardens let's look at a specific example there's an Aviary in here that's really just a stealth Arena a couple of doctors or locked up in cages and Joker's men are threatening to drop them into the Hall below if they see the Batman it's not just a room with a big hole in it there's a natural sense of height and verticality to the space because it's an Aviary birds live here the botanical gardens is positioned off of a cliff face in the ground so the fact there's a huge drop from one of the upper floors makes sense the same can be said for this stealth arena in the medical facility it's probably the most well-known setup because it was part of the demo and gameplay trailers a control center sits in the Middle with walkways skirting around it giving layers and options to the bat but again these walkways also make sense because underneath the control center is a quarantine chamber before entering the main medical facility it provides steam that we can use to hide from Joker's goons none of this feels designed just to be in a video game even though that is intrinsically the case when I discussed how fantastic idos's Guardians of the Galaxy game was linked below I flagged just how important I think flavor text is in games like these if the devil is in the detail Arkham Asylum must have been conceived in hell well because around every corner is something that contributes to World building you rescued the wrong Warden he's an imposter you know how many freaks are in this place clayfaces in the penitentiary stomping back and forth and will transform into sharp Gordon or Aaron cash if you turn your back begging Batman to let them out even Richelle ghoul's body is sitting in the morgue which has some weird implications for Arkham City but let's not think about that for now even though we see just a small percentage of Batman's vast catalog of Rogues there's evidence here of the asylum's long history with them they're either running around and we just don't bump into them or they were here long ago and have since been released oh and just as a quick aside the patient tapes that give background and detail to our cast of villains can be listened to while running around and exploring meaning you don't need to sit in your menu to drink up that all-important flavor text thankfully this is a trend that continued in every AAA video game after 2009 isn't that right Calissa protocol you Bastion of [ __ ] because of this emphasis on on History we get to understand more about where in Batman's career he is he's had time to develop a Batmobile all of these gadgets a satellite bat cave and even the Batwing which appears here in fact towards the end of the botanical gardens Batman looks at a rovina thinks hmm I'm gonna need something to get over this Ravine he doesn't just look for an angle to Grapple up to he summons the goddamn batwing to drop off the line launcher you've been in the dark too long every plant on this island will get the same unless you cooperate there's a plant growing deep in Arkham Island only it can counter the effects of this Titan strain eventually finding Ivy bats ask her for help and finding the Venom plants needed to make the Titan antidote she's still sour because we didn't let her out earlier but regardless with a wicked smile she tells us there's only one place on the island that the plants grow killer Crocs Lair Tick Tock as we leave the botanical gardens Joker pops up on the sound system to let us know he's been a right mischievous Scamp and injected ivy with Titan she loses control of her powers and suddenly the island is overgrown with vines and plant life asylum's world changes as the story progresses it's not just the color palette I outlined earlier emergent beats and changes to the environment happen with every objective we complete giving us a sense of a night passing and an island falling to Madness Quincy sharp statue is graffitied with a big gleeful smile a third of the way through when the lunatics are released from the penitentiary we can find one sitting on top of it now that Ivy's plants for running wild he's entangled in Vines we can see lunatics fighting with Ivy's plants now that they've grown around the grounds Joker's men are slowly transforming The Visitor Center for the party he keeps teasing us about we see splashes of paint around the entrance that eventually turn into a huge painting of the clown Prince himself we can even go here early and have a quick chat with him where he tells us to come back at Showtime when Harley kidnaps sharp she even makes him do readings into the speakers anyone caught doing sir would be oh this is stupid it's the least that guy deserves asylums villains especially the Joker feel omnipresent television screens are strewn around the facility so he can pop up whenever he likes and broadcast himself to us a little reminder if we impossibly forget that he's pulling the strings even when he's not on screen the game is coated in incidental dialogue with Mark Hamill working overtime time to yell at his henchmen yell at Batman or generally just Babble about how much fun he's having in a story that spans about 12 hours I think Joker is physically around for maybe 30 minutes but every minute after that is likely to have his voice echoing around the Asylum this isn't just for entertainment's sake though it also gives us a more rounded sense of who this Joker is he's supposed to be plotting and planning and scheming to take over Gotham with barrels of Titan but if we're being frank it's clear this is all just one big game an island-wide puzzle for Batman to crack the Joker refuses to tear himself away from his microphone from his taunting because all he cares about is what he's doing to Batman that's his superpower his ability to wear away the thick hide of the bat to make him question to make him go mad in the Asylum he'll even start rooting for us thinking aloud that maybe he should warn his men were coming that his plans might be scuppered if we don't but decides against it because it's funny and that that is saying nothing of the enemy dialogue but if we're going to talk about that we've got to talk about Predator mode and stealth the night's not over yet wincing from his injuries with Croc Batman wildly lashes out to the thick boot it connects with the wall and bizarrely the whole thing comes down he stumbled into Amadeus Arkham's secret room and he's not alone good evening Batman says Arkham's wardened cavidish he's holding Dr Adam's hostage with a razor blade to her neck he cut me Adam says weekly Batman immediately understands the situation Cavendish frees the inmates this whole night of Madness was because of him he wanted this to happen but why I only did what had to be done you read the book on the table you'll see he points to a journal Amadeus Arkham's Journal I've marked the place for you go on read it you'll see Arkham's words float off of the page he describes the night his mother died she lies in bed moaning there's something in the corner of the room she says something that's come for her as Amadeus kneels by his mother's bedside he hears the beating of Wings slowly at first and then faster and faster and he looks up he's sees it the thing that is tormented and haunted his mother for years a bat Elizabeth Arkham flails begging her son don't let it take me don't let it Take Me Amadeus closes his eyes don't be afraid mother he pulls out a razor it won't take you I promise he raises the blade in the air and with a terrifying Crescendo brings it down slitting her throat Batman reads the rest of Arkham's words scrawled across the page I understand now what my memory tried to keep from me he writes Madness is born in the blood it is my Birthright my inheritance my destiny I shall contain the presences that roam these rooms and narrow stairways I shall surround them with bars and walls and electrified fences and pray they never break free leather Wings enfold me do you see now Cavendish froths at Batman still holding Adam's hostage it's you you who've kept this place supplied with poor or mad souls for years you who fed this hungry house you are the bat no Batman stumbles to find the words I'm just a man I'm not fooled by that cheap disguise Cavender spits back he explains how Arkham studied shamanistic practices he knew that only rituals and Magic could contain the bat he used salt to banish evil spirits he scratched a binding spell onto the floor of his cell with his fingernails two years ago I found this room Cavendish goes on I read his journal I just couldn't stop thinking about what Arkham had said and I realized it was my destiny to finish what he started so he smiles I set a trap for the bat foreign to get to Croc's Lair we need to go back through intensive treatment the classic way through is blocked by Vines so wait what what what what's happening the games crashed what is this Gotham Knights scarecrow's third and final appearance breaks past Batman's fears and slides into the psyche of the player with gleeful abandon where reset back to the beginning of the game watching that slick wet opening cut scene where Batman brings Joker to the Asylum but something has changed the Moon looks a little different Joker is driving the car the roles have been reversed the bat has been broken scarecrow's fourth wall break almost didn't make it into the game Rock said he had to fight their Corner because Warner Brothers were worried people would really think the game had crashed but there's something even cooler Happening Here than just an apocalyptic demolishing of the fourth wall we're getting an even deeper dive into Batman's mental state as his Knight in Arkham comes to an end he's a patient in this Vision strapped down screaming in first person we watch as scarecrow Harley and Joker leer at him like the doctors did to Joker at the beginning of the game Joker spent eight hours tease us claiming we're as crazy as he is we run around dressed like a bat after all this is one of Batman's greatest fears that he is going a little mad that deep down he belongs in here with his villains scarecrow's nightmare levels flip the Caped Crusader's strength and confidence on its head we're Predator become prey a rat caught in a trap racing around a swirling Vortex without the means to protect ourselves a Mad Doctor so big so cataclysmically big hunts for us chases us wiping us out with a one-hit kill because we're so weak is this how the insane inmates see the doctors when they pull can prodded them is this the same level of fear they have when they're undergoing electroshock therapy can we really say that lunatics locked in cages don't experience something like this every morning without the help of scarecrow's fear toxin but just like Grant Morrison said you're not God until you know what it feels like to be a mouse caught in a trap we're not truly Batman until we experience is that jolt of fear if the Scarecrow levels simulate that then Predator mode and stealth make us feel like God so as Batman showcases his superhuman discipline overcomes scarecrow's Toxin and pursues Dr crane into the sewers let's talk about feeling like a predator the invisible Predator mode is really the core feeling of Being Batman you know we we have bad guys that got guns Batman is a superhero but he's not you know superhuman if a guy unloads a shotgun in his face you know it's going to hurt a bit Paul Crocker there lead narrative designer on Arkham Asylum he goes on in this interview to flag out the game's stealth mechanics are one of the core pillars of feeling like Batman and more than any other part of the game more than combat more than exploration more than detecting this is definitely the most polished part each stealth Arena has a similar setup an average of six bad guys armed with deadly weapons Patrol the area Batman needs to survey the space plan his route and clean them out there are only a couple of rare moments where there are insta fails for being detected where stealth is a must so this is an entire system designed to be an option to the player if you want to drop down and risk getting Batman's head blown off you are more than welcome to do so so if stealth is just an option to the player how do Rocksteady makers want to use it how do they make it fun enter Predator mode the ultimate Batman power fantasy with a fully upgraded arsenal of tools and skills we can control a Batman that plays with his food one of the more thrilling things about the bat is how he uses fear and theatrics to disarm his enemies he doesn't have powers he might be skilled at martial arts but a bullet to the face can take him down pretty easily so if he's gonna come out on top he needs to wage psychological warfare on his foes as they Patrol the arena Joker's henchmen will Mumble to each other and follow a set path at the beginning of the section they're nervous but in control they even tease each other about who will be the first to gun us down and what their reward will be but as you start picking them off their behavior will change first it's a little burst of panic ordering each other to keep an eye out then as another one of their friends has picked off they'll start pairing up thinking their strengths in numbers we see their heart rates pick up with each second of bone chilling Terror that we stretch out for as long as we like until finally there's just one poor Thug left Joker in one ear laughing at him crooning that if he can't kill Batman he'll shoot his family the sounds of a whooshing cape in the other searching the shadows for his Tormentor the variety of stealth tactics and asylums seem almost trite when you compare to what the series will later give us for example vents are only useful for escape or maneuverability but there's still plenty of directions your stealthy Batman can take I fly to the back claw earlier and how it can pool henchmen over walkways the enemies are pulled right out of the Invincible comic so they don't look up meaning if you use an inverted takedown to hang someone from a gargoyle it will look like he vanished Into Thin Air explosive jail Sonic batarangs and regular batarangs mean you can set up takedowns from far away or simply use them to split up baddies when they decide to pair up one thing I don't like and this really is a nitpick is the auto aim system for the batarangs it automatically locks them onto enemies when all I want to do is distract them if we get caught we can grapple up to the Gargoyles dotted around most Arenas to escape back into the Shadows but the best thing about this isn't how fluid it feels which it does but how there's still a punishment despite being able to get away at a moment's notice because a moment is all it might take Batman is very vulnerable to bullets and there's a momentary delay when using the grapple needing to wait for it to attach to a gargoyle before it can pull us free this isn't to get out of jail free card there's an aching fool second between pressing R1 and flying out of there and you can take a good bit of damage if you wait too long it's just one of the ways Rocksteady aren't afraid to challenge you even while letting you live out your power fantasy it isn't one note there's a couple of solid curveballs later in the game and a couple of Arenas the Gargoyles are armed with bombs this was something I thought only appeared in Arkham City and I was very surprised to see them here whoops not only do the explosive gargoyles mean Batman can't sit up high and plan his route they also alert enemies if we set them off even if we're able to get away Scot 3 we lose that all important element of surprise meaning they leap into Panic stations immediately and you need to concentrate on splitting them up the suicide callers so named because they sound an alarm if a thug's heartbeat drops too low also speed up how quickly the enemy AI changes but the beauty of these is you can overcome this possible spike in difficulty by using them to your advantage there's nothing better than taking a criminal down leaving an explosive gel popping out there and blowing all of his friends to Kingdom Come when they go to investigate I am the Knight [ __ ] One Step close the cave will fill with your deepest darkest nightmares and you will never reach your precious Venom Roots conveniently our efforts to catch scarecrow lead us to Croc's Lair we can apprehend them and find the Venom plants we can kill two birds with one stone oh oh oh sorry John with scarecrow's supposed to death Massacre by kroken left erupt in the Asylum sewage our Target changes from prey to Predator to prey again it's time for the Killer Croc boss fight if scarecrow toyed with us with a Macabre fourth wall break and Predator mode gives us the feeling of a hunter in the shadows Killer Croc's boss is a true highlight because of how tense it is all tension before this point comes from the player when sitting atop a gargoyle we create that all-important back and forth to inspire fear in our enemies they never know when Batman's going to come at them but in Crocs tunnels it's the other way around making Waylon Jones AKA Killer Croc a legitimate monster was one of rocksteady's best decisions his 1983 debut had him looking like this just a big green gangster that probably inspired suicide squad's Thug with a skin condition it wasn't until Batman hush that he was injected with a virus that made his mutations and ferociousness even more terrifying and that seems to be the version we're getting here thank God because the last time we saw a Croc before Arkham Asylum was Brian azarello and Libra maho's Joker where he's a big gray pushover and a story full of even grayer duller villains because Croc is a ferocious beast in the Arkham verse rock said he got to really invest in making him terrifying his boss fight is multi-staged concentrated explicitly on fear tension and anticipation Batman used to find Venom plants in his lair but we need to move slowly and calmly relying on a heart monitor to track if we're being too loud walking on thin planks of wood with water Rippling out if we make too much noise he will eventually track us down forcing us to stun him if we want her personal face back the concept has been talked to death by now I think we can all agree that Killer Croc's boss is the standout in a game stuffed with mediocre ones but returning to Arkham I completely forgot about one of the more interesting things about this fight we need to regularly swap between the line launcher the batarangs and finally the explosive gel to navigate his lair keep him off our back and eventually defeat him when it all comes crashing down on Waylon Jones's head I look at the sequence and I see it as the game testing our skills with stealth and gadgets with all of his talk about Stealth I am aware that I failed to dive into one of the key things that make Arkham Asylum so lauded we've touched on it briefly in the other sections but as we start to wrap up with just two big bads left to confront let's turn our attention to the game's level design and structure cool Cavendish you're sick Batman says you need help I'm sick the warden laughs have you looked in the mirror lately he throws himself at the bat foam bubbling from his mouth with the razor he gouges a Batman's arm knocking him to the floor kneeling on top Cavendish starts to choke the life out of him the Mommy's boy he grants Mommy's boy and Batman weakened from his night in the mad house can't do anything but beg Ruth Adams for help she stands watching help us lose the two men grapple on the ground the light starts to leave Batman's eyes and then she picks up the razor and cuts cavendish's throat mommy he wheezes and falls to the ground dead Adams drops the blade staring at the body in Horror oh my God she moons his throat I didn't mean to I Batman's voice horse Echoes out of the Gloom he got what he deserved he goes on to ask if she knows the way out Adams points him in the right direction with a trembling hand Batman asks if she still has two faces coin no more torment will happen tonight Adams pulls the coin from her pocket and offers it to Batman you're going back there aren't you you're going to undo all of my work what are you taking the coin Batman rolls it between his fingers stronger than them stronger than this place I have to show them Adams tells him that's insane exactly that man Bears his teeth Arkham was right sometimes it's only Madness that makes us what we are he grabs an ax hanging on the wall and heads back to the bowels of the Asylum or perhaps destiny the process is slow difficult and doesn't produce much antidote the chemical will definitely stop IV it may also reverse the Titan transformation using the back computer we synthesize an antidote for Titan hooray but it only gives us two samples boo but that's all right because the computer is synthesizing more it just needs a little bit of time hooray but whoops Ivy's plants got to your first destroying the computer and trashing the bat cave boo with just one cure Batman holds his resolve and returns to the botanical gardens to cure poison ivy because the plant life has taken over the island and obliterated the entrance to the bat cave we've got to take the long wave round back underground through crumbling ruins in the old Aqueduct and it's here we start to see one of the final stages of Joker's plan in motion we abandoned him to deal with IV scarecrow and Croc so he's throwing a strop and pouring gallons of Titan into the water pumping it into Gotham the stakes have been raised if we don't stop him now the city will be full of monsters by Sunrise the next half hour of gameplay strips asylums level design down for all to see even the wobbly bits there's a lot of great here especially in how the Arenas are structured but it's not without its failings this whole section through the aqueduct doesn't let us use Batman's grapple because it can't cling to the tumbling brickwork which means we need to find our way up the old-fashioned way through climbing holding the Run button gives Batman an automatic leap off of Cliff faces and he can cling to predetermine gaps in the wall to pull himself up just like the Riddler trophies into metroidvanisms the individual climbing beats get a bit samey by the final hour there's a lack of depth and dimension like this Elevator Shaft where we need to blow up four walls in a row to give us Ledges to Grapple to comparing the fun factor of combat into Predator mode tube sections like these might make you wish that there was more punching and less grappling and I get it in fact in many ways I completely agree it's hardly award-winning gameplay but I struggled to hate these sections too much for a few reasons the first is that they only come up three times the caves the start of the game when Harley drops a lift on us and the aqueduct they're spread apart well enough that losing our grapple never feels contrived the second is in the fact we need to find our way around emphasis on the word find it's not that much of this as difficult but their solid obstacles that make us think about how Batman navigates the space he's not wall jumping or doing acrobatic flips their move sets better suited to a game where you play as Robin or at least they should be Gotham Knights instead we are calculating our way through a level despite being built like a brick [ __ ] Batman is a surprisingly Nimble character but he's Nimble because of his gadgets the line launcher and the grappler are the only tools at his disposal so we need to find Vantage points to use them that line him up appropriately the questions how will I get around this or how will I get out of this room are never more than a few minutes away but the answer usually takes more than a couple of seconds you need to drink in the space and plot your way out without sections like these Arkham Asylum could devolve into walking from Arena it to Arena but it never does for example when we return to Arkham mansion to catch up with Aaron cash poison gas has flooded the ground floor so we can't just Walt soon through the front door like we did last time instead we need to knock out a sniper grapple to a watchtower use the line launcher to get in on the second floor and then keep using the launcher to move from walkway to walkway just like the exploding walls previously the issue is that our gadgets don't necessarily talk to each other so there isn't much intricacy but there is something to be said for the game's variety because it never stops changing up what Batman is doing or the context for doing it that's pump 3 disabled I'm going to head back up to the surface and track down IVs shutting down the three pipes pumping Titan into the water means we need to undergo three challenges a small Stakes combat Arena a stealth Arena and then a gauntlet of enemies including a Titan in a tiny contained chamber this is probably the hardest fight in the entire game because keeping away from the Titan requires us to always be on the move so free flow is diluted it's tight and tricky and the Titans can be frustrating but it's fresh we haven't had a claustrophobic combat Arena yet so it requires a Twist in how we approach the game this isn't the only time the game switches up in otherwise standard scenario with unique gimmicks Harley's battle in the penitentiary might be a letdown because of the lack of a boss but the use of shock panels in the floor mean we always need to be moving adding a bit of spice to our combat cocktail Way Way Back at the start of the game when she takes Gordon hostage gives us a stealth Arena that doesn't have any gargoyles and if we're caught Gordon dies so the stakes are raised and we need to recalibrate how we approach Predator mode occasional restrictions are just as important as options when it comes to structuring a game and because of how Rocksteady have approached the context of each situation these restrictions feel like a natural evolution of the world and that's why I've Blended talking about the game's structure with a discussion on its level design because when we applaud one we're actually applauding them both in a vacuum the only legitimately interesting and effective level design in Arkham Asylum are the stealth Arenas because they're layered with vents gargoyles walkways tunnels and exploding walls everything else is standard and expected but with a glossy coat of Collectibles Easter eggs and fantastic environmental storytelling what makes it all Stand Out is the wide variety of scenarios and context that the game keeps batting our way oh how frustrating I thought it was going to be easy didn't you as tonight aren't you nothing in two minutes the room will fill with happiness the audience will be in fits of ecstasy then die this is my favorite moment in the game I was going to talk about it earlier but thought I'd save it for when we look at structure because it is so goddamn cool and it sounds at my point perfectly at the midpoint in Arkham mansion we stumble across a library it's three floors each locked off by a security gate but connected by haphazard vents in these walls Joker tells us is a bomb clock's ticking better get to work so why is this so good like a lot of things in Arkham Asylum it comes down to context it's all ripped right out of a Saturday morning cartoon it might as well be an episode of the Animated Series it feels unique and different it's a game Joker has set up a micro challenge for Batman that has very little to do with the overarching goal of shutting down the Titan operation once again we are saving people taking on a puzzle that the Joker has set up because we're at his Mercy in the Asylum we need to play his game Joker is counting down the seconds to pile on the pressure and the way that the player is challenged is the through their navigation skills we need to find a way to get to the top of the room detective mode helps us by flagging where the vents are but there are a fair few and not all of them are necessarily the right choice so we need to frantically figure out the best route to the top and after all of this Panic or reward is the realization that there never was a bomb in the first place it was one big joke a punching glove leaps out of the box and the Joker's cackling Echoes through the room we might have thought we bested him but he got us good Asylum repeats situations like these again and again changing up the formula and the context of that formula so the mission structure doesn't get stale think of each building in the Asylum As a zelda-esque Dungeon set up to make the most of whatever new Gadget bats has picked up with micro goals and objectives but inside each dungeon is a new villain-led scenario to keep things spicy there are two zaz hostage situations one mandatory riddle to solve three Harley Quinn standoffs three scarecrow levels two Joker puzzle rooms and we're about to come up on a sequence where we need to fight brainwashed guards under Ivy's control destroyed Batman I told you to go to your cell with the Titan Supply shut off bats has one task left before confronting the Joker stopping Ivy Titan has made her more manic than usual for all the plotting planning and preparation everything goes back to a classic Joker plan it was to make everyone as crazy as he is both physically and mentally Ivy's boss joins Croc as feeling unique in asylum's landscape she hovers over a battlefield protected by a pod and we need to wait for that pod to open up so we can toss a batarang at her it's got two stages stage one is just Ivy and stage two she summons more brainwashed guards to distract us if there were two words to describe this fight it would be spatial awareness it's the ultimate test of the skills we've cultivated in every combat Arena despite only fighting a handful of enemies at a time we need to keep an eye on when Ivy's part opens the vines on the ground where her projectiles are and where the guards are that she summons you can even hurt her when her pod is closed used it does Chip damage so spamming the batarang is a decent strategy too if you don't get carried away while it doesn't touch the presentation of the Killer Croc fight it's a pretty decent boss it's got a bump in difficulty and when we defeat her administering the antidote it feels earned despite the fact Ivy's only a threat for about two hours of game time having her influence changes in the island destroying the bat cave and finishing off with a solid boss fight means she stays memorable and in a catalog of colorful criminals that's all you need her to be unfortunately the same cannot be said for the Joker with the ax in hand Batman chopped through the door leading back into the entrance hall The Joker black mask they're waiting panicking Batman enters and drops the ax at the Joker's feet you're free he says you're all free oh Joker claps his hands together we knew that already but what about you have you come to claim your kingly robes or do you just want to put us out of our misery Batman pulls the coin from his pocket a flash of compassion spreads across his face no more torture no more torment he's Journey Through the Fire into Brimstone tonight and found himself empathizing with the Damned why don't we let Two-Face decide what to do with me he tosses the coin to the air and Two-Face catches it a beat a pause that lasts centuries echoing back to the days of Arkham if the unmarked face comes up he goes free to face Motors if it's the scarred face he dies here he flips the coin it arcs spins lands with a soft slap Two-Face looks at it he goes free he says Joker ever the center of attention escorts Batman outside partying is such sweet sweet sorrow dearest he sighs still you can't say we didn't show you a good time enjoy yourself out there in the Asylum he starts to wave just don't forget that if it ever gets too much for you out there there's always a place for you here Two-Face still has his eyes glued to the coin he tips his hand we see that it landed scarred side up who cares for you he says staring at the deck of tarot cards now assembled into a complex Tower you're nothing but a pack of cards you swat to the Tower and they fly across the floor a serious house on Sirius Earth comes to an end strategy is actually focused all our energy on the strengths you know the strengths the standout features of your game are going to be the things that get you noticed they're going to be the things that provide the memorable moments for people they're going to be the things that set your game apart and they're going to be the things that people really enjoy in the games so that's where we always focus our energy and we'll do that at the expense of the weaknesses in 2012 Sefton Hill led a dice session called escaping the Asylum where he talked about the design process behind the Arkham games in 27 minutes he nervously tries to explain what made Arkham such a success listing the five philosophies that helped them find the bat rapid prototyping smart foundations constant reevaluation psychic powers and the Arkham recipe it's that second one smart foundations that is so key as we start to say goodbye to Arkham Asylum when making a game Sefton Hill said create rules which allow you to focus all your energy on what counts Rocksteady wanted to concentrate on making a finite number of things great in the game rather than spread themselves too thin the villains the atmosphere the combat the stealth feeling like Batman these are what count and these are the areas where Arkham Asylum punch is its player in the face hoaxes up to a gargoyle and States I am here let's have fun Arkham asylum's insistence on doubling down on what works makes it a fun breathtaking meaty experience right up to the 99 Mark so it is a damn shame that the final one percent is so weak that it could be accused of undermining the game's authenticity but first let's start with what works in asylum's finale pain ah here it is Batman hey it's like you're the guest of honor Joker is ready for his Grand reveal he's orchestrated a nightmare for Batman to race through nearly bringing him to the brink of Madness weakening his foundations and cracking his psyche by unleashing a league of villains that beat him down again and again but this is the Batman this is our Batman he's not so easily defeated his goons wait for us outside the front of the visitor center they're excited they don't know what's about to happen all they know is this is Joker's pierced or resistance and they're invited look at them with their little party hats good for you pal there's a tiny sense of empowerment as one of the henchmen tried to find her name on the guest list sure Batman is scrawled on it in big red writing where there's a hint here that joker hoped our other villains would be present for his big finish it's like the episode trial from the Animated Series where the Joker takes over Arkham raps bats in a straight jacket and brings him before a kangaroo court of his villains I don't know if that was originally Joker's plan but it's satisfying to know that we have in fact spent the whole game scuppering his plot even now with the clock counting down Joker doesn't lose his sense of humor he laughs off his many setbacks who cares that we fed scarecrow to Croc who cares that we cured Ivy who cares that we kicked Bane's ass and locked up Harley who cares that Batman stopped his plan for Gotham that was never the point the point is what comes next your old pal commissioner say he looks all run down let's tap him up no Gordon is here tied up and captured by the Joker he's here as a victim or a witness the clown doesn't care which he levels a gun loaded with Titan at the commissioner and pulls the trigger either Batman will need to sit with his failure watching helplessly as Gordon transforms into a monster or bats will sacrifice himself to save his friend either way Joker wins right of course Batman's a hero so he picks option two he saves Gordon but takes a chunk of Titan to the heart the ultimate test of his discipline and determination Joker's plan is complete he's driven the bat crazy locking Us in the Asylum didn't work scarecrow's fear toxin didn't work mindlessly murdering people and reminding Batman of his failures didn't work but this isn't psychological this is physical chemical but we are the Batman Joker underestimated us even when Joker tickles us with a goddamn feather he is able to stay in control everything I've just described to you is great bringing Gordon back to the Asylum after after he made it to Gotham is a little contrived but Rock said he continued to show off how well they understand the tone and characterization of their Batman everything goes back to his greatest superpower his self-control contrasted by Joker's anarchic on-screen presence and then Joker injects himself with Titan and the last 10 minutes devolve I just wanted to bring down your Grim for sardon for once let you see the world as I see it giggling in a corner and bleeding but even that I have nothing to live for narratively this works especially in the wider context of the full series because it sets up the franchise Arc presentation wise it's fantastic Joker's plan has completely failed so he throws a tantrum in the form of a televised battle to the death broadcast into the homes of Gotham but mechanically Joker's boss fight is up there with naked Atlas as an all-time disappointment in a game that could otherwise be called a masterpiece there's just one phase we fight some standard grunts not even knife baddies or stumboton enemies so the challenge is distinctly lacking after clearing out a wave we use the back claw to pull the Joker into the ground where his giant bone fingers get stuck so we can punch him it commits a chunk of my boss fight since but the big one is that we don't fight the Joker we can't toss some batarangs for chip damage like we did with poison ivy Joker himself doesn't actually try to hit us that saved for his minions it's not a battle to the death for the Joker it's a battle to the death with Mickey and Mike a couple of black gate prisoners that don't even know what's going on I would argue that a stealth section would have worked nicely here even if it was included as a stage before we fight Titan Joker when it comes to punching the Joker just isn't a threat and he doesn't need to be mutated so he can be his intelligence his ruthlessness and his chaotic nature are what make him so dangerous and these are elements better suited to a stealth Arena than straight up combat thanks Jim but I have one on the way get some rest you deserve it stay safe Jim Joker lies in a heap on the ground the cops rush in securing the Asylum for good and this is the big way I think Asylum drops the ball The Joker boss is disappointing sure but in his desperation to reach the Finish Line the game seems to scribble all over its fascinating subtext and burbling criticism of the Asylum as an institution having saved the day having maintained his sanity having defeated the Joker bats Rockets away into the night off to stop a bloody bank robbery we're given a mighty sentimental Breezy Glimpse at the Blackgate Thugs and Arkham inmates being turned back into their former selves the Titan is no longer in their system the score soars triumphantly encouraging the player to feel great about completing the game saving the day but it's hard not to feel like the game kinda washes its hands of the asylum's corruption the Batman we find in the pages of a serious house on Sirius Earth isn't my favorite Batman it's not even Grant Morrison's favorite Batman and they'd later go on to write a compassionate Bruce Wayne brimming with heart in Batman and son I prefer the Batman who spends Thanksgiving with Solomon Grundy to the one that snaps clayface's leg but despite the darkness in that story a serious house on Sirius Earth ends with Batman coming to an understanding with one of the patients he returns two faces coined to him even though that might enable his disorder and stop him from getting better our hero helps an old friend reunite with a coping mechanism the story ends with empathy but I don't think Arkham Asylum ends with empathy I think it ends with the institution's corruption not being exposed with Batman leaving the island while the patients are returned to their cells tomorrow they'll wake up for another day of torture torment and experiments that don't help them and just like elsewhere in the game Batman doesn't blink he doesn't tell Commissioner Gordon that the Asylum needs to be investigated he just disappears into the night all off on his next adventure he's fixed the symptom but not the disease while I'm not convinced Batman found himself inside Arkham Asylum Rock said he certainly found their Batman and we got to find him right alongside them it's a careful pulpy descent into his determination his preparedness and his ability to remain steadfast in the mouth of Madness in the spiraling towers and cold Grim Wards of Amadeus Arkham's Legacy we see a Batman without the mask of Bruce Wayne to humanize him that means they needed to give us that Humanity while balancing it with his brutality and while the wheels of the Batmobile start to squeak and stutter in the game's finale I think it's important to consider how minute these problems are when compared to the rest of the game the 25th of August 2009 was a dark night for the Batman but Rocksteady used all of their resources to make something positive and good out of it to find a hero in this Arkham's Batman will always speak to that and I think that's what matters thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video I would love it if you could like And subscribe I'm aiming to hit 100K before I get married this year so every little helps the badass thumbnail was designed by friend of the channel zolty boy so give him some love in the comments on the left hand side of my patrons if you want to see videos like this early ad free and sponsor free you can join them for just two pounds there are no tears so order thanks go to Michael Gallagher Captain cabinet Logan Hamilton David brynjarson name requires DLC George Vincent Eric Frey danger zone Tyler Shepard Chris McMullen Chris McRae Ryan Bryce Ryan Brent Matt Emmy Matthew Halsey Sean toland John mcguirk Jerome Hotchkiss prodigal horse Mr anthropic Mike chalabi trench coat guy Timothy Hollowell The Heirs of History Griffin Spencer beam Cody Kyle P Philly Garrett Burchell jatchez Vaz 76 Jack Neil Mack Sam's Forge Aurelia schwabalaba Kristen ventral neolia Saint Allison Patrick Baird lgx weaving werewolf Nicholas chairman Trevor Vernon Mark Anderson Joel Wilcox pleo gavastrian blank name Unholy biscuit uzair Leon Matthew Sinclair Thompson X writes shamax Tibi galanu Aiden Jonathan Riggs Ace Attorney fan621 Zachary Johnson Daxter tk421 dnsch Jordan s Jared traynum damp Gibbon monikari Kier ingrasti Lamar 825 Jeremy Shore Ike n the old brand man Tempe unicort Anthony holder David J Morin Minato calamaritic Christopher Tierney torstein sunnis fipsy Derek De rossia Luca Tom Inns Sami stuff jaguke Alberto Calas Captain waffles type Razz dini Zachary Powers Andrew muinos Prospero narrow guterres napov Alan black called sign Noor David Bedard CeCe Jared Helfer mukor John fosterag Robert Capell Matt McCulloch Paul W Chief sweep ihor May Jonathan Lum Eddie wingfores Rhys strupp angry Optimist Jana grassro Mr Fred orentum Laura possum long cheddar talkster Ashley broning 100 Psalms my friend Neil Nathaniel Waters dinken Pearson Kyle Pierce lonely Ronin Kane high wind and Neve Care thank you all so much and take care Batman refuses leading to Joker revealing another stage in his lengthy plan Titan a super serum that turns patience into monsters just the loudest man in the entire [ __ ] Universe why so many weird sounds it's like if Beaker and the Swedish Chef had sex me me

Channel: Monty Zander

Views: 274,519

Keywords: batman arkham asylum critique, arkham asylum walkthrough, arkham asylum glitch scene, batman, bruce wayne, rocksteady, arkham games, arkham combat, freeflow combat, predator mode, arkham asylum analysis, batman arkham asylum retrospective, sefton hill, arkham asylum behind the scenes, a serious house on serious earth, grant morrison, arkham critique, arkham asylum review, batman arkham asylum gameplay, batman arkham asylum trailer, arkham city, arkham origins, game critique

Id: WDlY2RP3R3A

Length: 147min 32sec (8852 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 23 2023