In Defense of Batman Arkham Knight

hey guys I just want to give a quick shout out to our goal to your patrons a beat ghostly gaming Lucas pirate and a big shout-out to Nord VPN for sponsoring this video more on that later in the video Batman Arkham Asylum was released and I covered it in another video on my channel my overall thoughts were that it had great atmosphere combat and stealth and a pretty decent story too Arkham City was released a few years later and it did a fantastic job building upon the foundation set in Arkham Asylum I had planned to make a video on Arkham City a few months ago however my 40 hours of footage got corrupted and I basically raged quit the video Arkham origins came out many of you didn't really like it and it felt like it didn't do much to improve on the Arkham formula Arkham origins was developed by Warner Brothers Montreal it was meant to be a sort of filler game while Rocksteady the developers who created both Arkham Asylum and City we're working on the grand finale to the Arkham series Batman Arkham Knight now there are a lot of criticisms people have with the game and I want to clarify that while this is a defense and while a lot of people have strong opinions on the flaws of this game they didn't say that the game was terrible well most of them didn't the general consensus was the game wasn't the Arkham swansong that they were expecting and due to multiple reasons which I will get into they felt disappointed I personally feel like this is the perfect Batman game and on top of that I think it's the only Batman game that truly lives up to the series tagline of be the Batman I want to address every criticism that people have made against this game and while some of them are valid others I'm confident I can reasonably counter of course there's an element of subjectivity to all this so I don't think you're wrong if you didn't enjoy Arkham Knight and you're entitled to that opinion just as much as everyone else so please be civil in the comments I also want to clearly state that I'm playing this on a Playstation 4 Pro I must clarify like always that there will be spoilers ahead the game came out five years ago now and if you haven't played it I implore you to give it a shot as it's quite cheap now a lot of this video will be going on the assumption that you have already played at least one Arkham game hence if you haven't played any of them stop the video and go play at least one of them they're all really good let's firstly start with the way the game looks the world of Arkham Knight was masterfully crafted and sprawled out for miles making it much more extensive than any other world in Arkham City origins or asylum despite this some of argue that the game should have been larger I agree that a bigger world would of course be better but the world size we have is incredibly dense despite having the entire city evacuated except for some criminals the city feels alive neon signs and billboards cover the Gotham skyline and the way it reflects off the rain and the Caped Crusader himself look good even by today's standards the attention to detail that went into the design of the world is impeccable and something that is usually absent a lot of reviews for this game you see a big neon sign advertising Vicky Vale a reoccurring character in the Batman universe you can see this attention to detail in the opening moments of the game where you take the role of a cop that enters a diner if you explore the diner you see a newspaper that declares an elderly Henry Adams missing if you've played the story then you know that Batman has kidnapped Adams along with a few other civilians infected with the Joker's blood the other captured civilians can be seen in the newspaper alongside Adams at the front of the diner you can see a set of Halloween decorations you can of course find pumpkins and other Halloween decorations all over Gotham since the game does take place during Halloween looking at this set of ornaments you can see it reflects a story that is about to be told there is of course the Scarecrow who represents scarecrow the six bats which are indicative of the six Batman related characters in the main story that being Batman Oracle Robin Alfred Commissioner Gordon and Nightwing the two ghosts can be applied to Arkham Knight and the Joker as their ghost from Batman's past you could even argue that the plant here is representative of a poison ivy who also plays a significant role in the story other aspects of the story are reflected well such as when Batman becomes infected with the fear toxin and starts seeing a hallucination of the Joker I'll talk about the Joker's role in the story and the character more later but for now let's look at the way the game presents his SaLuSa nation to give some context Batman was infected with the Joker's blood and a significant plot point in the game is that Batman is at risk of going insane and becoming more like the Joker if family were to become a ruthless killing machine like the Joker he would be unstoppable which is Batman's greatest fear therefore he sees the Joker when infected with the fear toxin the worst his fear overdose gets the stronger the Joker and his head becomes and a large portion the story revolves around this battle with in Batman's mind you may not have noticed this but as the game progresses and as Joker starts becoming more and more in control when you first see him he looks like hell but after a few hours his blemishes start healing and by the end of the game he has no facial damage whatsoever another fun fact when you see Joker in the flashback with Oracle he's wearing a hat that says flashback which I find pretty funny you see the Joker everywhere in this game as he's always taunting you with hilarious dialogue related to your situation something that a lot of you may not have noticed however is that the hallucination is present in a direct way as you actually see the Joker but you can see them in more subtle ways such as with the billboards around Gotham when a billboard is the loading there's a chance that it will be a replace with a Joker five version we're depicts the Joker in some goofy pose usually imitating the billboard every time you look away and come back this Joker fide image has a chance of reappearing I never noticed this on my first couple playthroughs and only notice now while getting footage for this video it's such a cool idea and it's executed so well because the game never calls any attention to it often times I find myself gliding through the neon covered sky and I'd catch a joker 5 billboard and think wait what was that and upon sweeping back around I'd see it was just an ordinary billboard which left me feeling pretty uneasy while the Batman Arkham games have never been horrifying this game does have a few creepy moments such as the billboards I just mentioned another way the game achieves this is through the way it presents Batman through other people's eyes you could always imagine how a thug must feel and getting randomly knocked out by a brute cloaked in black but still this game on a few occasions actually shows it to you it made me realize how terrifying Batman is for example when you take the role of Commissioner Gordon for a brief period as Gordon you explore a bit of the Batcave and as you turn around Batman's just there and him hey we jump like hell I'll talk more about how the game presents its story later on but for now we should shift back to the world in its design the streets of Gotham are littered with trash and there are cars full of goons continually patrolling you can listen in on these thugs as they walk the streets talking about a whole number of things which can on one hand help you get immersed in the world but on the other hand it can get kind of annoying after a while a vast majority of the world can be impacted by the players such as papers flying when throwing a goon into the ground and the corners of buildings will be taken out by the Batmobile the design the Batmobile looks fantastic and this goes for Batman himself he has such high-tech gear and well despite this he still gets hacked multiple times in the game if only he was using nord VPN fortunately nord VPN much like our Caped Crusader swoops in to save the day Nord VPN keeps you safe from IP logging malware phishing and so much more through its military-grade encryption that not even the Dark Knight can break through with no data limits and over 5,000 servers around the globe Nord is easily the best choice for anyone wanting to protect their data or anyone wanting to watch their favorite shows aren't available within their country such as on Netflix Disney Plus YouTube and so much more not only do they have 24/7 customer service and allow you to have up to six devices connected at once but there's also a risk-free 30 day money-back guarantee just for you guys you can click the link in the description and use coupon code that boy aqua to save 70% on a three-year plan and even get a full month absolutely free once again that is coupon code that boy aqua and you can find a link to that in the description and in the comments below you may know someone starting a new game you're in the Arkham City suit however about 50 minutes in you get a new suit which has a description which explains gameplay limitations in previous games in the now scrapped Arkham City video one of my biggest gripes was with the grapnel boost says it felt like it killed the momentum more than it actually boosted you I wish we could have glided and grapnel boosted much farther and it turns out the developers actually have an in-universe explanation as for why the grapnel boost was so slow in Arkham City it's because the Batsuit Batman was wearing wouldn't be able to withstand the rapid acceleration of the grapnel boost this upgraded suit however happens to have a titanium dip mesh which allows you to handle more G's when in the air it even explains why Batman can perform one of his fear multi takedowns in previous games as his what seemed to be a spandex suit restricted his movement but with this new suit he has much more flexibility and he can do much more it's not just the Dark Knight's model that gets some love in this game as every character model has an incredible amount of detail to them I have a theory that the main character models were designed by one team of Rocksteady while in contrast the side character models must have been created by a b team or something for example when looking at Christina Belle the character you have to pick up you can see that whatever junk she has in the trunk is very polygonal and jagged meanwhile Harley Quinn is packing a dump truck which leads me to believe that whoever designed the main characters were a bunch of horn dogs I mean look at this [Music] but seriously these character models look great and the whole game has a tremendous amount of detail and love put into it some of the camera angles we see in the story make it feel like a movie and coupling that with the 2008 movie skin I felt like I was playing through a lost fourth film from Christopher Nolan I might also mention that there are a fair number of suits in the game with many of them being locked behind the game season pass which I find to be a hundred percent worth your time and money having a large number of suits and costumes is a must in any superhero game and seeing some of my favorite back get-ups here is one of my favorite aspects of the game they don't have special abilities or anything and they're all purely cosmetic except this one which is the only suit that doesn't involve any hockey pads I should again clarify that the majority of these costumes are paid DLC and the DLC will be covered in a future video animations in the cutscenes look great in the way Batman's cape reacts to the world seems realistic which is nice since you'll be seeing it for a vast majority of the game the world of Arkham City you look like a bomb went off in it but it lacked illumination and life however Gotham this time around nails the open world and makes gliding and drifting around always visually pleasing the Arkham games much like a lot of action games these days have always had three different aspects um when it comes to gameplay stealth combat and traversal with each new iteration of the franchise those three facets on overhaul and that is no different for Arkham Knight the combat has introduced some significant changes that spice up the normal free flow combat but the old favorites are here too the Arkham games have previously been criticized for having button-mashing combat still the changes to the series have alleviated these criticisms such as having critical strikes which are punches and kicks that do more damage to enemies if you push a square button with rhythm rather than just spamming it and other special moves are here too such as being able to perform unique takedown if you achieve a certain number of hits in a row new features such as environmental takedowns make combat more flashy as you can now take down an enemy by throwing his head into a circuit which electrocutes him you could drop a light on someone or he'll drop someone onto a light you can also finally pick up an enemy weapon in this game which I myself have been wanting since Arkham Asylum you can only pick up the baton like weapons but seeing Batman beat the daylights out of a group of enemies with a baseball bat and shattering that bat against someone's skull is incredible these weapons and environmental attacks ignore enemy defenses such as riot shields or cattle prods the environmental aspects made me analyze a room more before jumping in which is something I never really did in Arkham Asylum city or even origins the necessary foundation of Batman's calm that is attacking and countering and as I explained attacking is made more enjoyable by rewarding you for timing your punches well this however applies to the countering to if you wait for the last bit of an enemy's attack to counter rather than countering rate as you see the attack coming Batman will grab the enemy and throw them across the room damaging any enemies in the way it turned out to be an excellent addition as anomaly prevents you from spamming the counter button but depending on the situation you're better off just regularly countering the enemy rather than throwing them when an enemy is on the ground Batman can continue to punch them which makes a huge difference in combat as you no longer have situations where one enemy is still on the ground you'd always have to wait for them to get up and it would kind of ruin your combo enemies have new moves up their sleeves to is they can grab Batman from behind locking him in place enemies can also try and charge at you and tackle you to the ground there's a new enemy type that the game introduces that makes combat way more exciting and much more fun which is the medics these guys can not only heal fallen enemies but can charge their fellow baddies with an electric charge which needs to be hit with the grappling hook to neutralize the current these medics for me were the first enemies I'd go for in a room and coupled with the fear takedowns I found myself enjoying entering the room or knowing that there was an optimal order in which I should take out enemies and that order was somewhat dynamic what I mean when I say it was dynamic is that sometimes the medics would be the first ones I'd go for but in other cases I'd go for the brutes first as they were often the most aggressive and did the most damage these brutes can't be taken down with a fear takedown but can be taken down with one of your special combo moves however the Bruce with proper armor need to take downs to be knocked out for good because they needed a decent combo to be instantly taken down I'd find myself entering a room with a fear take down taking out the medics and a few armed thugs because I would take down five henchmen with an upgraded fear take down I'd start the actual fight with a combo of five hits which is conveniently enough to pull off a takedown on one of the brutes or any enemy for that matter I also appreciate that as a veteran of this series this game spares no time and giving you some complex enemy types and throwing your local malls population at you you're quickly introduced to the different enemy types oh you know from previous games and across this game new enemy types are introduced I appreciated this and it almost felt like the game was saying yeah you know the drill by now let's get to the good stuff a new type of combat that they have introduced to the game art companions and specific missions a character might join you on whatever you're doing when they do join you in combat you can eventually fill a circle that indicates when you can perform a special takedown on an enemy these moves look incredible and always seemed pretty brutal and flashy the combat can be complicated as sometimes you have what feels like a million thugs to keep track of when entering a room you got the guys with riot shields who you need to stun with your cape to jump on to the guys with guns who can end you quickly the routes you do colossal damage and take massive damage to the guys with electric batons that need to be attacked from behind the medics who can revive fallen enemies the ninjas that act as speedy glass cannons and being able to jump into a room and finish off all the enemies in one combo that reaches up to three digits gives you an insane feeling of accomplishment especially when you do it on nightmare difficulty where the damage you take is increased and the counter icon is taken away I personally love the combat and felt it did everything right is it perfected the free flow combat that was established in previous games while also making it more complicated of course the hand-to-hand combat only takes half of the responsibility for the amount of broken noses Batman deals out as the other half easily goes to stealth these predator sections of the game have been much like the combat perfected the same enemies are used here such as brutes and medics and they have the same effect on gameplay such as being able to revive fallen enemies but these enemies now have some new tech that helps to keep you on your toes one of the first ways stealth changes is with its AI D and the game will change their tactics on the fly so if you insist on sticking to the vantage points at the top of the map enemies will start setting up mines enemies will also begin setting up sentry guns and will draw thermal charges in the floor grates if you stick there too much some enemies have a detective mode detector and if you stick to Detective Mode too much and they'll triangulate your location enemies will also have drones that can spot you and to take them out you have to knock out the person operating the drone it's not just as simple as taking out the person controlling the drone however is when you do this the drone will crash which lets everyone know that the drone controller has just gone down causing everyone to move to his location which can lead to some issues for those who aren't prepared another tool enemies have to use against you is the optic camouflage which can make them invisible to your detective vision for the longest time I never bothered looking at the side of the screen where it said how many hostiles were on screen until now because I thought it was useless but these situations completely change that I would look at the left and see 9 hostiles detected and only see 5 on-screen and immediately panic a little enemies can also carry Detective Mode jammers which can serve as a cool hurdle to get over but they don't ultimately change much all it changes really is the order in which you take thugs out I wish individual rooms had a jammer in the ceiling or something that you couldn't always get to forcing you to think differently on how you approach a situation and of course not to rely on detective vision like I mentioned earlier the Brutes here can't be taken down silently as they are simply too buff they walk around with these huge mini guns that if they were to spot you can shred you to pieces real quick and since these enemies can't be taken out quietly or quickly you'll have to leave them for last which add some complexity to the scenarios it's important to note that the enemies are not the only ones who get some new tools as you have a few predatory abilities at your disposal - the most significant change being the fear takedown which plays well into the game's AI as once the numbers get low any views will start doubling and even tripling up in order to make sure you don't get the drop on them you can use a fear takedown before entering a hand-to-hand combat scenario - leading to some really cool moments where I combine fear takedowns with environmental takedowns to subdue an entire room in a flash Batman can now also use his back law to perform corner takedowns from farther away though I found that whenever I did this the baddies body would end up contorting and my god some of the results were horrifying don't worry though he's not dead he's only unconscious much like the combat you can find yourself in stealth scenarios with a partner you're able to call a partner to take down an enemy and it was pretty cool even if it didn't add much to the overall formula one advantage it does add is when it comes to the Brutes is they can be very quickly taken down through the use of a team take down well it's not very quiet it's still effective and much faster in the way you would typically take down one of the brutes unlike the hand-to-hand combat the predator set pieces were really interesting this time around some scenarios occur in a bank where there's an alarm going off meaning you can be as loud as you want without anyone hearing you there isn't the typical box with a couple of gargoyles here that we saw in previous games so we do see some of those here the only issue I have with the set pieces of the stealth is that most of them take place in the open world leading to an easy escape if you were to be spotted you can just dive off the roof and swoop back around which can take away some of the challenge of course the way you get to these different action set-pieces is pretty fun too so why don't we talk about the traversal one of the ways you can get around is through that Cape of yours gliding around is similar to how it was in Arkham City but they improved upon its speed you can now launch yourself over buildings at the rate that was often faster than the Batmobile itself and being able to start at one end of the map and quickly get to the other side through well-timed dives and grapnel boosts without even touching the ground is just about as cool as it gets this coupled with the much taller buildings in the game makes gliding around in Arkham Knight arguably the best in the series unfortunately it can argued that not much has been changed when it comes to gliding with the Cape but I don't think any changes were necessary that however doesn't mean that they didn't add some nice bells and whistles such as when jumping off a building you can choose either just run off like usual or do a neat little dive that looks different based on the speed at which you approach the ledge of course gliding and grappling is only one of the ways to get around and the other way to get around is of course through the most controversial part of this game [Applause] [Music] the Batmobile is described by some critics as being tedious and overwhelming the Batmobile has two modes of operation the car side is used for getting around and the tank side is used for drone battles as far as I know driving around in the battle Beale wasn't an issue for people as the thing can really haul ass around the map and the chase sequences that take place in the car mode we're fun and not too abundant the tank battles on the other hand are criticized for being too frequent and boring I personally disagree with the tank battles feeling boring despite its simplistic nature I always found myself enjoying the moments where I would bob and weave in between lines of fire while demolishing the enemy drones there are enough different drone types to keep the battles interesting for the first stretch of the game for the first few hours you'll see new drones being introduced but you very quickly become familiar with the different types of drones and as such subsequent battles that take place after the halfway point Kingfield repetitive some have argued that the tank gameplay itself doesn't make sense if the arkham knight knows batman and knows about is no killing rule why not put soldiers inside the drones instead of having them be what i assume is computer-operated I think this criticism makes a lot of sense however the developers could have made any number of excuses in which Batman could with his tank fire a pin sized EMP that upon entering a surface disables a drone the issue is that it wouldn't look nearly as nice as the explosions we caught I also think this criticism is a little unfair because it can be applied to literally any part of the game why are there so many soldiers that just don't have guns I mean the Arkham Knight has the budget to fund a futuristic military but he can't afford a couple thousand guns of course his criticism is valid because yeah it's not realistic that he would just leave a bunch of enemies unarmed to directly in front of the guy who has had years of advanced close combat experience but you have to take some liberties with things like this or else you just wouldn't have a fun game why is it that during the predator sections in the game full of 10 or so enemies they don't sit back to back in the corner of a room and just wait for Batman to show up because then stealth would be pretty dull why Scarecrow and Arkham Knight grab some hostages and take them to a desert where there's nowhere to sneak and bring a couple hundred soldiers there and tell Batman that if he doesn't submit his life they'll shoot the hostages they didn't do that because there wouldn't be a game if they did that the same reason why the military doesn't come in and handle a citywide takeover and the same reason Superman doesn't swoop in and finish a ten-hour story in a few minutes the point I'm trying to make here is I don't understand how a criticism based on the realism of the game can be applied to one aspect of the game but not the other guardzilla Mendoza a popular youtuber has a well done series of videos about how he feels about Arkham Knight and how he feels it was a disappointment for him he explains in that series of videos that while the tank can be fun and while he enjoys it a lot it just doesn't fit with the game for the reasons I just mentioned like the unrealistic effect it has on the world the problem is that it's all in this game and it just doesn't fit here at all Mendoza also points out that while driving the Batmobile you can smash into people and there's no way the game can play that off as being non-lethal and while I agree with it I feel the same and that you really need to have a high suspension of disbelief to enjoy the gameplay of any Arkham game it's not like Batman is clearly running people over during the cutscenes it's okay to have gameplay mechanics are unrealistic because gameplay is one of the most critical things in a game it's also a little unfair to not mention that the Arkham series as a whole has had many different scenarios in which Batman does lethal damage to someone during both gameplay and cutscenes one of Batman's most iconic gadgets in the arkham series is his explosive gel it is shown to have enough force to bring down an entire wall but when using it directly on the Joker's face granted a Titan fuelled face it only blows out his teeth and damages parts of his face Batman when dealing with a riot shield bearing enemy well once the enemy has already been dropped to the floor of this head smashing into the concrete take the shield and smash it into the enemies throat what about when you throw a propane tank at someone's face and it explodes in their face and the game still declares them as unconscious you can't take a criticism that applies ohm's every aspect of a franchises gameplay and only apply them to parts of the game that you don't like I think the Batmobile tank sections while being fun are by no means the best aspect of the game in fact had it not been for the way the game handles its story it might have been the worst part of the game but that's not because the Batmobile is some atrocity against the Arkham series but because every other aspect of the game is so well done I want to clarify that with any youtubers I mentioned in this video and especially Godzilla Mendoza I don't want these points to come across as in it on them or their character you should go watch Godzilla Mendozas Batman videos which I will link in the description as he is very clearly a Batman fan who knows a lot about the character and it gives his videos an interesting perspective and he has a lot of excellent points an insight about the story of Arkham Knight another thing Mendoza mentions is that the Batmobile sections are far too abundant in the game he claims that majority of the game takes place within the Batmobile Arkham Knight takes the gameplay ideas we loved from previous games and applies them to about 1 hour of this game then spends the entire rest of the game in the Batmobile and he's not the only one who thinks is his angry Joe's also claimed that 50 to 60% of the game takes place within the Batmobile that is just factually incorrect then fighting drones which pretty much sums up at least 50 to 60 percent of this game that's not a good thing I understand that these people are likely being hyperbolic but it paints the game in an unfair light I recorded every frame of gameplay for this video and I completed the game 100% in 21 hours all the side quests all the Riddler trophies everything in those 21 hours I was in the Batmobile for just under 4 hours this is 19% of the game if you include the downloadable content which gives you an extra four hours of missions and gameplay only 3 minutes and 30 seconds of which was in the Batmobile then you get a total of 16% Batmobile throughout the entire game that is just less than a fifth of the game just because the Batmobile isn't in the game as much as people say doesn't mean that the Batmobile didn't overstay its welcome for some players critics will also say that the game forces the Batmobile on you which has a large element of truth to it to again go back to Godzilla Mendoza he says that the Batmobile inserts itself where it doesn't belong such as during a mission where you track the Arkham Knights vehicle with the Batmobile every minor gameplay sequence in previous games is now handled with the bat tank following a trail of clues that leads you to the bad guys do it in the tank well I agree that in this case the Batmobile does insert' itself on to a situation that could otherwise be done on foot Mendoza presents this mission as evidence that every minor gameplay sequence is handled by the bad tank which just isn't true there are some missions where you reconstruct a crime scene and others where you have to use cameras to track a target in fact in the same mission that Mendoza cites for using the Batmobile to track something you start the mission by following the target using the camera feed and end the mission by reconstructing a crime scene both of which are done on foot so while the Batmobile is in the big thing it's a pretty enjoyable tool I think the biggest reason as to why people don't like it is because of the amount of times it's used in boss fights there are multiple boss fights within the batmobile and they all kind of stink this goes for almost all the boss fights in the game and it's one of the ways I think Arkham Knight can be seen as a bit of a disappointment most tank boss fights are boiled down to taking a South approach to a couple of higher armored drones and then taking out the big drone combat boss fights are boiled down to tag-teaming a room full of enemies with a partner building up your meter for a team take down on the big bad boss in the middle of the room and stealth boss fights are just like standard South except there's a boss you need to perform a stealth takedown on multiple times before completion the arkham knight boss fight felt like a huge missed opportunity is it would have been cool to have another boss fight like Mr Freeze in Arkham City maybe have a combat centric battle against the Arkham Knight where you have to use different takedowns and combat tactics such as the beatdown technique or the grappling hook in order to do damage but every time you do an attack he adapts to you it would be a really cool boss fight that would keep you on your toes other boss fights in the game are so quick and shallow that I wouldn't even consider them bosses Firefly is just a matter of chasing them down which makes it virtually a race to face goes down like any other thug and man-bat is just a matter of finding the guy since we're on the topic of all these villains we should mention the cyclists that are tied to them there are 14 side quests in the game at about seven of them are interesting the ones that considered to be pretty interesting are creature of the night to face bandits the line of duty here to the cow Riddler's revenge gunrunner and the perfect crime the rest of them I found to be either too short to be interesting or didn't do anything outside of giving you an excuse to participate in some more combat and stealth scenarios be that on foot or in the tank creature of the night is a pretty basic quest that involves tracking down man-bat after he gives you a jump scare you have to track him down and get his blood and upon doing so you can find out his name is dr. Curt Langstrom due to his experiments he ended up turning himself into a half man half bat upon going into what can only be described as a primal rage he kills his wife and upon catching him you bring him back to GCPD and tell him what he's done he has quite the reaction she's dead Kirk I found the side-quests to be pretty fun is when flying around doing something else in the game I'd randomly hear the screech of the man-bat and immediately stop what I was doing to go catch him the actual act of catching him is pretty repetitive and having a boss rate where you have to confront the man-bat on a roof or something while he swoops down to attack you would be pretty cool you could subdue him by spraying explosive gel on the floor and detonating it when he swoops down or something and said you have to glide into his general direction leading to the sidequest being pretty lame gameplay wise but at least it had an interesting character to face bandits easy heading to different banks around Gotham as two-face tries to rob them after you take out his goons you then have a boss fight against some where he acts like a regular enemy with a massive gun and he goes down like one - I'm not sure why they didn't reuse his boss from Arkham City as the way he function there worked well enough over all the set pieces alone made this quest pretty interesting the line of duty is a side quest where you have to find a bunch of missing firefighters they give you an excuse to put the beat down on some baddies but the overarching story is pretty interesting you find out that Gotham has been relatively fireproof for the past few months when the firefighters were at risk of being laid off however the chief decided to burn down vacant buildings around Gotham so that the firemen wouldn't be out of work it's an intriguing side quest because the fire chief isn't really a bad guy he just made a wrong decision he even redeems himself a bit by saying that he wants to tell the crew what he did try and make sure the men don't find out I want to be the one who tells him you're right they deserved that much here - the cowl is a semi continuation to the SciQuest presented in Arkham City where Azrael tells Batman that he won't be around much longer and they need to essentially pass the torch sooner rather than later in Arkham Knight he says he'd like to seize that possibility and summons Batman via a really cool burning bat symbol Batman sets up an AR training mission for Azrael to complete but the catch is is that you can't take any damage these challenges were pretty fun but never too difficult after the third challenge you analyze his brain somehow and find that he's been brainwashed by a cult of sorts and upon uncovering that we switched to Azrael once again where we can either kill Batman or walk away both results in the end of the quest the challenges here were fun and playing as Azrael was cool too even if he is a carbon copy of Batman we revenge was a surprisingly fun quest line it deviates quite hard from the quests we saw in Arkham City an asylum though instead of having intricate puzzles in hostage situations we have simple puzzles in combat for half the mission and the other half our Riddler racetracks I have to admit that I mostly enjoyed the races but I feel like I would have preferred some more brain wracking puzzles and this goes for the trophies this time around - your goal in this mission is to rescue Catwoman who has somehow taken hostage by Riddler the only way to get it off is to use nine different keys which the Riddler will only give to you if you complete specific puzzles upon doing so he decides that he wants to crush you in a mech you see when fighting Riddler at the end of the side quest he exclaims you don't deserve the privilege of finding him until you solve all 234 riddles these riddles include riddles you have to scan for hostage situations that were so forgettable I almost forgot to include them Riddler trophies which can be picked up by solving a basic puzzle and there are also particular breakable objects that are hidden in little nooks and crannies I found the Riddler trophies to be really easy this time around and I think they were the most difficult markham city also don't bother trying to find them all on your own it's not worth it just search up a guide if you really want to do it on your own then you can interrogate some of his thugs which are blatantly highlighted in green if you take them down then they'll give you some info on the riddles hidden around the map there's even one in a police station that you can interrogate your crazy man's gone crazy guys what are you doing Batman back off I don't know what he's talking about guys are you sure okay okay I do famous for nygma Gentleman Gordon's on his trail take those dumb trophies of his around the place that kind of stuff but that's it really I'm not such a bad guy I swear I don't care you can't throw me in here crap while we're here we can also see a thug from earlier in the story who taunts us and we can knock him out again come back even later and we don't even have to touch him when it comes to the Riddler boss fight it's a basic team fight where you beat on some drones and do a finisher on the boss except that individual robots can only be attacked about either Catwoman or Batman I think this boss fight was okay though seeing Riddler actually fight Batman seems a little out of character I want to quickly point out that there are some people such as angry Joe that have claimed there are specific Riddler trophies that are exclusive to certain areas and once you finish those areas in the story you can't go back and worse if you don't get a hundred percent with all the collectables and all the Riddler puzzles and doing all that sometimes having to do it in a New Game+ because you couldn't do it in originally and you can't get back to that area it just to get the satisfying ending no this is again not true so you can easily go back to every area in the story after you finish that area the only area you can not return to as ace chemicals but there are no Riddler trophies there you can complete the game 100% on your first playthrough and there's nothing in the game that forces you to play it a second time gunrunner is a mission that involves taking out many weapon caches run by the penguin with your partner Nightwing it's an easy excuse to have a huge room full of enemies and fight those enemies with Nightwing doing team takedowns during the side quest Nightwing eventually doesn't show up for one of the raids I didn't notice this until the fight was finished and by the time I did notice I was shown a video feed of him being held hostage by the penguin we run in and saved Nightwing through a neat set piece and we send the penguin back to the holding cells I like this side mission as it gave you a pretty solid excuse to team up with Nightwing and the overall storyline was pretty basic but it was good enough the last side mission I found to be interesting was the perfect crime the side mission sees you finding different corpses around Gotham and their faces have been mangled to the point where you can't even identify them in order to discover who they are you examine their bodies looking for quirks such as scars while cross-referencing them to hospitals around the world after tracking down enough of them you have to confront the murderer who is Professor Pig I have never heard of this character until this game and the gimmick he presents is pretty cool he throws goons at you that can't feel any pain and because of this you have to take them down with a ground takedown or use one of your special takedowns meanwhile you also have to dodge the knives that the professor's throwing at you I enjoyed the weird theatrical charisma that pick presents and because of that I enjoyed the submission a lot and those are pretty much all the side missions stood out to me and I'll quickly glance over the rest Gotham on fire sees you taking down Firefly using the Batmobile you have to keep up with him until his jetpack runs out of gas so it's basically just a race it took about ten minutes and didn't really do anything interesting lamb to the slaughter sees some dude who's trying to sacrifice a reporter and all you do is beat down a massive number of thugs and take him out within 5 minutes I don't even remember the name of the villain because he was just so forgettable the last two I really want to focus on more because I think they were really disappointing firstly let's start with friend in need Wayne tower has gone into lockdown and you go out to investigate as Bruce Wayne you go to the computer to access it and you're locked out so you beat the living hell out of Fox and it's at this point that you realize that you were playing as hush the entire time you now enter his Batman and when confronting hush the game makes us seem like there is so much history between you and hush however as far as the games go you've barely any history with them he shows up in Arkham City and during a sidequest of his you see that he has reconstructed the face of Bruce Wayne and it alludes to his return and according to some sources the writers of Arkham City plant for hush to be the main villain in the game alongside scarecrow but it was scrapped when a new writer came on board I think this is why Batman act so shocked when hearing the hush killed his parents they saved your mother's life denied me what was rightfully mine the car crash wasn't an accident it was you okay because there is no setup to this at all finally there are four side quests time to Deathstroke by the time you get to the end of the story the argument will have disappeared and since there's no longer a leader for the militia Deathstroke steps in if you take out a bunch of cars do way too many tank battles liberate the militia camps on the road and liberate the militia watchtowers you can challenge Deathstroke to a fight I was so hyped for this because if you remember correctly in Arkham origins the Deathstroke fight was one of the best in the series here it's a tank battle and not only that it's brutally similar to the boss fight against Arkham Knight in the cloudburst I don't have much to say on this other than it felt like the biggest missed opportunity it's unfortunate too because this guy talked to you the whole three hours leading up to his battle and it's finished with a tank battle and a cutscene the side quests were pretty good in this game and we're for the most part on par with those in Arkham City but unfortunately the stories to some of these side quests just didn't click for me the main quest line is essentially the last thing I want to talk about in the game so I think it's time we cover that now when it comes to the story of this game there have been a lot of criticisms against the Arkham Knights identity the inclusion of the Joker and the overall pacing and I pretty much agree with most of these points allow me to quickly summarize the story scarecrow has taken the city hostage and most of the population evacuates batman tries to stop him from releasing a nuclear sized bomb filled with fear toxin but is interrupted by a new foe the arkham knight when shutting down ace chemicals batman overdoses on for your taxes and it causes him to see a constant hallucination of the Joker we see during a flashback of sorts that the Joker injected his blood into five patients before he died they are all turning into him one of the patients however is Batman Batman tries to stop scarecrow from completing his planet it takes him to an airship where he finds the Scarecrow and his device called the cloudburst but due to a Joker induced hallucination he gets away while heading back to his secret hideout at an abandoned movie studio we see that Harley Quinn has taken over the studio as we clean up her mess we see a flashback of Jason Todd Barbara is captured in the meantime and in a hallucination Batman sees her die Batman goes to poison ivy for help that it's too late and the bomb goes off plunging Gotham into even more chaos after freeing some ancient roots to help ivy neutralize the toxin she uses so much of her power that she fades away infinity war style keeping in mind that this whole time the Joker has been slowly fessing himself inside Batman with the power of the plants the cloud versus neutralized and Batman gets a lead on the Arkham Knights whereabouts once there we got a tank battle that leads to the arkham knight revealing himself as Jason Todd who could have guessed after taking him down in a South sequence we confront scarecrow with Commissioner Gordon and upon seeing that Barbara is still alive and rescuing her we head back to GCPD which after setting Oracle up in her new game or PC battle station the building is under attack this is easily the hardest part of the game as over 50 drones are outside and over 50 soldiers are on the roof after dealing with them we see the Scarecrow now has Robin and Gordon and the only way to get them back is to submit to scarecrow we take off our utility belt and get in a truck and end up at Arkham Asylum fun fact the scene where we are driven to the asylum heavily parallels the opening scene in Arkham Asylum once we get there scarecrow ties up Batman and the whole world sees who he is upon doing that we have an internal conflict with the Joker where we see his greatest fear and after dealing with them we overcome the fear toxin and scarecrow gets taken down after the arkham knight saves us we then take scarecrow back to GCPD and that's where the story almost ends there's something called the knife wall protocol that can only be activated through completing seven out of the fourteen side quests upon doing so we see a cutscene where Batman heads back to Wayne Manor hundreds of people are flocking there for answers and hey even calendar man is here before shout out his appearance in Arkham City the end of days is coming I was there the mansion blows up and after completing all the side missions to get the full landing which is basically the same thing but there's a new cutscene that shows a strange mythical bat creature stopping some thugs so here are my thoughts on the story it made barely any sense when I played the game upon its release and on subsequent playthroughs I totally turned my brain off I cared about what was happening of course but not why or how these things are happening now I could very easily spend the next half hour pointing out plot holes and discussing the things that don't make any sense but so many such of guardzilla Mendoza have already done that and have done a better job than I ever could I know this video is about defending Arkham Knight but the issue I find when defending a story is that I am one of those people who don't really care about plot holes and whatnot I'm not gonna sit here and say the story here was good in fact I think critically speaking it was bear okay I will however say that I personally didn't mind it there were some really cool moments in the game such as the hallucinations with the Joker as it gave us a strong visual representation of what Batman is going through even if it does like a fair bit of subtlety we might as well discuss the Joker while we're on the topic and the addition of the Joker really rubbed people the wrong way and I have to agree that his inclusion felt a little strange I also have to say that the Joker and his plot line is easily the best in the game however I feel like the Joker's inclusion is one of the few things that make sense in the story Batman is clearly seeing that the patients at the Batcave are turning into the Joker and he knows just as well as anyone else that he will be absolutely unstoppable if he turns into the Joker because of that he has an actual fear which is himself turning into the Joker the plot line surrounding this which unfortunately overshadows more important plot lines is actually pretty good I think it relies too heavily on themes that were established in other Batman media and even multiple times within the same franchise by now most of the playerbase gets it Batman and the Joker are two sides of the same coin they both lead extreme lifestyles due to one really bad day people have criticized the Joker's taking tension away from the scene and this is true for some scenes having Batman talked with the voice of the Joker is of course hilarious and in fact most of the things Joker says is hilarious however the timing is usually what throws it off by the end of the game we end up playing as Joker and we get to see his biggest fear it's shown that the Joker's biggest fear is just being forgotten which makes sense and the scene surrounding this revelation is pretty cool however I don't get why we need to see this narrative Lee speaking it makes zero sense because Batman just permanently cures himself of the Joker virus by locking him away in a corner of his mind I don't really get it if I'm being honest I feel like the entire scene could have been taken out I actually feel this way with a lot of scenes in the game certain portions of the game such as when Hartley takes over panetta Studios felt very separated from the rest of the game if the scene was cut out then nothing would have really changed in the story I actually think it might have been better if it was taken out and the finesse estudios level we see the flashback of Jason Todd that we were never present for maybe the Joker's blood while turning someone into him also gives them Joker's memories I don't know bottom line this flashback gave away the identity of the arkham knight far too early and i think it shouldn't have been revealed until he took off his mask the arkham knight is up there with the Batmobile when it comes to controversy in this game because of his identity not only was the identity of the arkham knight flat-out shown to you in a flashback hours before his reveal but the comic book fans could have easily guessed it i do to clarify that the identity the arkham knight wasn't that obvious before the flashback I mean Jason Todd was never featured in any Arkham game leading up to this and a lot of people such as myself who would be considered filthy casuals hadn't heard much of the character at all this however goes both ways as the arkham knight should have been a character that we are familiar with or at least a character within the series I think making Talia the arkham knight could have been cool maybe she was really mad that you didn't kill the Joker at least intentionally I could go on with theories but it doesn't matter what we got was Jason Todd I do wish however that Batman at least mentioned him at some point in the arkham games before arkham knight as it would have made his reveal a little less out of left field it sucks especially because the arkham knight is a cool concept for a character batman has said on multiple occasions that if he crosses the line of killing he doesn't know if he could come back the arkham knight is the embodiment of that worst case scenario he is what would happen if Batman pulled the trigger if he crossed that line since this is still a defense I should clarify that there are some cool things about the arkham knight is designed and spectacular and Troy Baker did a great job voicing him but I can't help but hear Delsin Rowe whenever he speaks and that's about all I got when it comes to the positives any part of his character that was cool was pretty much squandered during the story the idea for a character that knows all of that man's moves and tricks seems really cool however he still falls into that same trap of being impatient he even has Batman cornered at one point and instead of getting the job done knowing that this may be his only chance he showboats in front of Batman which gives him enough time to escape the waivers have some secrets myself I will at least mention that some people have pointed out the Arkham Knight had many opportunities to kill Batman and the story and just didn't do it however I want to remind you that is established very clearly by scarecrow that Batman does not die until he says so so what at least explains why the Arkham Knights isn't killed Batman in scenes like this he's just trying to slow him down not kill him scarecrows designed this game has been criticized for looking like too much of an edge Lord while I can't agree I also think the scarecrows entire character has been a little edgy from day one the guy's obsessed with fear and his new design makes him seem really dirty and ragged almost like for who knows how long he's been living in a sewer with this guy I think it's pretty funny how the guy taunts Batman right to his face about how he's won and how he's unstoppable but Batman still precedes to beat the living hell out of him the ending of the game also rubbed people the wrong way the way Batman submits to scarecrow despite the fact that he could have clearly beaten them didn't really make a lot of sense the reveal of the arkham knight was botched and the short character arc for jason happens off screen and is left in the air the nightfall protocol didn't lis show us what happened to Bruce and the true ending while being a bit of a pain to get for Riddler trophies alone gave us a decent idea of what life is like post Batman since the ending is quite ambiguous I'll state what is to my knowledge the most popular theory regarding this ending Bruce is still fighting crime however he's changed his crime-fighting style to incorporate fear toxin the only issue I have with this theory is that people aren't scared of Batman anymore you can hear conversations on the streets about Batman's identity ruining the fear surrounding him unless bruises found a way to control what exactly is shown to criminals I don't know how the fear toxin could work this way I have to admit that while the story wasn't the best I think it was better than Arkham City an asylum Asylum story was well done but it was ultimately pretty basic city on the other hand suffered from some of the same issues this story does its main villain or supposed main villain didn't feel very intimidating he figured out Batman's identity without really explaining why and he doesn't do anything with it you don't really know what protocol town is so the stakes weren't very high of course having Batman being poisoned what the Joker's blood was very well done and that does raise the stakes a lot it felt like something the character would do in the process in which you get the Cure made some semblance of sense I think the ending of city stumbled a bit when it came to Doctor Strange as his betrayal by Ra's al Ghul felt pardon the pun strange the mastermind behind the whole operation is a guy you already defeated hours earlier then the entire Doctor Strange plot ends with both strange and Raz presumably dying and then the games like oh oh yeah the joke is here too it just felt like the ending fell flat the conclusion of an Arkham story being not the best is a familiar criticism as it applies to asylum City and origins and now again in Arkham Knight I think a significant aspect of the plot that Arkham Knight doesn't get enough credit for is how much you accomplish I personally didn't like the arkham city most of the time felt like a wild goose chase to get the cure for yourself you have to go to freeze stop penguin track the assassins beat Ra's al Ghul go back to freeze fight freeze catch Joker stop protocol 10 stop Clayface stop Joker and then you can drink the Cure Arkham Knight at least feels a little more complicated when there is more complexity there's generally more plot holes to be plugged and more care needs to go into it I think it's interesting though the story is so jumbled because it seems like it has everything there it has not one but three cool villains it has an aspect of mystery it has fantastic set pieces but it all just came together and ultimately fell flat the story seemed a little drawn out but the ending for me at least redeemed it a little I can't deny that the worst aspect of the game is its story but that doesn't weigh down the game to a below average rating or slightly above-average game from my own personal standards I think that the story were better and if the boss traits had more thought put into them the game would be a solid 10 out of 10 Batman Arkham Knight is easily the best game in the franchise when it comes to gameplay in world the DLC did a fantastic job of adding more content making the writing and world much more engaging Arkham Knights gameplay has been refined to the point that I would argue but perfect Gotham's world looks as good as it ever has and that's not just from a graphical standpoint but from a design standpoint to a considerable amount of detail was put into this game ranging from the Joker five billboards to the diner in the beginning of the game which you can revisit later on unfortunately I think the game definitely stumbles in the story in bossfight Department in trying to craft a story that brings all of Batman's greatest foes to center stage the story is forgotten to keep its consistency and it leads to the story feeling underwhelming and bloated I want to clarify again that I'm not saying that Arkham Knight is a perfect game I'm saying that it's the best in the franchise and that's much better than some people give it credit for if we consider that this game is $25 Canadian right now and thirty one dollars for the game and all the DLC included there's no question that this game is worth the price I think even the $90 Canadian price tag it started with is still worth it as a game play is so top notch while this game may not have been the on ducing swan song we as fans were hoping for it's still a fantastic game that is easily in my opinion the best in the franchise [Music] hey guys thanks so much for watching the video I just wanted to say thank you for of course watching and thank you for twenty five thousand subscribers that's a kind of kind of weird like it still doesn't feel real it just it like when I go to my home page it looks like I'm looking at someone else's channel it's it's insane you guys have been so kind and I appreciate it a lot I also want to say that I also appreciate Nam one two three nine nine who is a good friend of mine he makes very good videos he just made a new video on Final Fantasy 7 and it is like an hour and a half of just quality content go take a look at it if he can he helps me out huge and yeah I also like to say that if you enjoy my stuff you can follow me on twitch at twitch.tv slash that boy aqua you can follow me on instagram at that boy aqua and on twitter at that boy aqua and yeah that's pretty much it I'd also like to thank zapt for hooking me up with a brand new channel art and profile picture you can find his uh his socials down 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Channel: That Boy Aqua

Views: 1,398,867

Keywords: Aqua, Nolan, Batman Arkham Knight Critique, Batman Arkham PS5, Court of Owls, Batman Arkhma Knight Analysis, Batman Arkham Collection Review, Batman Arkham Knight Review, New Arkham Game, New Rocksteady Game, batman arkham knight, arkham knight, batman arkham knight guide, batman arkham knight review, batman: arkham knight (video game), batman arkham origins, batman arkham knight pc, batman arkham knight ending, arkham knight deathstroke, batman arkham knight ending explained

Id: T8oPQS0DCsA

Length: 47min 49sec (2869 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/nicenicer_]

nice

[u/RedditBantz]

Gameplay mechanics wise it is the best in the series but, I will never forgive the game for it's poor side missions, terrible bosses, predictable knight reveal, and overall focus on stagg and the militia. Scarecrow was also utterly wasted. The batmobile was also absolutely overused.