Why Gotham Knights FAILED

after the Colossal success that was the Arkham quadrilogy we were left in a deafening silence following a controversial and explosive swan song the character of Batman was done proper Justice and his story felt complete regardless of your thoughts on some of the villains or certain creative decisions it was clear that topping the Arkham franchise and misinterpretation of the character would be a near impossible task so imagine the reaction when Warner Brothers decided to not even try instead focusing on the Legacy and apprentices the Knight left behind this is the basis of Gotham Knights and I believe it's a good foundation to build a story and a new generation of Heroes while separate from the Arkham timeline Gotham Knights respects its predecessor by building off of some major themes left behind an Arkham like the Joker and Bruce Bruce in the story is dead and it's left to a Sidekicks Nightwing red hood Robin and Batgirl to pick up their socks and become Gotham's criminals new reason to think twice but these new Knights struggle not in their skills or access to technology but in reputation they aren't feared like their mentor and are seen as lesser than them so the team has goals of establishing their reputation and fear but also filling the boots of their dead father figure this is a perfect means of expanding the Batman Universe without retreading the steps of the Arkham series and it parallels the knights living up to Batman's Legacy and the game living up to the Arkham Legacy unfortunately while Batgirl Red Hood Robin and Nightwing come into their own by the end of the story Gotham Knight seems stuck in year one a shoddy launch with bugs and performance issues around every corner in the game itself being a grind for the first few hours means Gotham Knights puts its worst foot forward and trips on that first step for every excellent set piece is a sub 20 frame drop every satisfying combo is soured by a visual bug or a dropped input these issues do not ruin the experience and if these kinks are ironed out Gotham Knights would be a worthy successor to the Arkham Legacy but still Gotham Knights is severely misunderstood look at any review and it becomes clear that Gotham knights was a critical failure much like my dietary efforts between you and me I'm lazy and having to drag myself to the grocery store to grab ingredients plan out my recipe all to then get halfway into the recipe and realize I forgot the eggplants sucks fortunately that's not a problem when I order my meals from hellofresh you won't need to worry about portions complex recipes grocery stores not having what you need and coming up with what to cook ever again hellofresh delivers recipes and meals right to your door and they have options for any dietary restriction so people like me who can't have dairy and gluten can still have delicious meals and ones that don't cost an arm and a leg I'm looking forward to whipping up this Mediterranean style chicken but of course I'll be holding the feta if you want to get up to 20 free meals with your purchase you can click the link in the description or use code hello boy Aqua at the checkout that's hello boy Aqua at the checkout or just use the link in the description and the pinned comment enjoy the free meals and thank you hellofresh for sponsoring this video I should also make it clear in my perspective because I'd be lying if I said this would be a perfectly objective review so rather than put on a facade that I'm smarter than you I'll let you know where my biases stand and you can hear my thoughts with that in mind the first is that while I consider myself a relatively casual fan of Batman I'm a die-hard Arkham fan I love everything about the games and I think they're all near perfect except Arkham Origins Blackgate that game hurt me jokes aside I'm head over heels for the Arkham series but I want this game too much like its characters develop its own identity separate for Markham after my time with Gotham Knights I can confidently say that if the issues outlined in this video are addressed I would believe this is an excellent game worth your money the idea is solid and the foundation is there but there are a handful of minor blemishes that add up to create an ugly image discussion surrounding this game has been extreme at best most reviews and videos have blatantly misrepresented parts of the game and have exaggerated others many claim it's a disgrace or that it's awful but I don't believe that at all in fact many of the issues that some have are not as bad as the first three hours would have you believe the RPG mechanics gear stats and skill trees are here but they are balanced well a casual can get away with just about anything opting for form over function but those who enjoy Min maxing their stats can get a lot of mileage here but we can't ignore the elephant-sized bat in the room while comparisons to the Arkham series are unfair as this game is clearly not trying to be an Arkham game we can't ignore its place as a gold standard for superhero games the Arkham games are the blueprint for what to do in a superhero game and while I am looking at Gotham Knights as its own product I'd be lying if I said there wasn't times where I thought why is this mechanic executed in this way when previous Batman games perfected it things like movement in the Arkham games have felt fluid since City and yet the gliding here feels comparable to Asylum it's not that I want an Arkham game I've made it clear in Prior videos I think the Arkham game should stay contained and untouched lest their legacy be ruined so let's analyze why this game failed and how it can and is being saved all while in the shadow of its predecessor [Music] before we get into anything I need to address the visual bugs and frame issues you'll be seeing throughout this video I play the game on release spent my own hard-earned Canadian dollars for it and began recording after the first batch of November I waited because the game ran quite poorly on launch and I'd hope the first patch might make this game run better and therefore make my video look better but the opposite had occurred the November patch actually made the game Run worse somehow but I understand that there's still time for issues to be fixed in fact in the weeks it's taken to write the script a number of updates have released that marginally improved performance so with that in mind I will have a pinned comment that will have updates regarding how the game runs I will also post Corrections or updates to patched issues so if you see an issue in this video that isn't in the game anymore chances are the devs have patched it I also recorded all my footage on an external capture device meaning that recording the game did not impact performance at all I don't typically give this caveat but it is necessary here because in writing this video there have been a number of patches that have solved problems I had and the performance while still rocky is improving with each update it doesn't excuse to save the game at launch but it is clear that the developers are trying to do something about it finally any issues with this game is not to be directed at any individual developer the quality of this game should not be used to justify any harassment towards the people that poured their Blood Sweat and Tears into this product so let's begin by looking at the presentation as it's the biggest turn off right now plainly it just seems like the game is poorly optimized I played this on PC with hopes that 60 frames was an option and to be fair there were many points where the game Hit It For minutes at a time but something isn't working right here when other games that have greater Fidelity are running smoother most frame drops will be taking place when traversing Gotham City and the city itself is surprisingly beautiful it may not be the most technically impressive I assume to account for the co-op that permeates throughout almost the entirety of the game but Gotham is a neon Skyline hemmed by the Gothic architecture buildings are close enough to make traversing the rooftops possible but there are plenty of wide streets and long Bridges to Warrant the use of the bat cycle or Airborne movement streets are as filthy as the criminals that occupy it and the city feels alive with people commenting on your appearance both polite and rude and little details like the police showing up to a crime after you've stopped it go a long way in making this Gotham the most vibrant we've seen and one of the few to not have its citizens evacuated during the many showdowns we'll see parts of Gotham change and it's against the likes of freeze that we see how bad but beautiful things can become as the concrete towers are coated in ice and we Blaze through the streets against the snow I wish we saw more of this artistic Variety in Gotham because the moments like this or when the sky is blood red later in the story communicate Ray's Stakes without some character telling you that things are bad the only inhibitor to your enjoyment of the city is the frame rate but that is less prevalent inside and no sacrifice to the level of detail Interiors continue the gothic ascetic and due to being enclosed it offers greater detail and a more stable experience I appreciate that much like the exteriors the insides feel more lively and aren't the Anarchy and litter-ridden streets we had seen in previous games taking down guards in a wealthy Penthouse was something previous games didn't offer much of and this game even revisits some familiar locations but puts new spins on them the Arkham Asylum we see in this game abandons the contortions of iron and Victorian architecture from the previous visits and leans into the haunted undertones of the location when in its depths we can find the offices of famous characters radios that won't turn off and other rather spooky occurrences that make this stay enjoyable if not better than the Mastercraft roxay presented us with the place is abandoned so it looks a bit trash but doesn't compare to the locations Harley Quinn occupies which are splattered with spray paint and Mayhem while we're on this topic of Harley we can discuss my favorite part of this game but I want to apologize first I've made many jokes about how down astronomical I am for Harley and others in these Batman games and I've realized that objectifying women for the sake of a joke is not okay but men are still on the table have you guys seen The Pixar mom level dump truck on Nightwing oh my God forget a snack this dude is fine dining and never before have I felt such an urge for Crime than I do now because if it means I get choked out by those thighs I will take my chances okay enough jokes let's continue with the solid level design which features both secretive tombs home to the courts and the Blackgate Prison which you'll visit a few times across the game and it always looks great when first approaching the high concrete walls restrict the night sky above and they feel oppressive like you yourself are being caged within when you enter the prison itself you'll be chasing down a clue from Harley you'll then end up in the yard while a bubbly Punk song plays it wasn't my cup of tea music wise but it added some great Flair to the set piece and I wish there was more of this in the game the rest of the soundtrack is mostly forgettable but never enters bad territory the theme that plays when roaming the city is great but my absolute favorite is the bangers I play during the races these things go way too hard and are easily the best songs in the game making traversal feel far more visceral than it actually is what's most unfortunate about Gotham Knights is that if it weren't for for the performance issues I'd say this is a great looking game many have compared this game to his predecessor of many years Arkham Knight and while I can't agree that Arkham Knight is significantly better looking it didn't have consistent tether free Co-op so I find it hard to compare and we should also remember that Arkham Knight had its fair share of optimization issues on release too even with the comparisons the game looks solid and the animations for different characters and their takedowns that are unique to them are slick its rendition of Gotham is beautiful and yet it feels like it is constantly bogged down by glitches and a lack of engaging ways to explore such a good looking City the gameplay of Gotham Knights is one that gets good but it takes a few hours to get there leaving most players with the impression that it has little to offer traversal is one of the most disappointing facets of gameplay and disappointing not only for its lack of depth but in its thick coat of untapped potential the easiest place to see this is when gliding a Batgirl this is one of those parts of the game where comparisons are near impossible to avoid because gliding was perfected over a decade prior the one special ingredient that elevates gliding from good to Great is a sense of momentum you have the ability to turn and steer both vertically and horizontally and even the ability to nose dive but there is barely any sense of speed and momentum your speed is capped out so early on so any momentum that is transferred from a nose dive is lost within a second or two the gliding also feels wonky to control I find it difficult to excuse this because as said this has been perfected time and time again and it should have been perfected here Gotham Knights provides such an amazing City for us to explore but time and time again they make getting around and subsequently exploring said worlds tedious and boring gliding is the most in-depth means of traversal and certainly requires the most skill even if the skill floor and ceiling begin and end at the Earth's core the rest of the bat family don't fare well with red hood particular having an unconventional means of travel he uses the powers granted to him from the Lazarus Pit to jump large distances in the air but I've enjoyed imagining that's just him propelling himself using wario-esque farts it's just a matter of holding R2 and there's a little control here but not much else it fortunately looks good but the visuals age quickly it at least pairs with the grappling hook well in that short and long distances can be crossed with a few air hops adding variation to Rooftop traversal at least Robin has a more interesting Foundation than jumping with his sideways which sees him teleporting short distances this is as simple as hitting R2 and moving anywhere you want to go it's the most precise of the abilities but as you can likely tell by the footage it isn't very engaging you have a time limit of 8 seconds before you're forced out of the teleport but you can re-enter the sideways right away so the Restriction feels redundant this is one of the weaker traversal options for the player but for other players it is one of the best as a spectator cannot see where Robin is when he's mid-teleport so he just blips from place to place finally we have Nightwing's trapeze which is essentially a fortnite glider no battle pass required it's as simple as holding R2 and pushing where you want to go it's a efficient enough and there's a ton of fun to be had when bobbing and weaving in between buildings my biggest gripe with this motor traversal and this applies to all of them is that there's a general lack of speed and response from all modes I understand the speed was most likely capped to prevent players moving too fast and not giving the game enough time to load things in but when these abilities lack speed they offer fewer advantages to grappling every hero can use their grapple gun to pull themselves to a point and even transfer their momentum into a jump this is a fine enough way of traversing and has a surprising amount of Freedom as you can cancel it Midway but many will desire something more if not for Speed than for variety and freedom when mixed into the Knighthood abilities it's quite good but if you want a more grounded means of getting around you'll have the bat cycle when I said that Gotham Knights puts its worst foot forward this was one of the things I had in mind I don't think the bat cycle is a bad idea but when one of if not the largest gripe from the last Batman game was the overuse of a vehicle I think introducing another vehicle within the first 15 minutes is just calling back to an unpleasant memory for a lot of people when riding it's fine the bike moves at a slow speed and the white speed lines that edge the screen feel cheap because of this in a vacuum riding down the streets Cape flapping in the wind is good but when you're moving to a waypoint or participating in a race you start to see that your actual speed is low velocity aside the drifting is nice and so is the jump eject also enjoy the way it appears from cloaking it's unrealistic but it's far too convenient to complain about while we're on the topic of the game leading with its worst assets we can talk about how you unlock most of the traversal abilities the Knighthood traversal is unlocked through completing some challenges that are the same for each character defeat 3 mini boss's top 10 premeditated crimes and complete the time strike training this will take you anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours and is necessary for every character if you want some of their best abilities and if you want some variation in your traversal this means that early on you'll be forced to grind and the reward is less than Stellar odds are you'll try to complete these challenges early and in the open world which exposes two other issues with early gameplay the first is that every character starts at the same base Point by the time each character hits level 10 they'll be distinct enough from one another but in those first hours the only difference is speed which isn't drastic enough from character to character to make an impact issues begin even before you get to the open world grind as the tutorial sees you engaging in the gear system that while I like in this game is something many don't want to see in a game as it immediately brings to mind the disaster of Marvel's Avengers in the opening objective investigating Kirk langstrom's lab we run into one of the many factions of Gotham City there's a good variety here but for some odd reason we are introduced to the freaks I don't mind goons being idiots and it makes it more fun to listen to but this faction has the worst dialogue out of the entire cast I understand that they are freaks they are insane and typically insane people don't string together coherent sentences but some of these lines which will be some of the worst you hear are right at the start out here I'm a professor of setting stuff on fire other factions here are fine dialogue wise and all of this is without mentioning the biggest issue people took from the moment this game was revealed which is the health bar if you're out of the loop I sound insane but typically Gamers will see a health bar and damage numbers and shriek and fear because it usually is indicative of RPG mechanics that are often handled poorly I don't think it's handled poorly here but it still has room to improve the greater issue is Gotham Knights has to deal with the fact that based on one simple decision to include these health bars many players will make assumptions about the rest of the game and compounding this on top of everything else you see why many refunded the game or played the first few hours and never went back the truth is Gotham Knights get significantly better as you progress but I can't blame someone for not wanting to push past that initial barrier one of the first reasons the post early grind is great is because I don't have to grind it all past that I played on normal difficulty and I found that I often had to complete maybe one or two side tangents not missions to get the gear I needed many of the story missions rewards you with gear that scales to your level and is of a high Rarity meaning if you are like me then you can be line the story once you finish the game there is a slight end game grind but not a very rewarding one by the time all side quests have been completed you'll have maxo characters ready for New Game Plus which offers a harder Challenge and a new level cap unlocking skills does not change the way you Traverse the city but it heavily impacts combat and stealth and offers a proper reason to please every character Nightwing is the acrobatic leader of the group and I have a few issues with him being portrayed as the head of the pack but gripes about leadership aside his tree focuses on assisting allies and bouncing from enemy to enemy his attacks are flashy Dodges consecutive and fluid but struggles at range most of his attacks are boosted when in the air and his Buffs apply to his team too making him great in Co-op Nightwing's abilities consist of dealing Elemental damage some single Target focus and a bounce that shoots him into the air allowing him to bounce off of enemies a handful of times I felt that Nightwing was often floaty but his pinball-like nature of bouncing from one enemy to another was unique the game also attempts to give Nightwing a skill tree dedicated to boosting allies but I found this tree unhelpful as it requires another person to play with and you'd be surprised how hard it is to convince someone to buy this game especially after its initial reception I also find the Buffs didn't do much when you only have one other player in your game I can imagine this character would see more play if the multiplayer extended to four players which in the case of the heroic assault update is true having Nightwing who can buff everyone in the party when taking down enemies is a near necessity and using any other build with him just feels like a waste Nightwing can be built out for solo play too which is appreciated but his ability to enable allies will always outshine his individual capabilities Robin is a group stealth expert and he makes any sneaking an absolute Cakewalk everything in his kit is built around getting in and out of sight quickly which plays to a stature of being the most Nimble and young of the group he boasts the ability to enter South again quickly after a pounce attack and can take down brutes and stealth unique to his skill set his bow staff is fine enough for crowd control but he ultimately struggles in combat compared to his brothers and sister which makes playing him a fun trade-off his momentum abilities cover nearly every base as do all of them and he moves with some speed but not much power red hood is the root of the bunch and utilizes his non-lethal pistols to deal damage from a distance he excels in open combat and keeping the entire field stun locked behind bullets and punches ahead like truck stealth never works too well but your proper aim rewards an insane amount of damage assuming you are sharp enough most of his heavy attacks knock enemies flat on their ass making Jason perfect for patrols as he barely breaks a sweat with the average goon finally there is who I find to be the best character Batgirl her focus is on hacking and one-on-one combat the hacking makes most stealth segments significantly easier and more diverse allowing her to attract enemies to particular locations and even disable cameras and other traps temporarily with her tool kit plenty of encounters can be outright skipped but if you're spotted you'll find that she's an animal in combat because of one momentum ability the beat down taking a note from Bruce's hijinks in the Arkham series The Beatdown sees her launching a knee at the enemy and going to town melting whatever health bar is in her way what makes the ability even better is that critical strikes are more common I think and multiple upgrades allow her to charge a momentum bar faster and not be stunned out of a Beatdown the only weakness is that this attack does not work on most enemies larger than her but an alternate ability covers that any boss fight against an average size Ville will be an absolute Cakewalk and I genuinely think that Barbara is a bit broken in this sense perhaps it's just her excelling in a particular field but even crowd control is a breeze and as mentioned hacking makes stealth a breeze too she's easily the most well-rounded character in the game and I wouldn't blame the average player for sticking with her throughout the entirety of it everyone has a proper ability and Specialty that makes them fit for specific situations but outside of that specialty they have a wide selection of tools to cover any weak points meaning that in every situation the player can get by and without suffering too many consequences I'm torn on my thoughts here because I would have liked characters with more variety and weaknesses to encourage Co-op but I also would feel heavily restricted if characters were so specialized at doing anything outside of their strength was useless overall I still find the combat fun and there was still plenty of reasons to use the other characters and it helps keep a new game plus run more varied red Hood's pistols ask for a range play style compared to Batgirl who opts to get in the enemy's face in Co-op it's a lot of fun and end game grinds with each hero are enjoyable but what does that grind look like Gotham Knights has a patrol system in which there are different crimes taking place all around Gotham but you don't know about it yet you first have to gather evidence discover the crime and then stop it before it takes place or join ring as you finish the premeditated crimes you'll find yourself discovering more as each defeated enemy drops more evidence creating a snowball of crimes to stop it creates an enjoyable gameplay Loop and it all starts with the petty crime you have to scan different enemies to find out which one has your information but it's always a goon who's one or two levels above the others once you grab them you can interrogate them and it fulfills an admittedly childlike fantasy of dropping in beating the living hell out of everyone putting someone in a Chokehold and leaving within 20 seconds once you run out of crimes you return to the Belfry your home base and it's clear that you can change characters gear and exit again to start the next night the end of each night presents some statistics about how many crimes were stopped damage you dealt and more I feel like plenty of superhero games focus on the big bad enemies the major threats to the city and while those are fun I can appreciate Gotham Knight showing love to the small time crime fighting and it acts as a reminder that while Batman is dealing with the foes seeking world domination he's still keeping tabs on the Grassroots crime these crimes are seamless too entering a robbed bank puts no loading screens in front of you and entrances range from vents and windows to the front door the premeditated crimes are enjoyable enough they are different excuses to defeat a number of enemies that are either performing data transfers trying to kidnap someone holding important information but the variety and objectives and locations keep these fun for their runtime having one objective asset you take down a group of thugs that are holding hard drives means you can go in whatever way you like but another may see some thugs holding hostages with bombs to them and if you're spotted they'll detonate said bombs this offers a unique stealth challenge that if failed which trust me you will fail them on harder difficulties does not result in a game over or even death all the time the hostages just die and your character has to leave it helps the world feel real and not revolve around the player I understand that this is just a product of the game's Co-op needing to be accounted for but I still appreciate it the hostages further exemplify how different characters approach a challenge there are cameras that can spot you which must be disabled first but with an upgrade for Barbara she'll cloak herself preventing detection from cameras minds or any other technology eventually you will begin discovering dens which act as the basis of criminals and they are as varied as the others but offer likely the greatest challenge there then comes a point where you transition from the mid game to the end game and it's at this point point that Gotham Knight's gameplay Loop shifts entirely but we'll leave that to its own section as it turns side quests that are done initially out of fun and distraction two ones completed for a grind but why do you grind and for what well this is one of the largest issues people immediately noticed you grind for gear experience and materials experience is handled well here as I always felt I was leveling up and unlocking something new consistently the best part about progression is that when you rank up with one character it applies to all of them this is such a simple change but goes a long way for allowing the player to switch things up whenever and it prevents the player from feeling restricted to one character because they would have to grind to catch up on the others the only thing holding you back then is the gear but the game even has that covered as after each story Mission every character is given a piece of heroic gear crafted gear does not carry over but that can be solved through stopping a few Crimes by the end the time between level UPS is higher but by then you aren't grinding for end game levels instead for End Game Gear the gear system here is actually good I appreciate that for those looking to ignore the gear like I was you can get through the game with almost no issues by just using whatever Gears of the highest level and whatever has a bigger Power number it is only by the end game that certain gear will outperform ones that have a higher power level and rather drastically too I'd have a legendary piece of gear that despite being of a lower level than one of a higher level would work better for a character I can understand this being an issue for some but I have to admit that in my playthrough by the time gear started actually mattering Beyond power level I was already tinkering with different mods and builds and looking into the specifics of each piece of gear the different gear has numerous Buffs sometimes ranging from extra Elemental buildup to critical hit damage to critical chance and each piece has room for a few mods which is where you can really start tailoring your character red Hood's pistols are great for range criticals and after specking into abilities that up his critical rate and critical damage I had a nigh Unstoppable character as he riddled his enemies every other hit being a critical and even mini bosses going down in a Flash and dodging a punch is a hell of a lot easier when they can't even get close enough to swing I liked having different sets with different Elemental resistances so when tackling a Villain Like freeze I could have a suit that resisted cold something we see Batman do all the time it also helps that experimenting offers a range of ascetics and they all look Stellar aside from the Shinobi style not my favorite but the point is when every style looks as good as this I have more fun experimenting once a suit is equipped you'll have a few options for colors variations to things like symbols gauntlets boots and masks helping to keep your character unique to you but how do you obtain these suits and mods crafting the final piece of our Unholy Trinity throughout the game by completing tasks and opening chests you'll find resources and materials that can be used to craft gear the blueprints of which you find in the same way I can't say I'm a big fan of keeping track of a handful of different materials but I also can't say I ever had to for context I crafted a lot of gear and did quite a few side quests I not until crafting End Game Gear had insufficient materials I just didn't think about it and when I was short I was quickly able to find a side quest that rewarded the specific material I was looking for any old gear can be dismantled for materials and overall the crafting system just feels useless if I never have to worry about resources and I run around collecting blueprints to craft why not just give me the gear outright otherwise there is a frustration in that when you do get a new blueprint you have to wait until you get to the Belfry to equip it it makes the acquisition of New Gear tedious because I could get a new armor set that I love but I have to either end my patrol early which will remove all premeditated crimes from the map or I wait until the end of the night and by then I've likely leveled up or I found better gear that renders the previous useless it makes progression come in burst and if we could just equip the gear we find right away we could be constantly progressing and changing our looks making the at times repetitive gameplay slightly less so but why are players not happy about these systems they don't seem to be as bad as other systems like Avengers I think the issue is that these mechanics seem a lot more intrusive on the surface and they indicate a larger pavlovian response in players people see gear systems and immediately think of Avengers which had individual threads you could equip that made it feel like they had no impact but here the equipment is kept minimalistic and offers an actual reason to use it this system strikes a solid balance between pleasing casual players who will pick whatever is most aesthetically pleasing while also satisfying people like myself who enjoy optimizing a build my only wish is that the transmogs could be customizable the transmogs are skins that go on top of your current gear the issues that You Can't customize the appearance of the transmog which to me sort of defeats the purpose I love the way the Beyond suits look but when it is restricted to a certain color scheme I don't like it as much a solution is just to find gear with the style you want but especially by the end game it'll take a while to find gear that meets your static requirements while also having viable stats one of the best parts of any superhero game is getting to use the different outfits and styles and this game has plenty to offer but accessing them could be a bit less tedious I genuinely don't believe the gear system is bad at all and there is a good chance of people claiming it makes no impact on the game have either played on an easier difficulty for reasons which we will get into or they looked purely at the damage the gear does and not how stats like Elemental buildup and crit chance can be kitted out to fit certain builds which would make a world of a difference speccing into Elemental effects Red Hood worked fine offering 7 to 900 damage but when specking into Critical Hits I was dealing up to 35 000 damage with each crit the mods can be merged to create greater versions but I found this to be tedious and I can't blame someone for not engaging fully with the mods it is however the same story as mods increased Elemental buildup crit chance or just plain damage will be helpful in creating those end game or even mid-game builds I've spoken a lot about abilities gear but not enough about the combat itself I haven't talked about it up to now because generally people don't have an issue with it it isn't critically acclaimed but many feel it's serviceable and I agree its foundations are light attacks heavy attacks and dodging dodging is in place of countering but if you dodge with proper timing then you'll return a counter-attack that knocks the enemy on the ground once on the ground or at low Health an enemy can be grabbed from there you can throw or strike them and that's about everything that combat builds off of one of the first criticisms I had seen regarding the combat is and this was levied against the Arkham games too was that it was Button mashy as I'm sure you can imagine the rebuttal is the same here time strikes are a mechanic where if you hit the attack button just before an attack hits you'll do a Time strike offering more damage and a flashier animation but this is not simply a rhythmic press but one that is intentional different animations means that pressing the attack button at the right time is constantly changing which makes a combo of time strikes difficult but also rewarding as hell when you pull it off this is not prevent the combat from being a mash of square for the entire playthrough but it does heavily encourage you to play with a delicate touch for not only more Styles but more damage too the enemies on offer are slim at first but by the Midway point the roster is acceptable there are a few classes that extend across every faction in the game those being the Brawlers focusing on hand to hand the Rangers using guns the area of effect using molotovs and grenades and the brutes who are a mix of the three with some extra thickness the Brews have heavier attacks and defenses that must be broken with your heavy attack otherwise they have a large health bar and that's about it the roots also can't be taken out in stealth unless you play as Robin they have variations from freaks to Regulators but they all function the same barring the added Elemental damage if hit with enough fire or poison you'll take sustained damage but if hit with enough freeze you'll be frozen for a few seconds the mob and the freaks are quite basic but The Regulators have a new enemy called the Drone master that can deploy two drones one that will shoot you from afar and another that will detonate in front of you these guys have a larger health bar and are more of a pain in the ass than anything The Regulators also have snipers that are the same as ranged enemies but with a slow wind-up and devastating damage the only real deviation is with the court of owls and the League of Shadows the court begins introducing Specialists that are like the Brawlers but can block your attacks meaning you'll need heavy attacks to begin a combo at higher levels and difficulties enemies across the board will start doing this and that includes dodging projectiles the talons that are introduced about halfway through the game will move erratically and Dodge all of your attacks unless first stunned with a heavy ranged attack from there a grab strike will put them down or a few good hits these enemies were Beyond annoying because the heavy ranged attack would sometimes stun them and other times it wouldn't perhaps it's a game not explaining how to deal with them properly but they always elicited aside when they showed up the Bruce introduced are fine enough but they share an ability with other high-ranking owls in that when at low Health they'll regain all of their health meaning you have to defeat them twice there is one caveat in that if you defeat them before they power up or grab them out of it you can stop them which is nice but in a crowd setting this is not always possible by the late game they won't be interruptable at all too which means you are defeating the same enemy twice this also impacts stealth is when you take down an enemy they'll just get back up and become style this enemy type or ability can be removed from the game entirely and Gotham Knights would be so much better for it the final faction with a major difference is the league the league makes use of smoke screens and pseudo teleportation to get the drop on you but go down the same way I appreciate that despite their attacks coming out of literally nowhere they are telegraphed well so with proper attention I could Dodge these enemies are best dealt with through damage over time meaning Elemental builds will Thrive the brutes now carry guns in some of the Combos and ninjas can perform are downright brutal the combat in general flows well enough though there were some issues with enemies lunging on realistic distances to land a hit also notice that there were combos that felt near impossible to dodge or the times when dodging still resulted in getting hit but these are minor most encounters are similar regardless of faction but they act as a canvas for you to express your fighting style which works in the game's favor when specific enemies like Talons or the league are introduced they force you to change the choreography and how you move from enemy to enemy the animations look good and especially the final takedowns have an extra punch but before an encounter begins there's a good chance you'll be thinning the numbers in stealth stealth is as basic as it gets here with again every character's strengths impacting the way you approach it you have a silent takedown which can be initiated above below and behind an enemy and allowed Ambush Shakedown for when you want to make a dramatic entrance enemies take a forgiving amount of time to spot you and certain enemies like the Broods can't be taken down so playing around them is an added layer of challenge explosive barrels surround most encounters meaning you can reliably chip away at the enemies from above with Barbara you can make use of some hacks to lure enemies and even shroud yourself from cameras and mines Robin can plant mines that'll lure enemies to a location where they'll be hit and you can perform a vantage takedown simultaneously dropping a mind to lure other goons closer and Nightwing and red hood don't have much to offer but at least Jason can One-Shot most goons with his pistol before heading in the AI is forgiving at times too much and if spotted the enemy will be so scared that they fall back and don't even scream for a few seconds giving ample time to finish them off before you're caught this feature is especially appreciated given that you can't reload a checkpoint as often enemies will also investigate sounds and bodies and when investigating they'll move erratically which kept me on my toes when an enemy is talking and you take them down cutting off their dialogue others will wonder what happened and move to investigate the issue with stealth is that I just described everything it has to offer in gameplay it works but the way you interact with enemies does not change from the beginning of the game to the end barring one or two abilities even characters like Robin who are portrayed as a stealth specialist aren't given a ton of proper tools to change the way he plays stealth but rather it makes the usual methods easier things like quiet footsteps taking longer to spot lures which function the same way as throwing a batarang somewhere it's all Buffs to the things you already do contrast this with the combat that changes drastically given the gear and we have a stealth system that quickly becomes underwhelming some might feel the need to stick to the Shadows because the enemies are too strong which leads me to another issue that people had with this game the health bars and damage numbers this is the pavlovian response I mentioned Gamers see damage numbers and go feral like I I don't get it either way they can be turned off here and they provide useful information when fighting freeze I found my ranged attacks were doing more damage than the close attacks I wouldn't have known that without the damage numbers if I had to guess people don't like damage numbers because it implies damaged sponges which weren't too much of an issue here this is where difficulty comes in depending on your play style damage sponges won't be an issue at all assuming you don't bother with any gear optimizing you'll be defeating most enemies in a few hits and boss fights will be an equal cakewalk on normal difficulty enemies will take a bit to go down and boss fights will begin entering damaged sponge territory and this reaches its climax on hard the thing is the moment you begin to barely consider the gear you're equipping you will mow through even the hardest difficulties after completing my first playthrough I decided to head into New Game Plus and properly spec my characters on hard mode and I found the game to be so easy that I stopped playing I was physically there pressing buttons but there were no thoughts much like cooking a beautiful recipe from hellofresh by using Code hello boy Aqua at the checkout to get up to 20 free meals okay I'll stop I'm sorry one of my builds was for Batgirl and I like to call this Lazarus Babs I'm going to run through the whole kit but only to emphasize how broken a good build can be with just a bit of tinkering the armor set was a legendary reinforced suit with a few mods increasing health and Elemental resistance to electricity and Ice then I had three passive Buffs the first was the TKO heel which healed me after every knockout the next was a final resolve which increased defense when my health was low and finally perfect critical allowed me to do increased critical damage after a Dodge then we have the toxic tonfa for melee which had mods to increase Elemental effect and critical hit damage then it had three Buffs the first granted momentum after a perfect knockout attack the second gave added momentum after knocking down an enemy with a momentum ability and the third increased Elemental effect and resistance after a knockout finally I had a vampiric batarang that had three mods increasing critical damage and passives that healed me over time when using a momentum ability gave added Elemental effects when hitting an enemy with Precision aim and granted Health after landing a critical hit it gets better I then have multiple upgrades to increase Batgirl's critical hit chance damage health health regeneration when defeating enemies with grab strikes an ability that lets you revive yourself twice and I call this build the Lazarus Babs because you do not die in fact there's a good chance you'll go entire encounters not using medkits from the mo moment I enter I just need to get one pick on a low level Thug and after that it's an Unstoppable Snowball Effect that makes even boss fights a cakewalk so here is where difficulty becomes hard to judge when you can create a Loadout like this there is no challenge even on the hardest difficulties so for those that might feel the game has damage sponges there are plenty of solutions for that one option is to actually engage with the gear system and the other is to crank down the difficulty a quick side note I don't want to shame anyone for playing uneasy if that's what works for you then by all means do it and anyone who does shame someone because they aren't getting the real challenge should just mind their own business one could argue that playing on Lower difficulties could prevent you from engaging with one of the most rewarding aspects of the game sure but either way play how you want on my first playthrough I almost changed the difficulty too easy during one of the end game boss fights of which there are a solid amount paralleling the variety in boss fights is the varying quality Mr Freeze in his first fight is tough some attacks border on undodgeable but the loop of fighting on the ground and then taking to the air as we Dodge environmental hazards works well sadly his health bar is rather large which is a running theme the atmosphere surrounding the fight is good and the weather is perfect effects but your rematch against him is not a good look instead of fighting freeze we get to fight his spider-like Mech this Mech of course has far more health and the attacks are fine enough the only real issue with the fight is how long it takes even with maxed out gear and stats I struggled to feel as though I made a dent and it feels that this fight like other portions of the game were designed with co-op in mind Harley Quinn is a melee based close range combatant who Cycles waves of enemies through her many attack patterns her fight was satisfactory and while not doing anything revolutionary also doesn't misstep then there's Clayface who might be the best boss in the game if not for one fatal issue the fight begins at the dam and a third of the way through Clayface begins chasing you down the sewers which incorporates the bat cycle into combat in a way that is only used in this instance I was surprised to not see any chases on the bad cycle because there is an option to use ranged attacks on it and having a high speed chase where you need to throw batarangs to damage an enemy while also dodging the oncoming traffic would be far better than the tank sections of old but I digress the second phase is similar to the first but with a few ranged attacks The crucial error is that in many cases I was being hit when I wasn't supposed to and a lot of attacks track me hard enough that I had no time to course correct a further issue is that a lot of clay faces a tax combo into each other and on the hardest difficulty that means one mistake costs a majority of your health bar exacerbating the frustration with getting hit and stunned from something you shouldn't otherwise this fight was really unique and the changing environments halfway through kept the fight interesting by the end of the game you'll find out the shocking Revelation that nobody saw coming Bruce isn't actually dead and you have a boss fight against him I love this idea and the fight is hard enough but it lacks any major depth this Bruce just throws three or four hit combos that leave him exposed at the end but this fight is in service of the characters more than the gameplay and this is excusable because the real final boss is Talia al Ghul Talia has two phases the first is a standard fight but relatively difficult and her second phase is where things get interesting because the game pulls a fast one and removes the Dodge icons every attack in the game has a circle appear around the incoming damage and talia's second phase is the only time this disappears which makes a fight much more difficult and makes me wish the game did this more for the first time in combat I had to pay ample attention to the enemy and what was happening on screen I didn't simply wait for a circle to Dodge I had to assess attack patterns and telegraphs which was refreshing Talia telegraphs her attacks in advance so this mix-up doesn't feel unfair but rather a minor adjustment that makes the fight slightly harder as the Fight Continues she'll begin healing herself in the Lazarus Pit but this can be stopped if you use a momentum ability on her this means momentum management is important here and this is why I like the Talia fight so much it's a proper test of dodging DPS momentum management and the culmination of the story which is exactly what a final fight should be when you aren't dealing with the main plot involving the court of owls you'll be engaging in a wide range of side content some are good and others not so much let's get the bad ones out of the way first the Collectibles are harmless but I did not enjoy finding all the batarangs and Street murals fortunately the rewards behind them are negligible so I wouldn't blame anyone for skipping them one side quest has not mentioned directly in game sees you finding different quarter valid murals around the map there are no waypoints or even trackers for the quest but if you find them all you get Talon outfits for the cast which is a great secret around the map there are many servers which need to be accessed because they have data relating to Bruce Wayne's identity getting to these often sees you moving through security and avoiding enemies and were enjoyable enough the end of it sees a bad family watching a video of Bruce Wayne dancing naked at the time of Batman's death which is admittedly hilarious and totally something Bruce Wayne would do to cover up his identity I enjoyed the side quest plenty much like the secret caches the caches I initially didn't enjoy as they offered no challenge but then I realized their true purpose of offering gear each secret cache has some equipment that scales to your level so if you're stuck and don't feel like doing side activities you can take this 30 second detour to get some gear this is another reason why I'd argue the game features minimal grinding as getting good loot is seconds away at any point in the map the worst side quest by far is the Fast Travel points you might think they are difficult to mess up just climb a large structure or even in Spider-Man's case perform a short mini game but somehow Gotham Knights presents the most Bland attempt at activating a fast travel Point how do you complete these you enter a location look for one to three drones and scan them sounds lame right well it gets worse some of these drones have blockers meaning that you cannot scan them until they land which forces you to wait and while said wait isn't long it feels like an eternity these were so forgettable that I indeed forgot about them this part of the video is being recorded after the video is done and it was only after watching it back that I realized I'd forgotten the worst side quest that provided no gear No Loot no fun and no challenge for a legitimate challenge or at least a semblance of challenge you can compete in the few races around the city featuring the bat cycle or your traversal abilities these were fun and specifically in red Hood's case they forced me to incorporate grappling into jumping the issue with these is that the time requirement is really easy in my playthrough I failed maybe three of these and the rest were done for a try a solution would be to have a bronze silver and gold Rank and offer different gear for completion legendary gear for gold purple for silver and blue for bronze we should be able to replay these races too allowing us to compete on leaderboards perhaps that way we satisfy both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations otherwise these were fun and I hope they add more in future updates there are a series of contacts around Gotham that will upon you completing their requests will grant you gear and experience these are useful when collecting materials and I appreciate that I'm majority of these goals will be completed while you do other things there are legitimate quests here which see you taking down the likes of Mr Freeze Harley Quinn and Clayface all under a villain of the week structure I say villain of the week because Gotham Knights makes no attempt to explore these characters which they don't necessarily have to but it's hard to assume that freeze is one of the most sympathetic villains in Bruce's Rogues Gallery is just freezing Gotham for fun there are more believable instances for those like Harley Quinn who are already insane but even then there's no end goal she's recruiting people but for what world domination I guess regardless the individual objectives are fun and in the case of Clayface some of the game's high points chasing Clayface on the bat cycle was a great set piece and the only time the game asked us of you once tracking him down you have a unique fight against tens of Clayface clones and gripes about the boss fight aside these two encounters were designed well and this applies to Harley too moving through the theater and Gotham General feel like levels I easily could have made the main story frieza's first encounter is a highlight of the game and should have been where his quest ended having this kind of change to Gotham eclipses most of the events in the quote story too further exemplifying its quality gameplay in the main quest is a significant amount of fun and attempts different detective-esque mechanics but they all fall short of the combat investigating crime scene sees you scanning and analyzing different Clues to deduce information in the main quest line This is handled well you must read the clues connect the dots both literally and figuratively and the reward is one that makes sense in the open world it's literally four clues that mean nothing and the fifth one gives you way more information than the others confirming that it must be right the main plot will see you eavesdropping which on paper is batman-esque but translates to a rather boring point-and-click interrogating never ceases to please but the puzzles here are often underwhelming and at times incredibly frustrating the first menu will get stuck on will be the shadow puzzle if you listen closely you'll hear a collective groan as I mentioned this one there are four different pieces that project a shadow and the goal is to in a very on the nose fashion project an owl the issue is there are multiple acceptable answers and the puzzle only completes when you have the right answer after a few seconds meaning people like myself would project an image not see any feedback after two seconds and think oh must be wrong and then spend 10 minutes trying other options it creates frustrations as only Amplified by Googling the the answer and seeing that it is one you've already deduced while many have criticized and praised the gameplay many have also criticized the story and I think these criticisms are fair something to note is that while the plot itself may not be great its characters carry the otherwise shaky plot threads the court is presented as a secret society but is also the worst kept secret in all of Gotham the characters are given roles that they don't entirely fit into and many of them have side plots that don't get a resolution which in one case works but for the others not so much [Music] right the plot begins with the death of Batman and the surviving bat family attempting to pick up the pieces their goal finish Batman's last case surrounding the murder of Kirk langstrom and the theft of his research this Quest leads to Harley who shows him that certain criminals are not serving the sentence that they should and after further investigation they discover that the age-old court of owls is in fact real and without Batman stronger than ever they also run into Talia al ghula the gcpd morgue who kills Raz al Ghul so he can be resurrected through the Lazarus Pit as they track down the court they discover that their leader The Voice is not only a friend of Alfred Jacob Kane but that the court is at war with the league following a lead to Arkham Asylum reveals that Langston's research was used by the league to create man bats one of which attacks you and you barely Escape Upon returning you track down talial ghoul and find her in the Lazarus Pit underground in there we find that Bruce is not actually dead but rather has been killed and brought back to life over and over to break his mind and in his enraged Delirious State he attacks the player after defeating and appealing to him the court shows up and decides that voice or not they will use the Lazarus Pit to control Gotham while the player fights an enraged Talia Bruce climbs to the bat Wing that is hanging over the Lazarus Pit and flies into said pit killing himself and stopping the surrounding chord but it seems Talia escapes whatever character you finish the game with has a new resolve towards their role and identity as Gotham's new protectors and that's where the story ends there are a few highlights in the story and a few missteps too the first of which is the very foundation of the game Bruce when Warner Brothers revealed that Bruce Wayne was dead the entire internet called their Bluff and all they had to do was keep him dead simply put they didn't have the balls and instead he has to come back and tell the crew how proud he is this is all it takes for me to believe that the game will take no risks an alternative that doesn't undermine the game's audition is that they can find Bruce's Body and rather than seeing he's dead they see he still has an earpiece in in which he recorded a final message this message could be a last minute monologue where he says that Gotham is in good hands and that the group's Journey towards becoming the city's new Knights will be hard but when they work together they are capable of anything instead he's alive for a boss fight and then sacrifices himself again to destroy the Lazarus Pit and this alone prompts a lot of questions first off would Bruce want to be dead I can see Batman wanting to die because the Lazarus pick corrupts the user's mind and he'd been through it multiple times and furthermore Bruce May respect the finality of death and not wish to prolong his existence longer than it needs to whatever that reason is you can argue that it doesn't need to be explained but what definitely does is the talents he kills on the way out Bruce is protected in the Batwing so if he dies from the crash it makes sense that those on the outside would also not survive there are talents everywhere and there is a distinction between the regular Talons and the Gladiator and Hunter Talons according to the emails in the game feral talents are long dead people who have been revived and therefore don't have any brain function or Consciousness really the Gladiators and Hunters though are brought back to life right after death meaning they retain their Consciousness this is further supported by the hunters and Gladiators being capable of forming speech and acknowledging that they are part of the court so is Batman killing these people are they already dead is that just this is even assuming that the actual humans of the Court are capable of escaping in mere seconds which if the run to the temple up to this point is any indicator the cave would likely collapse before they make it out maybe this is a product of the pick clouding Bruce's mind but I don't know if I enjoy Batman send off being a bloodbath the final video of Bruce that plays after the credits is a far better send-off than this but the biggest issue is still that he isn't dead the entire internet from the moment this game was released we're betting that he wasn't actually dead and all Gotham Knights had to do to subvert expectations was keep their word and they didn't the other issue with Bruce is his pseudo children their individual arcs are a different story but the lack of a collective Arc feels strange when I completed the game as Barbara she initiated a monologue about her journey and how she now feels capable of Defending Gotham independent of her teammates this contradicted the idea that the bat family were only so strong because they had each other not to say that the individuals aren't presented with unique problems but that their resolve is entirely disconnected from the others I had hoped that instead of the characters acting as though finishing the story solved their problems they acknowledge their problems and accepted the help that their teammates provide Red Hood could understand that he does not have to do this hero thing alone and that while he might be struggling with his death and Resurrection he has a support system Robin can understand that while he's the newest of the group it's okay because his teammates won't let him fall instead Bruce's pride is tailored to the individual player rather than being directed at the group as a whole which is something their side arcs don't fall into the individuals have their own problems that are completed in side quests and they often present more interesting problems than the main plot Jason Todd has the best Side Story in it like many of the other themes assumes you know the Arkham story Jason after being killed was brought back through the Lazarus Pit and went on his villain archican to his Arkham Knight appearance but was brought back to the right side Jason's Story sees him coming to terms with his death his life and his guilt he feels like an outsider among the group and he's insecure about his temper believing that those around him are waiting for him to snap again killing is the ultimate line that nobody in the bat family wants to cross Bruce is known to never cross that line because if he does who knows if he'll come back I believe Jason's determination to not only come back but attempt to Grapple with what he's been through makes him the strongest of the family but that doesn't make him an island and his cutscenes and email show that he is not only going to therapy but attempting to reconnect with his family some have cited scenes where the sight of death triggers a mild breakdown as predictable and ham-fisted and perhaps a lack of a true resolution to Jason's problems leave his story unsatisfactory but I couldn't disagree more if Jason after talking enough works through his issues to the point where they leave I'd feel it's almost disingenuous trauma doesn't just go away you don't just hit a new resolve it's a war that can't be won but each day there's a battle and that you can win getting better isn't about winning the war it's about winning more battles than you lose and sometimes you will lose and that's okay so long as you're still here there's another chance to win tomorrow even if a good day is only so in retrospect and Jason knows because his family is there he's allowed to lose some days it might seem stupid but Barbara getting Jason food after he breaks down isn't a goofy means of cheering him up it's a gesture saying it's okay to lose Jason's guilt is a battle he'll never finish as it impacts his ability to move on and others ability to do the same his insecurities manifest in almost every interaction and his ending is not about fixing the past but accepting that it happened and hoping that there's enough time to dilute the bad memories with newer happier ones Jason's Story is the most touching for these reasons and its subtlety strengthens this message [Music] Barber has a series of cutscenes regarding her father her problem is that she can't remember his face and rather can only remember the statue of him this is a concern for Babs because she has a photographic memory her struggle seems to be a combination of missing her late father and feeling insecure about her ability to live up to the cowl something all the characters share I found this story good enough for the little moments between Babs and the family but the end of this Quest sees her reminding herself that she is good enough and that her father would be proud of her I have wondered why she didn't simply look at a photo of her father but I could see someone arguing that isn't the point it's rather a means for Babs to question her mental strength Robin feels an equal amount of inadequacy while also grieving over Bruce he's initially angry then attempts to bargain asking if the group can just put Bruce in the Lazarus Pit but he eventually learns to go on without him Robin's Ark is the epitome of the group learning to not be another Batman but to do things their own way a chess game is a metaphor used for the knights and through his games with Alfred Tim realizes that while Bruce may have been their Queen there is also room for other pieces to win and for the weakest to become the new Queen Robin takes a liking to The Rook Because he believes it's an underlooked piece that moves silently while other pieces pose more urgent threats awfully similar to how he sees himself in the group it's one of the weaker stories in my opinion but it's still quite good the final Arc is with Nightwing who has insecurities living up to the role of leader he struggles under said pressure being the longest running sidekick and feeling the need to step up he is reassured by his teammates but still feels inadequate due to a prior argument with Bruce by the end of the story he visits Bruce's grave and finds a new resolve I don't have any problems with this Arc except for the fact that outside of seniority Nightwing is not the most capable leader I believe that Barbara is a better fit given that she seems to do the most out of the team and is the one there for everyone when Jason is struggling she cheers him up and when Nightwing is the same she takes care of him too otherwise I have no problem with this Arc but it doesn't stand out to me in any meaningful way the individual arcs and how the team learns to rely on each other makes the ending even stranger because again the characters act as though they want on their own Maybe This was meant to incite multiple playthroughs but after doing said multiple playthroughs I can confirm that outside of gameplay there are not enough changes to Warrant resetting your progress the biggest change is the different remarks characters have depending on what character is selected and the reflection of the labyrinth chain changes but otherwise the plot is the same and that's okay I don't expect them to accommodate for every character but I did expect the villains specifically the court in the league to not only be more present but developed the court of owls despite being touted as a society so hidden that even Bruce believed it to be fake is the worst kept secret ever ignoring the many owl structures around the map that directly lead to Owl hideouts their influence is easily discovered by Harley Quinn and the Penguin under nearly no pressure decides to Spill the Beans it also doesn't help that the Court's influence isn't felt over Gotham and when they are discovered by the gang they begin conducting their crimes in the open wearing owl masks I think having our team chase the league for a bit just to discover the court would make the court more Elusive and mythical instead it's just Gotham's rich and Elite using their influence to control Gotham what's worse is that when you take down the voice Jacob Kane the plot immediately shifts to Talia who is a more interesting villain but she makes the court feel like a stepping stone and not the ultimate goal what's worse is that the court shows up at the end without the voice making the villain a mere footnote in the history of the league instead of being a proper threat the court ends up feeling underwhelming and what's worse is that the court has little connection with Batman's death the league should be the one sidelined by the court not the other way around on the bright side Talia always steals the show when she's on screen thanks to her voice actor though she isn't given enough depth to make an impact the worst of this is that by the end the court is still around and so is Talia in the league the only character that is given a definitive conclusion is Bruce the Bat family has a final resolve about protecting Gotham and that's great but that's where the story lies everything interesting that happens is with the characters and not with what those characters are doing Harley Quinn in the story just sits in a cell and gives you a book but her dialogue is so unique that while playing I didn't really notice now how will I get this to you what I know despite saying this what feels like 100 times so far the basis for a great story is here but there's not enough meat on the bones and ideas aren't fleshed out enough to make an impact outside of the character's individual struggles I can at least appreciate the little details and Easter eggs hidden across the story The Game begins at Batman's grave and the entrance to the Lazarus Pit is located at the Wayne Crypt directly behind his grave his grave was literally pointing to his place of torture the entire time there are also plenty of Easter eggs and references to other villains around the game but when you look closely to notice these details you also noticed some others the first and most glaring is how did nobody look for Bruce's Body they found it at the bat cave and either two things happen the crew did not keep track of the body and the casket was empty when he was buried which is just insane incompetence or Talia dug up the grave took the body and nobody noticed this is a bit of a nitpick but I feel like if I'm gonna note the finer details and praise I may as well do the same the other way around the story is portrayed as a great mystery but ultimately feels like a run-of-the-mill episode of a TV show and that's not even mentioning some of the objectives like when manbat is introduced you have a boss fight against him then you're tasked with defeating three of them in the open world and then another in the underground directly after meaning within 45 minutes you are fighting this boss five times over moments like these exacerbate the story's weak points but overall I'd say there's enough highs in the side moments to leave me feeling the plot is simply satisfactory when the credits do roll you enter what many games of the action RPG genre provide the end game the end game here is so different from the rest of Gotham Knight so that agree with the idea that it is a different game altogether new skills are asked of you and your engagement and its mechanics will be Paramount to your success it is a grind and while that word has a negative connotation to it I don't believe especially in an end game context that grinding is an inherently bad thing but when that grind is poorly executed in its rewards uninteresting you are left with an end game grind that only supports the intrinsically motivated foreign [Music] calling the end game a separate game is hyperbolic but the point that I want to illustrate with that statement is that the gameplay Loop and the reasons for engaging with said Loop is so different from everything up to this point a majority even taking place within a separate location that it feels like a separate experience but once again as I write these words patches have been released to alleviate these concerns and so again I'm left with evidence proving that while the launch of Gotham knights was weak efforts are being made to fix it and patches are moving quickly in the same patch that fixes my problems with the new game mode heroic assault their performance improves yet again so let's walk through the process of entering the end game and what that gameplay Loop looks like it likely begins with you finishing the main quests and most of the side quests leaving you at the level 30 cap this can be raised to level 40 if you play on New Game Plus which means you'll likely run through the game again with characters you didn't use as much on your first playthrough once at the end of that you'll easily be capped out and ready to begin farming open world crimes to acquire legendary blueprints it's here that you'll reach the first roadblock with materials and that you require a material called nth material to craft the most legendary sets this legendary material can be acquired by farming tasks for the penguin which asks you to complete high level challenges or by taking down Gotham's Most Wanted specialized enemies that have a chance of popping up on the hardest crimes when tackling premeditated crimes you earn enough Clues per Thug you take down to continue farming them every night which is appreciated once you've racked up enough gear and feel confident you can take on the heroic assault heroic assault was marketed as an endgame challenge for only the best of players and the antagonist this time around is none other than staro who many were introduced to thanks to the most recent Suicide Squad film I had high hopes for this free content update because I felt Gotham Knights otherwise lacked a solid end game but this seems to be the perfect solution there are lots of positives here such as high level gear being best acquired here despite the level 40 cap you can equip items up to level 60 and these can only be found at the depths of the heroic assault this makes heroic assault great for farming but an immediate downside is that this is the only place to farm heroic assault is a series of floors that contain different challenges for you to tackle with each floor being inhabited by a different faction or gang it can be completed with up to three other players and and can be pretty chaotic but there is one major flaw variety I mentioned before the enemy variety was an issue and the only outliers are the court whose variety seems to annoy more than anything and the league which doesn't show up until the latest floors but this is just the beginning further issue is that there's only a small handful of unique floors in the game here is floor 3 and floor 15 and floor 18. notice the difference didn't think you would it's the same layout there are three levels here and they rotate between floors meaning you'll be seeing the same environments over and over again outside of gameplay implications aesthetically the team decided to repeat what is easily the most boring environment for the game to take place it's simply a cave with a slight hint of Gothic architecture but to see this repeated over and over is nothing less than disappointing Batman's crime fighting has never been better when cloaked in the shadows cast from Gotham's neon Skyline and part of what made the main story so engaging was the different locales prisons penthouses parts of the city covered in ice and the caves in the Final Chapter offered some variety in their architecture and the Lazarus pits but here it is absolutely nothing even the final encounter which I won't even show on screen yet for reasons that will become very apparent soon are a colossal disappointment but I understand the bread and butter is the gameplay so let's continue looking there the gameplay is the same Loop over and over again with the only changes in play coming from your place out which is only influenced by preference in the gear you have there are different objectives but they all boil down to the same thing combat fight enemies protect a hack and fight enemies in a radius protect a payload press a few buttons guarded by enemies you get the idea variation can come from cooperative play which I will admit made the game much more fun and the co-op takedowns are especially well done but otherwise it felt in many ways that I was just suffering with someone at the same time loot is different for each player but the places you find them are not every floor in between each room has an area where there are chests to grab these layouts locations of the chest and traps a word I use very lightly here are the same three layouts once again reused why don't we talk about objective variety and don't worry this will be a short one every four levels there is a reckoning and when I saw this I and likely you thought all right we're getting somewhere no don't get excited these reckonings are the worst this end game has to offer the first kind of Reckoning sees you defeating a few mini bosses called faction leaders which means they have a larger health bar and Sport a star on their face they attack the same way but there is a special attack where they can shoot you with a beam coming from said star on their face but this attack was so rare that I only saw it once and I wasn't recording it it isn't special but the other Reckoning sees you pushing a payload as an onslaught of enemies swarm you there isn't much else to it but I did find the overwhelming amount of enemies and amount of times I had to reset the payload wasn't infuriating not because of true difficulty but because there are many times where attacks overlap causing a multiple second long stun lock the worst part of this is that such repetition exposes the gameplay flaws things like quickfire ranged attacks and Stealth at times break entirely during gameplay stealth will sometimes see you attempt to press the triangle button to perform a takedown but for some reason you will do a ranged attack instead which alerts all the guards and ruins any stealth runs another issue is that the aiming when using a ranged attack is incredibly inconsistent when you press triangle you'll fire a ranch attack in whatever Direction you are pushing the left stick towards a persistent problem is that you will shoot at the unintended Target for example a barrel instead of the enemy in front of you I would love to get on my skill soap box and say I'm just bad at the game but the Barrel in question wasn't even in reach meaning I was just locked onto a Target I couldn't hit I'd be lying if I said this occurred more than one percent of the time but the point is that when you are engaging with just mechanics being starved of any visual Flair or environmental variety the flaws become all the more noticeable and inexcusable but of course this is not the lowest we go and you might mistake Gotham Knights for playing limbo here because its 30th floor is the biggest upset in the entire game the whole heroic assault has been taunting you with the challenge of starro I didn't know what to expect but it could not have been what we got okay enough beating around the bush the final fight against star it was actually another payload that you would score to a station which then has five buttons for you to press but before you press the final button you have to defeat a Man-Bat I wish I was making this up but staro is in a jar for the entirety of the encounter I just don't get it man not only starl in a jar but our final challenge at the end of over 12 hours as a boss wig we've already seen five times in the main story and with no new Mix-Ups at that I understand the gear makes heroic assault worth it but when your end goal is this disappointing I just feel like I wasted my time another problem with the heroic assault is that if you want to achieve endgame builds with gear and enemies up to level 60 you had to use the heroic assault but that has since been patched and the enemies in the open world will now fully scale to your level which is appreciated you achieve these builds to take on boss fights in another new addition the showdowns showdowns are remixes of fights you have already completed against enemies that now have a fixed power level the changes to the fights are primarily Elemental along with some new attacks that make fights generally harder the benefit to completing them is that you get specialized gear for all characters and a few colorways on top of some random loot statistics like time to kill Damage Done in times you've been down or tracked meaning you can keep shooting for a better time these fights can be tackled in Co-op but you might end up like me where your partner is playing like he's just happy to be there Bros really shooting for the participation metal man I swear anyways most of these can be completed solo but some bosses specifically both fights against freeze are pure endurance runs as his health bar is way too large no matter the power level I found the pre-fight to be an interesting challenge too before heading in the game tells you the recommended power level which can be ignored as I was able to take down Talia whose recommended level is 20 000 when I was at ten thousand but this was because I specced my build properly and chose gear that resisted her Elemental effects having cryo resistance against the likes of freeze will be pertinent to your success but I do wish there was a showdown against Bruce as he's the only one missing I'd say this is the start to a proper end game but the lack of a proper final challenge leaves it underwhelming especially when starro could have filled that void overall the end game for being the only time you have to extensively grind is fine enough but more problems occur when finding players is going to get more difficult as the days go by which is a product of the game's commercial and critical failure hello [Music] Gotham Knight suffered for many reasons some of them entirely unearned and untrue but the largest factor has to have been its launch while as of writing this around a month after release it is significantly better it doesn't change that the day one buyers myself included were burned this kind of release should not be accepted in any way in my defensive parts of this game are not in attempts to excuse an undoubtedly botched release but are in the name of fairness things like the performance should be criticized heavily in the lack of end game content or the absolute crapshoot that staro is is fine to dislike but claims of the game being full of damage sponges showcases player incompetency and stubbornness to anyone who has actually played the game My tinfoil had theories that when the game was showcased initially people saw the damage numbers health bars and gear and immediately made assumptions about the game when the game arrived they already had a sour taste in their mouth due to their performance and decided to not engage with the gear mechanics this led to people being under leveled and not doing enough damage and them thinking it's the game's fault because they don't want to actually play the game or lower the difficulty one YouTuber who I won't name because I don't want to send any hate their way criticized Gotham nights for having bullet sponges but they on the hardest boss in the game were doing 900 damage per shot on Red Hood and attempting its solo when it was clear that these challenges were made for Co-Op for reference when I attempted the same fight at half the recommended power level I was dealing 10 to 30 000 damage per shot as red hood that would be like if I went into Borderlands 2 tried to solo teramorphous with gray weapons ignoring slag and not attempting to engage with the gear or skills available to me and then complained about bullet sponges anyone who plays the game knows simply put it's a skill issue a lot of YouTubers some of which I know personally have engaged in this Hyperbole and I don't think you're an if you made a video complaining about damage sponges or saying that the combat has no depth you're entitled to that opinion I'm simply stating the effect it has on the game and those consuming it playing Gotham Knights after watching the many reviews is a self-fulfilling prophecy of thinking the game will be awful playing the game improperly and then confirming that the game is bad due to issues that could easily be solved if you don't like damage numbers turn them off if you think the combat is too hard turn it down or get better gear a c secret cash crime side quests is always Within Reach and rewards ample high-level gear for you all of this is on the assumption that you actually bought the game too many just parroted the criticisms from their favorite YouTuber which is not said YouTubers faults you guys probably do the same with my videos even though I have a total of two brain cells on a good day but the final nail in the coffin with Gotham Knights is simply the success of the Arkham quadrilogy a new Batman game can never escape the comparisons to the Arkham series and especially in the case of Gotham Knights the comparisons are ones they don't often win yes Gotham Knights looks good but Arkham Knight looks better yes the combat here is good but Arkham's wasn't many ways better the gliding was better stories were better the level design was better are all these things good in Gotham Knights yes but Arkham did it better I would agree that when critically looking at a game I should and did disconnect it from the Arkham games but I can't hold the average consumer to that same standard the only real leg up this game has over Arkham is in its combat variety character variety and vehicles as the bat cycle doesn't have a tank function so we can rejoice in that I think Gotham Knights failed for all these reasons but it shouldn't be or that the developers are listening in writing this script there were tons of criticisms I had discussed that got patched and others I've mentioned will surely be fixed even further the game runs far better now less bugs and overall Jank if you were on the fence for this game I'd say in its current state it is worth the money it's a good game and at the moment runs fine I know many are still hoping for a performance mode but I don't think that's on the table and if you care about frame rates that much you'd be better off swapping to PC anyways regardless of the patches the game gets Gotham Knights will never leave the shadow of its predecessor its story falls short in many ways and while its gameplay and characters do excellent taking down the Colossal Arkham series is a nigh impossible task and that's okay I think it's easy when the bar for the Arkham series is so high to call anything that isn't a 9 out of 10 a 5. the Gotham Knights has my respect for still delivering a competent product even if that product arrived a month after its initial release hey everyone thank you for watching this video I appreciate it um I apologize that this took so long to come out uh between you and me I was in a bit of a slump while uh making this video I just felt like I think it was just because I had a Christmas right around the corner and then I had finals at the same time and I just had like no time and when I did have time it was like oh I'm so tired so now they've gotten it done though I feel like I'm kind of back into the swing of things I took a good like week and a half almost two weeks off in December so feeling a lot more well rested and yeah so sorry it took a while to come out but I hope it was worth it I put a lot of passion into this video and it was really fun to talk about Batman again and truthfully I enjoy this game a lot more than I thought I would which is very good because I was anticipating this game quite a bit and was really excited for its release um this will be the first video of 2023 uh in which case I want to say happy New Year and uh happy holidays I hope you guys got good gifts and stuff and I hope you had some good celebrations uh as far as the New Year for me it's gonna be much the same I'm gonna try and expand into more Spider-Man games this year I really love Spider-Man even more than Batman actually don't tell anyone but for some reason I just don't really talk about the Spider-Man games maybe it's because the Arkham games are in my eyes like the gold standard for superhero games and they're like obviously where my passion is so expect some more Spider-Man games expect me to finish up the Assassin's Creed series The Uncharted series and the Tomb Raider Series this this year and then I've also started posting occasionally on Tick Tock I've been doing 60 second reviews over there and so if I remember I will link that in the description I just figured it'd be like a fun side thing to do and you know hopefully it could drive some more traffic to the main Channel and I just want to thank you guys for a good 2022. the the channel did really well that year and I couldn't be more grateful and and I think I I think I say thank you so much that it becomes diluted like it means nothing because I say it all the time but you guys really have changed my life and I could not be more grateful for that so thank you for watching thank you for supporting me thank you for giving me feedback and helping me improve and I hope I can continue to improve with that said I hope you guys have a fantastic 2023 I love you guys take care of each other stay safe and I'll see you next time oh you should follow my Twitter too yeah I forgot about that okay bye bye [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: That Boy Aqua

Views: 534,663

Keywords: Gotham Knights, Gotham Knights Review, Gotham Knights Critique, Living in Arkham's Shadow, Gotham Knights Living in Arkhams Shadow, Gotham Knights That Boy Aqua, Arkham vs Gotham Knights, Gotham Knights Analysis, Why Gotham Knights Failed, Gotham Knights Disaster, Gotham Knights Gameplay, Gotham Knights Ending, Gotham Knights Walkthrough, Arkham Knights Review, Arkham Knights, That Boy Aqua, That Boy Aqua Batman, Gotham Knights Retrospective, Gotham Knights Puzzle

Id: 7eOLmntNgZc

Length: 68min 33sec (4113 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 17 2023