Blackgate was not even close to what I had in mind for my first new completion of 2023, but I needed space for Ridge Racer Type 4 and Secret Agent Clank so sacrifices had to be made.

In all honestly, this wasn't nearly as bad as expected. It was even almost pretty good. I am not really a fan of this genre from all the games I've tried but I think the fact that its Batman and the atmosphere were more than enough to get me moving forward. I think the Arkham formula honestly transfers quite well to this format, but there are a few pretty big hiccups that stop it from reaching its full potential.

Namely the controls are pretty finicky. Especially on vita, the bumpers are just really not reliable and they don't do this game any favors. It just feels a little bit too clunky. As im sure is common with this genre the amount of backtracking is just way too much. I really don't see why there is no way to fast travel between sections. Im sure most of my playtime was spent running around like a headless chicken trying to figure out how to just leave an area to go where I needed to be, and the map doesnt help with that at all. It's a 2D map but there's multiple sections where you can interact with the background or go up floors and this just does not translate which makes navigating more frustrating than it needs to be. Not to mention it doesn't orient itself either so you have to constantly open and close it to make sure you're going the right direction. Another complaint with this is the boss fights. While i think the Arkham combat works well on handheld still, most of the boss fights are more puzzle oriented. But they're just really annoying lmao. I don't think I had fun with a single one of them. Thankfully you can find the Darkest Night suit which negates any damage done to you which made the final boss fight much less of a headache. The last complaint is the story is just kinda sucky lol. You can fight the bosses in any order but that doesnt really change much. The biggest pro is Catwoman is featured heavily in it and she's my favorite DC character. But the ending is just really abrupt and unsatisfying. Its not terrible, it is a handheld spinoff after all. But its just another thing on the pile that kept me from loving it.

All those negatives aside, I still enjoyed my time with Blackgate overall and I liked it a lot more than I liked the actual Arkham Origins. It's a weird, often confusing and sometimes annoying mess but it was worth a play. In the end, at the very least I can cross beating a metroidvania off the bucket list.

Thank's for reading y'all, this has been a Nancyfly mini review <3

Nancymeter - 69/100
Time Played - 16 hours 46 minutes
Trophy Completion - 53% (21/31)
Game Completion #2 of January
Game Completion #2 of 2023