Here's my very long review for the main game
While I thought the main game did its job well standing on its own 2 feet compared to its brothers, I cant say the same for this DLC. This DLC while actually giving the earliest point of Bruce Wayne's life post his parents' murder, training with various martial arts until he reaches North Korea, seeing a new trainer who is named "Kirigi" to train him using various skills he would eventually make use for his Batman persona. Pretty cool, right?
Unfortunately, This dlc is vastly underdeveloped, this being 5 maps total in one challenge mode campaign with modifiers which makes it more challenging (aka much more bullshit difficulty with the finale but we'll get to that), interspliced with very, very, very brief 30 second cutscenes between you and your sensei Kirigi even doubting an outsider can stand toe to toe with his own students.
Premise itself has potential and even very heavily draws inspiration from the likes of batman begins in terms of setting and tone. Problem arises when you see that this man has barely much to stand on his own given that he has:
- Catwoman's caltrops from city
- Shiruken, which functions as a reskin of robins from city
- Kijuki Smoke bomb, which is the only actual new gadget that acts as an invisibility trick that allows you to sneak past enemies whilst not being seen for 30 seconds with only a few uses and do a multiple ground takedown with
- the zipkick, which is not only aped from deathstroke but who also stole from robin from city
Reason why i mention or even make a big deal of this, its due to the fact that I've played much better similar fast paced, nimble, capeless characters with quick movement and combat in other games in this very series, and that initiation bruce is just another box to be ticked to play in a different style from the brawler batman or a pole swinger (city has robin and origins has deathstroke). Does NOT help when even the "concentration" vision you have is reskinned detective mode instead of something cooler like echolocation or something else that could stand out.
I could forgive all of this if the dlc was enjoyable but, really it starts out simple, becomes challenging and fun but the final boss with lady shiva was a complete total clusterfuck of epic proportions. Not even with shiva herself because she's similar to deal with like in the main game with her attacks, just updated to fit a lot more with the challenge map itself. But rather the fuckery you have to deal with BEFORE her. Iirc, you'd have to deal with regular ninjas, armored ninjas amongst other shit, but then once you fight her they bring in: the martial artists. If you don't know, you fight these nimble martial artists whom function very differently from the regular thugs you've fight in the main game. Having to hit the counter button preemptively to counter their attack and will not easily get knocked down. You can see where i'm going with this, Getting your shit pushed in and ransacked by those fucks AND shiva ends up being so artificially difficult to where its legitimately bullshit. On TOP of the aforementioned bug in my main game review where my combo inputs including counters do not register 50% of the time. Don't get it twisted either, like i said, i liked the previous maps with their difficulty (mainly the combat ones, the stealth ones are definitely "eh can take or leave it"), even though they also spawn in more enemies in the later half of the combat sequences. What i don't like is easily being cheapened out to the point of barely beating the DLC by the skin of my sack.
This is definitely the DLC WB had to get out of the way as a sacrifice out of a season pass obligation being that its the 1st offering. and it shows.
While I thought the main game did its job well standing on its own 2 feet compared to its brothers, I cant say the same for this DLC. This DLC while actually giving the earliest point of Bruce Wayne's life post his parents' murder, training with various martial arts until he reaches North Korea, seeing a new trainer who is named "Kirigi" to train him using various skills he would eventually make use for his Batman persona. Pretty cool, right?
Unfortunately, This dlc is vastly underdeveloped, this being 5 maps total in one challenge mode campaign with modifiers which makes it more challenging (aka much more bullshit difficulty with the finale but we'll get to that), interspliced with very, very, very brief 30 second cutscenes between you and your sensei Kirigi even doubting an outsider can stand toe to toe with his own students.
Premise itself has potential and even very heavily draws inspiration from the likes of batman begins in terms of setting and tone. Problem arises when you see that this man has barely much to stand on his own given that he has:
- Catwoman's caltrops from city
- Shiruken, which functions as a reskin of robins from city
- Kijuki Smoke bomb, which is the only actual new gadget that acts as an invisibility trick that allows you to sneak past enemies whilst not being seen for 30 seconds with only a few uses and do a multiple ground takedown with
- the zipkick, which is not only aped from deathstroke but who also stole from robin from city
Reason why i mention or even make a big deal of this, its due to the fact that I've played much better similar fast paced, nimble, capeless characters with quick movement and combat in other games in this very series, and that initiation bruce is just another box to be ticked to play in a different style from the brawler batman or a pole swinger (city has robin and origins has deathstroke). Does NOT help when even the "concentration" vision you have is reskinned detective mode instead of something cooler like echolocation or something else that could stand out.
I could forgive all of this if the dlc was enjoyable but, really it starts out simple, becomes challenging and fun but the final boss with lady shiva was a complete total clusterfuck of epic proportions. Not even with shiva herself because she's similar to deal with like in the main game with her attacks, just updated to fit a lot more with the challenge map itself. But rather the fuckery you have to deal with BEFORE her. Iirc, you'd have to deal with regular ninjas, armored ninjas amongst other shit, but then once you fight her they bring in: the martial artists. If you don't know, you fight these nimble martial artists whom function very differently from the regular thugs you've fight in the main game. Having to hit the counter button preemptively to counter their attack and will not easily get knocked down. You can see where i'm going with this, Getting your shit pushed in and ransacked by those fucks AND shiva ends up being so artificially difficult to where its legitimately bullshit. On TOP of the aforementioned bug in my main game review where my combo inputs including counters do not register 50% of the time. Don't get it twisted either, like i said, i liked the previous maps with their difficulty (mainly the combat ones, the stealth ones are definitely "eh can take or leave it"), even though they also spawn in more enemies in the later half of the combat sequences. What i don't like is easily being cheapened out to the point of barely beating the DLC by the skin of my sack.
This is definitely the DLC WB had to get out of the way as a sacrifice out of a season pass obligation being that its the 1st offering. and it shows.