I knew this game had a lot of hype behind it but I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. On first glance it looks just decent, the combat seems simpler than Assasin's Creed's and the environments and stealth don't look that special.

However the game is always making you fight against groups, turning the timing of every punch, kick, parry and takedown into something important you have to strategize with. Enemies can bring in guns or other weapons and you must know when to target them. Stealth is actually really fun even if not that deep because you can play with your enemies by doing noise, hanging bodies and dropping them and just generally scare them. The enviroments have a good amount of variety, visiting different parts of Arkham Island that have a diferent atmosphere and even having the island change some atmosphere over the course of the game.

I didn't expect this game to have a metroidvania type progression but I'm glad it does, and very well designed too, you keep unlocking more gadgets to access new areas or get more effective in combat and all of it, even collectibles that I usually wouldn't take time to grab in a lesser game, comes pretty naturally throughout the game until the end, it's very satisfying.

The characters are all well realized, you unlock audio logs that actually are fun to seek out and have illustrations with great bios to get to know them more. The story in general wasn't amazing but it was more than good enough to keep the ball rolling.

Only part where I stood disappointed was with the bosses, only a couple of them felt notable while most are just the big brute that charges at you type, and the final boss also has a very simple strategy that doesn't feel like it amps the stakes up.

But still, I had way more fun with this than I expected and I see why people consider it one of the best games there are. Don't sleep on it like I did.

Reviewed on May 10, 2023


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