My favorite game of the Arkham trilogy. Combat and predator sequences remain just as fun as in previous games, and even sport some minor improvements. The addition of the Batmobile was a welcome one, and in general it feels great to use. There is something magical about remote-piloting the Batmobile to sneak up on an unsuspecting gun emplacement or group of enemies blocking your path.

The biggest standout in this iteration is the story. I considered the story in the previous games adequate - it kept things moving, introduced fun characters and set up the action sequences. However, the story in this game is significantly more interesting - it gripped me from beginning to end and really delivered on its emotion moments. The twists were satisfying and exciting, and the storytelling and writing are top-notch. I felt like the ending didn't deliver as full a resolution as I had hoped, but it was still worth the ride.

Overall a great capstone for the series, very much worth playing.

While my first impulse is to just say this is "more Arkham Aslyum", it really has improved and polished the formula from the first game. Combat and predator encounters are still a joy (with a few improvements), but the more open environment really showcases the various traversal abilities. Zipping and soaring around Arkham City feels so cool, and doing it well requires a surprising amount of technique. Taken together, it means pretty much everything you are doing is fun, with no obvious "chores".

The main weakness I found with the game was that it just had too much stuff: too many combo moves, too many gadgets, too many riddler puzzles everywhere you look, too many playable characters. There were so many gadgets that on multiple occasions I got stuck in some traversal section because I just didn't remember all the gadget capabilities I had at my disposal. Having put maybe 25 hours into it I'm still not fully comfortable using each of the combo moves (and remembering their inputs). I eventually learned to just tune out the Riddler puzzles, instead of trying to figure out whether I just wasn't getting it or wasn't equipped to complete it (this was much more fun to go back to after the main story, and I did collect maybe a third of them). Once you really get into the game you can start appreciating these things, but I found it frustrating most of the time.

I came into this game with nearly zero FFVII nostalgia. I played the original far after release and thought it was a solid JRPG but didn't see what all the fuss was about. This game, however, hooked me early and held me all 40 hours it took to get through the main game and intermission.

There is a lot to praise here, but for me the combination of excellent voice acting, music, and visuals really took the cake. The combat is complex and interesting, and the Midgar was such a fun and interesting place to learn about and explore. I came away from the experience feeling far more connected to the cast of characters than ever before. The story feels like typical anime fare, but to me it felt like more of an excuse to get to know the characters and the world than a draw in its own right.

Overall, I loved this way more than I expected to. Looking forward to digging into the subsequent entries and very glad I decided to check it out!