8
Clearing My Backlog #13
Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate tries its best to imitate an Arkham game, but fails horrendously in every single way; with its lazy boss fights, a disgrace of a combat system, and a baffling world design/map layout. I don’t know if I’ve ever played a game that was more infuriating than this one; it seems like every encounter, every hallway, every vent, is specifically designed to waste your time. There’s no depth in the combat system to warrant fighting the same groups of enemies in almost every room, there’s not enough diversity in the world to warrant you going through so many doors and vents to hallways and rooms… it’s mentally draining to even think about the layout of the map in this game— and I unironically believe I could create a better version of it than the professional developers… I mean fuck, anyone could! It’s really not that hard to create— at the very least— a comprehensible navigation system, I found so many inconsistencies in the floor levels that quite literally don’t make any fucking sense! Certain lines don’t match up with each other making it a gamble as to whether what you’re looking for is up or down; did they hire someone on fiverr to design this map in a couple of hours? I refuse to believe that this was made by actual game devs.
On a serious note though, Blackgate completely fails as a metroidvania. You know how they’re widely known for backtracking? Well this one takes it to a whole new level… When playing one of these, you would typically hope that it keeps rewarding the player with new upgrades and abilities that are impactful and make getting around the world faster and more convenient; what Blackgate does instead, is it doesn’t design the world this way at all— making it devoid of any shortcuts, you go through the world the same way at the start, as you do at the end; it takes forever to get from one side of the map to the other, and it’s probably the game’s biggest flaw. I would’ve had at least 20% more fun with it if they added like… five or so fast travel points. I could’ve probably cut my playtime in half. Another thing that completely halts any sort of momentum is the weird scanning mechanic, where in order to do literally anything, you have to stay in detective vision and then hold a button down to scan walls/doors/objects so that you can interact with them. The other Arkham games also had minor issues with detective vision, where they would incentivise it for the sake of convenience— although it wasn’t nearly as bad there because you didn’t have to scan anything and could choose whether you wanted to use it. Blackgate fucking forces you to use it, and it’s easily the second biggest thing that makes it so exhausting (combat is third).
The combat. Holy fucking shit… It’s bad, like really bad. It doesn’t have enough depth to even be remotely interesting for your 3rd encounter— let alone your 30th. There’s four different moves that you can use, and two of them are practically useless. I was honestly just using beatdown on every enemy because I couldn’t be bothered, and it’s even weirder that the sound design is so drastically different from the other Arkham games, which made the fights feel cheap and repetitive. Even the stealth is a dumbed down version from the other games, and is comprised of: waiting for goons to turn their back on you so you can do a silent takedown, that’s it! There’s nothing there to engage with. The controls aren’t very responsive either which makes these encounters even worse— the bosses too.
The boss fights are designed more so as puzzles than something that takes mechanical skill, and they’re all the worse for it. They’re mostly trial and error based which completely ruins the experience; this game has no way of delivering information to the player— leaving you guessing as to what the right move is, and if you mess up— you die instantly, having to restart from a checkpoint that isn’t even at the start of the boss fight. It’s also funny how the Catwoman boss fight is just straight up copy-pasted from the Bronze Tiger one… they’re not even trying. I did like the Joker one (even though it suffers from all the same issues), because it had some much-needed variety and obviously had the most effort put into it.
I was hoping that Blackgate would at least have an interesting story— which is something that every single Arkham game has gotten right, but sadly… it’s not really much of anything. There’s something in here that makes watching these characters interact fun (definitely due to the brilliant performances from Roger Craig Smith, Troy Baker, Grey DeLisle, etc), but there’s no overarching arcs or anything of substance. The closest it gets is showing the dynamic between year two Batman and early Catwoman, but it’s not explored anywhere near enough for their first-time meeting. There should be more here. I like what they were going for with the “comic book-y” cutscenes, it should’ve worked for a low budget Batman game, but it didn’t. Something akin to Infamous’ cutscenes would’ve fit a lot better, but for some reason they chose to go with the extremely low-quality concept art that isn’t striking at all. I even noticed that Joker doesn’t have the same design in the cutscenes as he does in-game, which leaves me convinced that these were definitely just concept art images with stock sound effects placed over them.
As for bugs, there was a bunch. I got softlocked multiple times forcing me to restart checkpoints, hits would not connect with enemies, I experienced loads of visual issues, and there’s also constant screen tearing. It’s crazy how this game is just a complete and utter failure in every regard— but hey, at least I can say I’ve played every single Arkham game now… minus the VR one (I’m never playing the VR game).
Playtime: 20.4 hours
Every Game I've Ever Played - Ranked (By Score)
Superhero Games - Ranked
Clearing My Backlog
Batman - Ranked
2013 - Ranked
Clearing My Backlog #13
Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate tries its best to imitate an Arkham game, but fails horrendously in every single way; with its lazy boss fights, a disgrace of a combat system, and a baffling world design/map layout. I don’t know if I’ve ever played a game that was more infuriating than this one; it seems like every encounter, every hallway, every vent, is specifically designed to waste your time. There’s no depth in the combat system to warrant fighting the same groups of enemies in almost every room, there’s not enough diversity in the world to warrant you going through so many doors and vents to hallways and rooms… it’s mentally draining to even think about the layout of the map in this game— and I unironically believe I could create a better version of it than the professional developers… I mean fuck, anyone could! It’s really not that hard to create— at the very least— a comprehensible navigation system, I found so many inconsistencies in the floor levels that quite literally don’t make any fucking sense! Certain lines don’t match up with each other making it a gamble as to whether what you’re looking for is up or down; did they hire someone on fiverr to design this map in a couple of hours? I refuse to believe that this was made by actual game devs.
On a serious note though, Blackgate completely fails as a metroidvania. You know how they’re widely known for backtracking? Well this one takes it to a whole new level… When playing one of these, you would typically hope that it keeps rewarding the player with new upgrades and abilities that are impactful and make getting around the world faster and more convenient; what Blackgate does instead, is it doesn’t design the world this way at all— making it devoid of any shortcuts, you go through the world the same way at the start, as you do at the end; it takes forever to get from one side of the map to the other, and it’s probably the game’s biggest flaw. I would’ve had at least 20% more fun with it if they added like… five or so fast travel points. I could’ve probably cut my playtime in half. Another thing that completely halts any sort of momentum is the weird scanning mechanic, where in order to do literally anything, you have to stay in detective vision and then hold a button down to scan walls/doors/objects so that you can interact with them. The other Arkham games also had minor issues with detective vision, where they would incentivise it for the sake of convenience— although it wasn’t nearly as bad there because you didn’t have to scan anything and could choose whether you wanted to use it. Blackgate fucking forces you to use it, and it’s easily the second biggest thing that makes it so exhausting (combat is third).
The combat. Holy fucking shit… It’s bad, like really bad. It doesn’t have enough depth to even be remotely interesting for your 3rd encounter— let alone your 30th. There’s four different moves that you can use, and two of them are practically useless. I was honestly just using beatdown on every enemy because I couldn’t be bothered, and it’s even weirder that the sound design is so drastically different from the other Arkham games, which made the fights feel cheap and repetitive. Even the stealth is a dumbed down version from the other games, and is comprised of: waiting for goons to turn their back on you so you can do a silent takedown, that’s it! There’s nothing there to engage with. The controls aren’t very responsive either which makes these encounters even worse— the bosses too.
The boss fights are designed more so as puzzles than something that takes mechanical skill, and they’re all the worse for it. They’re mostly trial and error based which completely ruins the experience; this game has no way of delivering information to the player— leaving you guessing as to what the right move is, and if you mess up— you die instantly, having to restart from a checkpoint that isn’t even at the start of the boss fight. It’s also funny how the Catwoman boss fight is just straight up copy-pasted from the Bronze Tiger one… they’re not even trying. I did like the Joker one (even though it suffers from all the same issues), because it had some much-needed variety and obviously had the most effort put into it.
I was hoping that Blackgate would at least have an interesting story— which is something that every single Arkham game has gotten right, but sadly… it’s not really much of anything. There’s something in here that makes watching these characters interact fun (definitely due to the brilliant performances from Roger Craig Smith, Troy Baker, Grey DeLisle, etc), but there’s no overarching arcs or anything of substance. The closest it gets is showing the dynamic between year two Batman and early Catwoman, but it’s not explored anywhere near enough for their first-time meeting. There should be more here. I like what they were going for with the “comic book-y” cutscenes, it should’ve worked for a low budget Batman game, but it didn’t. Something akin to Infamous’ cutscenes would’ve fit a lot better, but for some reason they chose to go with the extremely low-quality concept art that isn’t striking at all. I even noticed that Joker doesn’t have the same design in the cutscenes as he does in-game, which leaves me convinced that these were definitely just concept art images with stock sound effects placed over them.
As for bugs, there was a bunch. I got softlocked multiple times forcing me to restart checkpoints, hits would not connect with enemies, I experienced loads of visual issues, and there’s also constant screen tearing. It’s crazy how this game is just a complete and utter failure in every regard— but hey, at least I can say I’ve played every single Arkham game now… minus the VR one (I’m never playing the VR game).
Playtime: 20.4 hours
Every Game I've Ever Played - Ranked (By Score)
Superhero Games - Ranked
Clearing My Backlog
Batman - Ranked
2013 - Ranked