After wholly enjoying myself replaying Batman: Arkham Asylum yet again, I’ve braced myself for Arkham City. I never truly disliked this game, in fact I quite admire it and what it tried to be. Yet, all of my previous attempts to replay it always ended with me getting bored a few hours in. But not this time – this time I’ve yet again played the whole game, doing all collectibles and side stories and the story DLC (not the challenges, though). And… yeah, it was alright.
So, Batman: Arkham City did basically everything that sequels tend to do – bigger, better and slightly different. Instead of a metroidvania – a much bigger open world map with only a few interior maps. More varied gadgets, which are more versatile in combat and in navigation. Lots of quality of life improvements, enhancements to the combat system, tweaks to enemy types and behavior, more stealth options, more upgrades. And all of that to deliver an experience that has the same basic idea, but feels different – it’s no longer a directed linear story inside the ever changing interconnected facility, it’s a little prison city with side quests and multiple plot threads.
And apart from the plain improvements and controls tweaks, what I always liked the most was the fact that the story of this game is actually surprisingly good. There’re many threads, several genuinely well delivered twists, all of which are justified and just like in any good mystery story feel even more fun on repeat experience when you start noticing all the hints and important details from the start.
We also get far more recognizable characters from Batman canon in the story, including a playable Catwoman and, in the DLC, Robin. None of them are that interesting, sadly, as all attention seemed to be given to Joker, but it is fun to see so many well designed characters nonetheless. The Catwoman parts, which were originally part of an anti-resale DLC from the “online pass” era of games, play quite differently, even if not all that great. While the Harley Quinn’s Revenge DLC, which is totally not worth it on its own, but is part of the GOTY edition of the game, has some fun moments with Robin, even if, sadly, not enough.
The city designs and the locations all look really cool as well. While the music feels far less memorable than in Asylum. Exploring the city as well is considerably less enjoyable than in Asylum, despite some fun movement options. Mostly due to how big it is and because unlike the first game the enemies continuously respawn, so “just exploring” always leads into fights, which gets old after a while.
Especially since it feels far more chaotic than in the original game. Yes, using gadgets is more fun and the controls are somewhat more responsive than in Asylum, but so many moments in City feel like pure chaos. Some boss fights seem outright not polished enough, some fights are a slog, some Riddler’s challenges are just obnoxious more than anything. Playing Arkham City is simply mentally draining and exhausting, which isn’t helped by the fact that the game itself is longer than the first one. And if Asylum is the title I just love replaying from the clean save, always doing everything and enjoying my time with the game, City is just a slog. And after this time, I don’t think I ever want to replay it again, honestly. Even if I’m glad that I was finally able to see it on all maxed out settings and yeah, it still looks really good on PC.
I can still recommend Batman: Arkham City if you’ve never played it before. Not as much as Asylum, but City still has an engaging plot and its mechanical basics are entertaining. It might not be as condensed and exciting as the first game, but it does have a lot of really cool ideas and at its best it is a better game. It’s just not as consistent as Arkham Asylum was.