Update Nineteen: 8 July 2017

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

In this game, you can fight a whole, entire fight scene with Batman just in his bat boxer-briefs. I’m not joking. I’m not joking. 10/10 GOTY

Coming Soon: Four orphans save the world with their extensive wardrobe -

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Okay but for real, I’ve heard a lot of mixed things about this series - that was why I waited so long to play it. I believe none of them. I haven’t had such a fun time with a game in a very, very long time.

Before I get into the meat of the review, I want to challenge the notion of this game being incredibly buggy. I’ve mentioned a few times on here, but I’m playing on a 2013 HP probook 4540s, with a bootleg slapdash version of Windows 7. I’ve had to do some pretty creative workarounds to get games to play, and I’m used to having to immediately go into the settings to turn shit down as low as it can go. I had to do that here, too - but beyond some dropped frames during screen transitions which I attribute completely to my beloved but not robust rig I had no graphical glitches or crashes whatsoever. None! I have a very sneaking suspicion that the people who have graphical glitches ignored Telltale asking them multiple times to have their graphics drivers updated, because I can’t figure out why they’d get glitches and I, with my potato laptop, didn’t. Even with really crappy textures it looked beautiful. The game is pretty. Which lets me segue right into -

The most important part of the game, clearly, the only thing that matters in character design, from what I hear, and that’s how attractive the main character is. And, oh man, is this Batman pretty. He is so pretty. He is gorgeous. He is like this shortpacked comic come to life - er, you know. He looks big and bulky in the suit, but that’s pretty much all armor. Out of it, he’s built like a swimmer and got a trim little waist and them big ol’ eyes and tacticheeks. He’s injured a lot and shirtless a decent amount - it’s like Telltale saw the fan reaction to injured shirtless Bigby and just was like ‘welp, let’s give them more of what they want’ and god bless them for that. He also had a really spectacular voice actor that brought a lot of nuance to his lines, and made what could be a 2D, flat character come off as very well rounded.

That voice actor had help - I really enjoyed the writing in this game, too. I wouldn’t call myself a comics fan in general, and absolutely not a cape comic fan in particular, but I have a lot of friends who are and I have a lot of knowledge I picked up. I know what makes a good Batman vs. a bad Batman, and I know generally what is a common vs. an uncommon occurrence, and a lot of the choices the game takes in the narrative were delightful. As far as I know, Bruce’s parents have been pretty untouchable martyr figures for them, but one of the biggest themes in this game is Bruce finding out his parents were allied with the corrupt mayor and the mafia and the three of them ran the city, and subsequently dealing with the fact that his parents were in fact pretty awful people (me too, Bruce! it sucks!) I don’t want to get too far into spoiler territory because I really want people to play this game but there’s another few delightful twists and turns that kept me going.

Bruce in this game is capable, but he’s not inhuman - it never falls into the trap some of the crappier Batman properties go where Batman’s always a step ahead of everyone and he can fix everything because he’s real smart. He’s vulnerable, he struggles, he has a lot of human moments (and you can play him as really sensitive, kind, and emotionally intelligent, which is a huge plus. I got a chance to shout ‘BATMAN DOESN’T KILL’ and ‘NO GUNS’ at somebody and I totally took it) I encountered some of the most emotionally mature writing in a game where Bruce has not just one but two pretty competently handled, caring conversations about mental health, checking in on how you’re doing, and talking to your therapist with Harvey Dent. This! in a Batman game! It was awesome! He can have sex with Selina Kyle and then calls Alfred the next morning and tell him how wonderful Bruce thinks she is with literal hearts in his eyes! This game was made for me!!

As for the game itself, Telltale has continued to refine their patented system, and it absolutely works the best in cases like this where they have some flexibility in the world around them. The fight scenes are beautifully choreographed and fun to play through, and since he’s the world’s greatest detective there’s really fun investigation segments where you link clues from a crime scene together, and fuck around on the batcomputer, and guys you can give Alfred a hug, it’s just a real good game.

Fun to play, fun to watch, Batman’s pretty, the writing is good, I really hope there’s a season two, give this game a shot bc I loved it. It’s right up there with Tales from the Borderlands and the Walking Dead game season 1 as my favorite Telltale games.

Next up, for real this time: Nearly done the monthly challenge!! Expect a review shortly!

See you soon!