izigame.me

I don't know what kinda criticism I can bring up that nobody else haven't already voiced beforehand but here goes nothing, I guess. So, because my experience wasn't all too great with the main game, I thought I can just get the seemingly short side game -which was originally released for the handheld consoles- out of the way to close the book on everything Arkham: Origins, thinking "How bad can it be anyways?" but oh boy... Despite not actually taking that much of a time to beat, so many little nuisances accumulate into a really cumbersome time in Blackgate.
My main gripe is that the game doesn't hold back on wasting the hell out of your time, intentionally or not with unskippable in-game cutscenes, having to push a button even for the simplest of actions and then having to wait extra unnecessary second for the animation to play out, bosses with many phases but no checkpoints in between that require you to play in really limiting ways and you have to execute said ways perfectly to actually beat them, having to halt completely to "scan" places with Detective Vision in order to continue which has its own "loading bar" that plays each time you use it even if the thing/place you scan is as obvious as a wall you can break like you do it for the first time ever... All of these aspects could've been optimized to take the least amount of time possible and I wouldn't be here complaning but I guess to perhaps pad up the playtime at the end, devs might've deliberately designed some of them to take just a bit more time but I don't know, that's just me pettily speculating. What I know for sure is though, with all these things I felt like, once again, my time was getting wasted.
I wish I could have better things to say about gameplay for it to be the game's saving grace but I can't. Batman's movements are sluggish and trying to make him do exactly what you want becomes annoying while navigating through the 2.5D setting and I think it's inherently broken anyways since at specific places some animations play out right after a completely different one even if I do everything right, "blending in" sorta (which is another thing that just takes additional time unfortunately). Combat on the other hand, is also very clunky and sometimes doesn't even work. Devs seemingly tried their best to translate the series' signature combat style into in the abovementioned 2.5D setting, utilizing a side-scrolling beat'em up style where you are supposed to take enemies that come at you in "lanes" but both because the depth of field can be a bit tricky to manage and enemies' movements sometimes can be too erratic, even when you think you did the right thing, your flow and combo stops because either your input wasn't registered or you caught an enemy in the middle of them changing those mentioned "lanes". The off chance when it works, the combat can be fun but honestly that's more of a testament to Rocksteady more than Armature since they were the ones who laid down the foundation for it after all. That also affects the stealth segments though, as it was not fun in the slightest, inconsistent at best. When forced into it, I can go as far as to say that those segments felt like where stealth goes to die.
However, there are elements that are handled significantly better. For example the exploration and the world design are well done. While the completely useless and sometimes almost totally incomprehensible map -which may even be among the worst designed ones I've ever seen- and weirdly slow moving camera don't help in the slightest, trying to locate hidden upgrade or costume parts can be fun no matter how much the clunky movement takes the process down, I guess the more "metroidvania-experienced" parties within Armature tried their best on that. Then, the overall story is entertaining enough as well, there is ample chemistry and tension between the characters -despite the less-than-stellar writing- and the latter end of the game blends most of the great aspects together, amps up the tension and ends both in a way that's satisfying in itself and achieve to balance out setting up some other story while not shoving it too much to your face and decently stylized cutscenes were also a treat. On the other hand, graphics are definitelly servicable and art design is just as good and reflects the atmophere well enough, yet too much background detailing seldomly made trying to understand where to go next a challenge, not that big a deal but still. Finally -limiting as they may be- with some of the boss battles Armature tried to bring some creativity in and not all of them fail, puzzle based boss battles might actually be a great avenue to explore for both themselves and in other similar games.
Nevertheless, at the end of the day I'll remember Blackgate with its mostly frustrating boss battles, clunky movement, combat and controls, problematic pacing and sometimes cringe-inducing writing rather than anything else it does considerably better. Just for the narrative's sake I can recomend it since beating it also means getting rid off the trainwreck that was Arkham: Origins, its DLCs and everything these prequel tales offer story-wise to finally leave them behind you, I sure feel as such. If you couldn't have cared less about stuff like that, there is no reason to pick it up on its own.