izigame.me

First off, I want to get two points clear.
One, this is not a AAA game. I would give this game a solid 7/10. Maybe an 8 if I was feeling generous.
Two, this is not an Arkham game and should not be viewed or treated as such. The gameplay is completely different and I will admit that it's debatable if it's as good as Arkham. I also want to be clear that I do like the Arkham games and have played and beaten Asylum and City multiple times, so I'm not hating on them.
But after 47 hours playing this game, beating the main story and starting a New Game +, I've discovered that there's a lot of fun to be had in Gotham Knights.
First, the graphics and quality issues. Yes, the graphics aren't the best, and for me, that's okay. Speaking as someone who has played and enjoy the Frogwares games, I don't need high-end graphics that require a top-of-the-line computer to enjoy a video game. I still get some stuttering, but it's not bad enough to interrupt gameplay, and I am glad to say that I've been crash-free since February.
The combat is vastly different from Arkham and while it is a bit tricky to learn, especially since they don't really do a good job of explaining timed strikes, once I got the hang of it, I actually found it was a lot more challenging and a lot more fun than the combat in Arkham. The Arkham games were intuitive, but I found them to be rather easy and that they could hold your hand a bit at times. With a modest amount of practice, it was easy to reflexively plow through hordes of mooks without putting too much thought into it. By contrast, in Gotham Knights, I found that I had to think more about prioritizing targets, keeping an eye on enemies, learning their attack patterns, discovering which gear to use, when to use special abilities, and timing my dodges; GK also has a lot more enemy variety to keep you on your toes and force you to adapt your strategies. As I said, it was challenging, but also a lot of fun. I think a lot of the people who complained about the game's combat tried to play it like the Arkham games instead of taking the time to really learn how the system worked.
Stealth is an option, and while it is dumbed down from the Arkham series, I find that it's a viable option (especially if you're playing my main Robin or Batgirl). I find a lot of enjoyment from picking my targets and planning my approach, and I also really like the ability to use smoke bombs to retreat when overwhelmed and rethink your strategy.
Patrolling the city brings Gotham to life in a way the Arkham series never did: listening to civilian conversations, interacting with NPCs, and discovering the murals and landmarks around the city make it feel more real and vivid. Some call the random crimes you can encounter padding, but I actually enjoy them: it's fun to come across a random crime while on your way to something else and decide to drop by for some XP and the fun of cracking some thug's skull. And once you get the hang of grappling and using your transversal, traveling around becomes a breeze.
The story isn't particularly impressive, but it's an interesting and surprisingly well-crafted storyline involving a war between the Court of Owls and the League of Assassins with a lot on the line. I enjoyed it quite a bit and the final sequences made me truly emotional, with a real rising climax in the final cutscene that makes you feel truly epic.
But the main draw for me is and has always been Gotham Knight's story and storytelling. This game did something that the Arkham series completely failed at: they treated the rest of the Bat-Family with respect and made them all fleshed-out characters. Seriously, take the time to watch the side cutscenes, read the emails and listen to the audio logs, or just listen to the Knights chat with each other in the Belfry. Each of the four playable characters has a distinct personality with their own doubts, flaws, and tics. Watching Nightwing struggle with the burdens of leadership, Robin trying to find a way to come out of the Batman's shadow, Batgirl dealing with her grief over losing her father and Bruce, and Red Hood fighting to deal with his past traumas and having missed a good chunk of his life makes these characters feel real. They smile, they laugh, they cry, they support each other. It's legitimately great storytelling, I feel, and makes the characters so much more multidimensional and relatable.
On a similar note, Gotham Knights Batman might just be one of the better versions of Batman that we've gotten in a while. Listening to the audio logs and some of the cutscenes make this Batman a truly mutlifaceted character, someone who has doubts and flaws, who struggles with grief and burdens, and who really does want to make Gotham better. Compare that to the Arkham Batman, who was fairly one-dimensional and brooded far too much. The grim, moody Batman is all well and good, but I find myself tiring of him at times and wish for the Batman who feels more like a man.
All that said, I do have complaints. The major one is that it often feels like the developers didn't go far enough. Maybe they were rushed, trying to release this on the anniversary of Arkham Origins. Maybe they were playing it safe or whatever, trying to stick to a T rating. Regardless, there are quite a few sequences in the story that could've been really great if the devs had gone all the way with it. The Court of Owls labyrinth is a great example: that sequence could have been the Scarecrow nightmares from Arkham Asylum V2 and instead we got a straightforward, not-particularly-scary interactive cutscene.
While I praised the story and storytelling, there are some flaws in it; sections of odd dialogue, the occasional stunted delivery of lines. Annoying, but not enough to make me drop the game.
A lot of the investigation sequences and puzzles were far too easy, especially the Crime Scene Investigations that outright spell out which clue you need to select. The only one I really struggled with was the sound mixing sequence in Arkham Asylum. As a fan of the Frogwares games, I'd have liked to see something like a deduction board from the Sherlock games where you had to find clues and put them together into deductions, but I guess the devs just didn't have time for it. It was a nice effort, but it's just not enough to make me feel like a protege of the World's Greatest Detective.
While I do like the cutscenes that play out the characters stories, I really wonder why they made them a separate thing instead of integrating them into the story itself. It's just annoying.
What's also annoying is the fact that characters special moves and transversals are locked behind challenges that each one individually has to complete. I can understand why from a storytelling standpoint--it makes each character more individual and encourages you to play as different Knights--it's also a frustrating expenditure of time.
And while I do enjoy most of the sidequests, the one to unlock fast travel where you have to scan drones is just tedious. I did not like that one at all.
Regardless, while the game definitely does have its flaws and is certainly not going to take home any awards, I found that the pros far outweighed the cons and that this game is a lot more fun than might be discerned from first blush. I sincerely hope that this game is enough of a success that they add more DLC to this, since it has a lot of potential. I would recommend playing this game for anyone that likes the Bat-Family and wanted a game dedicated to the sidekicks, but I would wait for a sale first, because as much as I love this game, it is not worth $60.