So now that I have finished Batman Arkham Knight I feel I can berate it again without feeling bad. It’s not just because I still haven’t finished J Stars Victory VS+ yet because I can’t seem to recall what happened the last couple of days. Something I forgot to put in my main review that really started to bug me as I continued playing was Batman’s no killing rule and the Batmobile. Just because the goons get zapped and bounce off does not mean they will survive me running over them. Or when I shoot at a goon and miss just off to the side it still uses an artillery round instead of a non-lethal. This happens quite a bit because it doesn’t register unless you’re dead on which is tricky while driving around. Point being, that goon did not survive and even if he did no one is going to help him before he bleeds out. In previous games there was always a possibility that goons survived even after Batman broke every bone in their bodies but now? Unintentional homicide is still homicide Bats, oh sure you could argue it is negligent manslaughter but I prefer to think of it as assisted suicide.
I may have touched on this in my main review but the missions are very repetitive by the end. Especially the ones you have to do the most, mainly concerning the militia. I must have started with the harder ones because they became a lot easier as I went on and it had nothing to do with the upgrades. The only Batmobile upgrades you need are more armor, faster cannon reload and not losing energy when you get hit. That way you just keep building up power and unleashing rocket swarms until the enemy is gone. The Deathstroke fight was a complete bomb as well. When I fight the top assassin in the world I want to beat his ass hand to hand. Not play guerilla warfare with a tank half as hard as the tank battle I did when I had half the upgrades. The Riddler trophies were far less monotonous this time around though with the Batmobile and Riddler-bots adding a new element. However, the sonar Batmobile trophies were extremely annoying to get because you had to take long detours but stay within sonar range. The main problem is how many of the things there are. Without beating up informants it is near impossible to find many of them. I also had a couple of final trophies that did not appear on the map and there were no more informants. It turned out I had to go back to other mission buildings and search them because they would not appear on the main map.
My main gripe though is on the final ending, the one I had to suffer through an inhuman amount of Riddler trophies to get. I had high hopes for it because everyone praised how good it was and I should have known better by then. I had high hopes and ended up with the boring second ending and the most obvious finally twist ever. Some have speculated that the ending is evidence that the series will keep going now but I’m not seeing it and frankly if it is made by a different developer I don’t want to. At this point the Arkham series is done and Rocksteady has left little to no room for a plausible sequel. Hell it seems like the next logical step would be to move on to a different Batman. How many characters in the game were possible successors and have been Batman in the comic already, for good or bad. Nightwing, Azrael and Red Hood have all spent time off and on as Batman with varying degrees of psychotic. The game itself even alludes to this possibility multiple times during the main story and certain side missions. Hell, I wouldn’t even mind if they made an Arkham style Batman Beyond game. While the enemies might not be as memorable it could still be interesting, maybe even entertaining if done right.
