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General Gaming / Re: What are you playing?
« Last post by broodwars on May 30, 2026, 04:01:20 PM »Next up is Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, a game I picked up when Amazon was offering the +$20 deluxe edition for the same price as the regular edition.
The game is, overall, a tribute to all the Batman '89 and onward live action movies, with a little Batman '66 and Batman: TAS love and a LOT of the Batman Arkham gameplay sprinkled in (including a pale imitation of its combat system).
The story attempts to clumsily string together the stories of all those movies, and sometimes it really works and sometimes it feels like Traveler's Tales just really didn't give a damn. I get the distinct impression that the devs don't particularly like The Batman or Batman Begins, because the early parts of the game focused on their versions of Batman's origin story feel like they go on forever and are utterly boring. I don't feel like the game really hits its stride until Chapter 2 when it starts adapting the Tim Burton films, when suddenly life enters the cutscenes and performances.
Baffling-ly, Batman Forever gets 1 whole stage devoted to it in a chapter that's mainly devoted to Batman & Robin's version of Poison Ivy. It's a real shame, because Traveler's Tales clearly "gets" the neon-infused style of that movie, but barely gets to use it. And Batman & Robin's Mr. Freeze gets 1 whole boss fight in a chapter that's mainly devoted to homaging Batman: The Animated Series. Why even GO with that (terrible) version of Mr. Freeze if you wanted to homage the version of the franchise that MADE people give a damn about Mr. Freeze?
The writing is pretty hit-or-miss, especially at the start when the game just seems aggressively not funny. Like the rest of the game, it improves a lot once the movies with more personality come in, and there are some pretty solid jokes at the expense of the Snyder and Nolan films by the end. Hell, the game somehow makes The Dark Knight Rises' version of Bane an enjoyable character by completely taking the piss out of his "returning Gotham to YOU, THE PEOPLE" message. The vocal performances are all over the place. There were times I wanted to reach out and punch Batgirl's voice actress because she was over-acting when it wasn't warranted.
The game seems to have a problem picking a tone. Sometimes it's just "silly" like every other Lego "thing" out there, and other times it wants to be sincere when I'm not sure it's earned it. The game struggles to find a balance until late into the game.
From a gameplay perspective, this is one incredibly buggy game. The grappling hook often just plain doesn't work. You'll hit the button mid-flight, and the game will send you right into the bottom of an object because it ended up between where you were and the thing you were grappling. You can't grapple onto tether lines like you can in the Arkham games, so characters like Nightwing and Robin that specialize in stringing tethers to walk across feel somewhat pointless. I had my PS5 hard crash on me at one point for no apparent reason, not to mention quest lines that broke until I closed the game completely and re-loaded. My camera got locked facing a spinning floor any time I try to play as Nightwing during the Mr. Freeze fight. The game is just a technical mess at times.
And yet, like Escape from Ever After, I do think this is one of the best games of the year when it's firing on all cylinders. There are some inspired levels in here, there are some solid jokes, clear love for the source material (and those involved in making it), and we haven't had a good Batman Arkham game like this since...Arkham City. They even paid for the licensed music from the films in question, including a surprise entry for the end credits. It is worth a playthrough, and I look forward to playing the story DLC whenever it comes out.
The game is, overall, a tribute to all the Batman '89 and onward live action movies, with a little Batman '66 and Batman: TAS love and a LOT of the Batman Arkham gameplay sprinkled in (including a pale imitation of its combat system).
The story attempts to clumsily string together the stories of all those movies, and sometimes it really works and sometimes it feels like Traveler's Tales just really didn't give a damn. I get the distinct impression that the devs don't particularly like The Batman or Batman Begins, because the early parts of the game focused on their versions of Batman's origin story feel like they go on forever and are utterly boring. I don't feel like the game really hits its stride until Chapter 2 when it starts adapting the Tim Burton films, when suddenly life enters the cutscenes and performances.
Baffling-ly, Batman Forever gets 1 whole stage devoted to it in a chapter that's mainly devoted to Batman & Robin's version of Poison Ivy. It's a real shame, because Traveler's Tales clearly "gets" the neon-infused style of that movie, but barely gets to use it. And Batman & Robin's Mr. Freeze gets 1 whole boss fight in a chapter that's mainly devoted to homaging Batman: The Animated Series. Why even GO with that (terrible) version of Mr. Freeze if you wanted to homage the version of the franchise that MADE people give a damn about Mr. Freeze?
The writing is pretty hit-or-miss, especially at the start when the game just seems aggressively not funny. Like the rest of the game, it improves a lot once the movies with more personality come in, and there are some pretty solid jokes at the expense of the Snyder and Nolan films by the end. Hell, the game somehow makes The Dark Knight Rises' version of Bane an enjoyable character by completely taking the piss out of his "returning Gotham to YOU, THE PEOPLE" message. The vocal performances are all over the place. There were times I wanted to reach out and punch Batgirl's voice actress because she was over-acting when it wasn't warranted.
The game seems to have a problem picking a tone. Sometimes it's just "silly" like every other Lego "thing" out there, and other times it wants to be sincere when I'm not sure it's earned it. The game struggles to find a balance until late into the game.
From a gameplay perspective, this is one incredibly buggy game. The grappling hook often just plain doesn't work. You'll hit the button mid-flight, and the game will send you right into the bottom of an object because it ended up between where you were and the thing you were grappling. You can't grapple onto tether lines like you can in the Arkham games, so characters like Nightwing and Robin that specialize in stringing tethers to walk across feel somewhat pointless. I had my PS5 hard crash on me at one point for no apparent reason, not to mention quest lines that broke until I closed the game completely and re-loaded. My camera got locked facing a spinning floor any time I try to play as Nightwing during the Mr. Freeze fight. The game is just a technical mess at times.
And yet, like Escape from Ever After, I do think this is one of the best games of the year when it's firing on all cylinders. There are some inspired levels in here, there are some solid jokes, clear love for the source material (and those involved in making it), and we haven't had a good Batman Arkham game like this since...Arkham City. They even paid for the licensed music from the films in question, including a surprise entry for the end credits. It is worth a playthrough, and I look forward to playing the story DLC whenever it comes out.
