Thomas Roach reviews Batman: Return to Arkham…
Batman: Return to Arkham bundles together the acclaimed Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City full remasters for the current generation. Having been disappointed with Batman: Arkham Knight it has certainly been nice to return to what I consider superior games, and if it were not for the remaster it is unlikely I would have ever returned to these. Both Arkham Asylum and Arkham City were great experiences for me on the last generation so I was more than happy to experience them once again.
The graphics have improved a great deal. There is a lot more colour and detail in the game. Character design has been improved significantly. Looking at the characters costumes you can see how much more detail there is. However I do think that Arkham City has a superior look to Arkham Asylum; this is probably due to City being a more recent game and less work needed to be done to scale up the graphics to the current generation. I found that Arkham Asylum looked a great deal more colourful some of the time which didn’t seem to match the game’s dark tone. Some colours come across as bold and even overwhelming when contrasted with the world in which they are placed in. Arkham City however doesn’t have this problem. The graphics look great and at no point do they seem unusual or out of place. Whilst this is very noticeable in the game it does not harm the overall experience.
Having played both games previously I loved diving into the world of Batman. Being able to take on many of the iconic villains from the Batman lore is great, and just getting to experience them again reminded how these games are far more outstanding than what was the final instalment. Like all games however there are some issues with the levels. I find myself enjoying a mission, before being shoehorned into going off on a tangent before progressing. This is clearly done to add length to the gameplay but can sometimes be annoying and takes you away from the story.
As this game includes two great games and all the DLC it certainly is value for money. For anyone who wants to experience them for the first time now they should. I would say that they missed out before, but with such a bargain on offer with Return to Arkham it certainly is worth getting these games, while fans of the series will enjoy the experience of playing the games again. Like me you probably haven’t played them in a long time so it is a somewhat new experience. The DLC that the game offers adds on a few more hours of content, which are not as good as the main games but offer a fun and different experience nonetheless.
While the combat really accessible and easy to play, at times it can feel unresponsive, which is something I had hoped they would have refined from the previous games. As development on remasters is mostly copying and pasting it is no surprise that they haven’t taken the time to fix issues that both previous games faced. This is however a rare occurrence and doesn’t really ruin the gameplay as a whole.
Overall this is a must have game for anyone who has not played both Arkham Asylum and Arkham City on the previous generation consoles. Other than the DLC which many players may not have accessed previously, there is nothing new. You may want to add this to your collection if you were a fan of the games and are looking to return for nostalgic reasons, but if you feel you’ve already seen it all with Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, you should probably give this a miss.
Pros:
+ Noticeable graphical improvement
+ Value for money
+ Includes all DLC
Cons:
– Gameplay hasn’t been refined
Rating: 7.5/10
Batman: Return to Arkham was reviewed on PlayStation 4.
Thomas Roach
Originally published October 20, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
