Gotham Knights Review

It has been 7 years since the last time we were able to enter the hostilities of Gotham City in the form of the famous “Knight Of The Night” through one of the most transcendental games of the decade… Batman: Arkham Knight.

By the time we get a comeback opportunity in the form of “Gotham Knights,” from the conception of its first ad, there was something that just plain didn’t add up.

From the personal, we would attribute it to the contextual. The fact that, in the last half decade, American comics have been in decline and lack of creativity is something that not just one or two have brought up and debated.

Far above the comics, the movies made about it have been, with a few exceptions, quite forgettable and of little consequence. And I don’t think it’s necessary to talk about the lack of substance within the television series that have seen their cancellation one after another.

It is a situation of which people like David Zaslav are perfectly aware. However, his tenure as chief executive of Warner Media in April 2022 was probably too late to do anything about a game that, in all honesty, there isn’t much good to say about.

An RPG within Gotham City, starring the “Bati Familia”…

That while it sounds like a wonderful idea on paper, with plenty of room for interesting developments, memorable storylines, and aggressive plot twists; perishes victim of a crude execution.

Gotham Knights introduces us to an iteration of Gotham City without the one that causes chills among criminals and thugs…

Batman is dead. And he is left to his successors to keep things in order and keep the peace.

In a roster that seeks the closest possible resemblance to emulate the characteristics that once turned Japanese role-playing games into cultural phenomena; we can choose to play as “Nightwing”, “Batgirl”, “Red Hood” or “Robin”.

Each with different abilities and characteristics that, in isolation, may or may not accommodate the playstyle of a variety of players. But that, however, the game seems to recognize little to nothing.

The development team definitely didn’t have a deep understanding of the substance of RPGs…

Having “WB Games Montreal” as successors of what, under the mantle of “Rocksteady Games”, have been some of the best games of the last 15 years; Gotham Knights too often fails to capture the progression schemes and balance contexts that often achieve the level of strategic quality RPGs gain acceptance from an audience.

What is at hand is a delivery that definitely seeks to reward those who play accompanied through its cooperative mode and that, for the sake of optimism, shows a much higher versatility around limiting factors of other cooperative modes.

However, the amount of situations in which you really feel the need to approach her in a different way with another character that has X or Y set of abilities is almost nil.

Unfortunately, this kind of executions usually take place in role-playing games with a higher level of complexity and worked in a more millimetric way than is usual.

Games like The Elder Scrolls, The Witcher, or the most recent Assassin’s Creed; without being at the level of certain installments of Japanese role-playing games, including the most “retro” school, they still do not have such intrinsic factors; and yet they are standards that WB Games Montreal has failed to meet.

The story, by the same tone, was the victim of a lack of commitment

The opening scene of the game shows us a masked figure, whose identity is the distance of a warehouse mathematical equation. What is supposed to be shocking and suspenseful could not be more anticlimactic.

Throughout 8 main missions and certain side missions that may or may not attract attention, we see familiar characters from other games in the franchise as well as from comics, movies and animations.

The point against it is that, where other games have shown us unexpected plot twists and manage to give us surprises even within a theoretically “known” context; the game is predictable, lazy, and unimpressive from start to finish.

Clumsy, tedious and low-reward gameplay…

The one factor where we did see a lot of positive value within Gotham Knights is the depth of visual character customization.

3-piece armor with a generous amount of options to choose from and mix and match along with color palettes are the kind of thing every RPG should have at their disposal; and one of the conduits that creates motivation to invest hours in repetitive processes of collecting items for unlocks or crafting.

However, the problem comes up the moment we see how far Gotham Knights falls short in terms of gameplay and mechanics compared to its predecessors.

Taking as a reference 4 games that were cultural heritage of two decades, in which the combat is extremely fluid and precise, and where improvements were only seen as sequels were released; I don’t find it understandable or forgivable that Gotham Knights has such a clumsy, slow, inconsistent and imprecise combat system.

This is precisely the detail that makes repeatedly spending time getting rewards for crafting our weapons and armor becomes tedious. Especially when we see that there is an inconsistency in the random way in which construction materials are collected.

Usually, RPG lovers are always ready to party when hearing terminology like “grinding”, “looting”, “crafting”, or “upgrading”… They are always experiences for which we are 100% willing and ready. to invest time.

Nevertheless. Experiences typically come with a consistent, plannable pattern of rewards and, not least, a fun and rewarding experience authored, more often than not, by fluid and precise gameplay that transduces the player in the form of dopamine. .

On the other hand, there is no noticeable progress at the graphics level and the optimization is rubbish…

Being its most recent predecessor Arkham Knight, released in 2015 and widely revered for its level of graphical detail on par with its ultra-slick gameplay, expanded combat variety, and memorable music… Gotham Knights has no excuse for fans. scandals that have already been heard about optimization.

Leaving aside the fact that the consoles are not running the game at more than 30 frames per second… The rendering in the PC version is extremely poorly optimized and the instability in the execution and fluidity of the game can leave many without wanting to play.

Above all, under the premise that a role-playing game BASED ON MELEE COMBAT, which usually runs at 60 FPS and creates combat systems sensitive to timing and based on boxes, has the obligation to promise a stable execution. It doesn’t compromise gameplay.

Excellent vision, very poor execution…

Gotham Knights could have been a game that leaves many asking for more and putting hours into maximizing every aspect of it and unlocking all the possible rewards.

Again, what on paper looks like an excellent proposal that puts the companions of the “Dark Knight” in a role-playing game mode with progressions, succumbs to an innocent and uninformed execution of what makes a game great inside. of the genre.

In other circumstances, it may be considered nothing more than an innocent beginner’s mistake or a simple proposal with room for improvement.

The problem arises the moment we go to the time machine and play masterpieces like “Arkham City” or “Arkham Knight”; and we remember how far above the reference points are and the level of degradation that we have in front of us in the middle of 2022.

This review was made on PC thanks to the copy provided by WB Games.