Batman: Arkham Origins

Despite being the "black sheep" of the Arkham series, i believe that Batman: Arkham Origins makes a fine addition to the series. The differences in character design and voice actors were jarring at first when I first started playing especially since I played the other Arkham games, but quickly became used to them. Gameplay-wise, Arkham Origins is the best in the series up to this point. Each entry the combat keeps getting better and better, and this title is no exception. Everything flows so smoothly as you fling yourself around a brawl or creating fear when sneaking around. However, one thing that Arkham Origins doesn't improve upon over its predecessors is the skill tree. It is largely linear with very few branches, forcing you to get boring skills like health upgrades, which I largely ignored in previous games, in order to get more interesting skills like finishers, special moves, and new ways to use gadgets in combat. The open-world is also pretty bland. It feels more like generic city rather than what you would envision Gotham to look like. Although, during certain missions, you are thrown into some interesting areas like the hotel and bridge. I enjoyed the story, but it never really pulled me in like Arkham City did. Arkham Origins is well worth your time even if its predecessors still surpass it in many ways.

Batman: Arkham Origins is the red-headed step-black sheep of the Arkham series for many reasons. Not made by Rocksteady, not featuring Mark Hamill or Kevin Conroy, having a sort of dull Gotham, and even down to the big twist reveal of Joker being Black Mask upsetting people. But besides all that, I always had a lot of fun with this game.

Like many of this game's defenders, I agree that Roger Craig Smith and Troy Baker as a younger Batman and Joker are amazing. I especially feel like Troy Baker took his performance and gave it his own spin, making his voice unique enough that you can recognize it. 

Speaking of Batman and Joker, let's get into that a bit. The Black Mask twist never bothered me as it did for other people and that's probably from Black Mask not being that much of an important character in the Batman lore for me personally. He just never really impressed me enough for me to care about him, but I'm a basic bitch with my love for the Joker character, so having him around is something I'll never complain about, and this game proves it's worth having the Joker around with its outlook on the origins of his relationship with the Batman. Obsessed with the no-kill rule, trying to figure out how Batman could possibly not see the correlation in the two and never being able to get an answer is fansinating. They even go the step forwards to show the Joker's relationship with Harley and how saddening it is. That a poor lonely psychiatrist could fall so low because she's so desperate to be loved that when Joker's using vague language about Batman he's able to encapsulate her into a 1 sided love. 

On another note, I think this is probably the most brutal game out of the four. With the introduction of a young Batman, he's a lot more rage-filled and it shows very well in this game. I mean, for fucks sake the guy drops a random criminal into a Christmas tree! Even the in-game action moves are brutal as all hell, some of these perps should be dead by the time the Bats done with em, it's absolutely insane and I love it.

The boss fights as well, I feel like WB Montreal really outperformed Rocksteady on some of these characters. Obviously there's the well-praised Deathstroke battle, which the character was later done abysmally in Arkham Knight but there's also the 2 intense Bane fights that are a lot more strategical and anxiety-inducing than the bland titan copy & paste in Arkham Asylum, the on your toes battle with Killer Croc, the beautiful anarchy that is the Firefly encounter, the rightful sneak filled takedown with Deadshot, and who can forget the painfully aggravating match with the Electrocutioner that makes the Mr. Freeze boss fight in Arkham City look like you're having a fistfight with a baby.

With all jokes aside, I do really love this game a lot. It's no Arkham City, but I've always found so much enjoyment out of this game. I look forward to what WB Games Montreal has in store with Gotham Knights!