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| Two masks, one choice. |
Batman got the interactive story treatment back in 2016 with Batman: The Telltale Series, developed by Telltale games (The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us). Focusing on a younger, less experienced Bruce Wayne and Batman as they must face a new threat looming over Gotham City. It was successful that it spawned a second season called "The Enemy Within", a year later. I haven't played a Telltale game in ages, so after finally getting around to watching The Dark Knight Rises recently, I got the urge to checkout the two Telltale Batman games. Do they live up to expectations? Let's find out.
The story follows billionaire Bruce Wayne, who recently adopted the "Batman" persona, protecting Gotham City from criminals and the like. When a new enemy known as the "Children of Arkham" start terrorising the city, it's up Bruce Wayne and Batman to uncover the mystery behind them and stop their plans. Unlike other Batman games, Bruce Wayne plays an equally important role in the story, oftentimes influencing Batman's image and his relationships with those around him like his butler Alfred, police officer Gordon, and his close friends. The twist behind the Children of Arkham was surprising and definitely was unexpected too.
In The Enemy Within, a new threat emerges just a year later with a group of criminals called "The Pact" that includes Riddler, Bane, Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze, and Joker who start plunging Gotham in chaos. The stakes are higher with many villains to confront and the character dynamic between Bruce Wayne/Batman is much more engaging and complex given the choices you'll make. Should you abide by the law or take a morally grey alternative? Without spoiling much, The Enemy Within has the better story for the character interactions between Bruce Wayne/Batman and Joker alone.
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| The story was packed with great characters and shocking twists. |
Being a Telltale games, your choices will routinely change the story's outcome as choosing a violent or nonviolent piece of dialogue can severely impact your relationship with a character. As such, there's a bunch of alternate choices and endings to the games. As for the overall story, it was neatly written and kept me engaged, though still felt scripted as some choices will lead to the same outcome. The characters are mostly faithful to the comics, but I enjoyed Telltale's fresh takes on them. My favorites were easily Riddler, Joker, Catwoman, and Bruce Wayne/Batman. Personally, The Enemy Within is up there with The Walking Dead Season 1 and The Wolf Among Us as Telltale's best games in terms of writing.
The games are a point-and-click adventure where you control either Batman or Bruce Wayne as you explore your surroundings, searching for clues and talking to NPCs. As Batman, you'll investigate crime scenes using his gadgets and deductive reasoning to progress the story. You can even use the Batcomputer to analyze objects, view character bios, and read the Gotham news. During action sequences, you'll be going through quick-time-events as you'll be pressing button inputs to beat enemies, evade attacks, and use Batman's gadgets. The QTEs were alright and had a generous window of pressing them. Aside from that, there used to be a "Crowd Play" feature where multiple players can join your adventure and vote together on choices, which is a neat idea but sadly got shutdown.
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| The gameplay was serviceable though the detective bits were interesting. |
Visually, the games are similar in style to other Telltale works with its cel-shaded look. Season 1 had some great character designs and backgrounds, which were close to the comics. However, The Enemy Within is a visual upgrade with better models, backgrounds, and textures-- the Batsuit is the most notable change. In terms of performance, Season 1 was possibly the buggiest game I've played as it's full of visual/audio glitches, frame-rate dips, stutters, and instances of crashes. Thankfully, The Enemy Within ran smoothly with little in the way of glitches. Interestingly, the game offers a "Shadows Mode", where the game in presented in a black and white visuals for a more noir look. The voicework for the games were top-notch, packing a stellar cast and great performances. Same can be said for the soundtrack, which perfectly compliments the moody nature of the series and I ended up loving the main theme.
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| Glaring issues aside, the game can look fantastic at times. |
Overall, Telltale's take on Batman exceeded my expectations since I wasn't all that excited to try it out. While some choices didn't matter in the end, I still found the stories to be engaging and characters well-written, and it's no surprise that I loved The Enemy Within the most. The gameplay was good, with the investigation segments being the interesting bits. Glitches aside, the presentation was solid with the visuals and voicework being the highlights. All in all, fans of Batman and Telltale games should definitely check out the series.
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