Review: Telltale’s Batman Episode 4: Guardians of Gotham
After a surprisingly strong previous episode, Guardians of Gotham marked an inevitable slump for the series. Though the narrative continues to unfold nicely and a certain smiling villain makes an appearance, a lack of meaningful choice and conclusion made this penultimate episode feel stale.
Starting off where Episode 3 left off after Bruce is injected with an anger inducing toxin by the Lady of Arkham, you find yourself in none other than Arkham Asylum. Moments into your stay, you are cornered by two patients looking for some retribution over Bruce’s father’s role in them ending up there. Just as it looks like you are in for one hell of a beating, a certain green-haired, pale skinned Arkham Asylum veteran enters to save the day.
While he’s only ever referred to as John Doe in game, this fellow patient is of course The Joker and he quickly tries to befriend Bruce forcing you to decide what sort of relationship you want with the grinning maniac. His cameo in Guardians of Gotham isn’t overly long with Telltale playing it relatively safe with their take on The Joker; he walks a very familiar line between crazy and capable. Though not around for as long as I would have hoped, you certainly feel like he’ll play a big role in the final episode.
Guardians of Gotham is all about setting up for Episode Five with Two Face, The Penguin and the Lady of Arkham all making life increasingly difficult for Batman. The tale as has been the case throughout the series is unfolding really well but my main issue with this episode is a lack of consequence or influence with the narrative now walking a noticeably linear path. My biggest decision came at the end of the episode and that was simply a choice between two evils with either decision ending badly.
Like previous episodes, Guardians of Gotham also involved increasingly less interaction with only one detective sequence and the mandatory but pretty sparse and short quick-time battles. That said, I’m not really complaining about that with continued pauses and jumps during the game making any sort of gameplay more frustrating than enjoyable.
Running on a new game engine I really hoped Telltale games would become a much smoother experience but if this Batman series is anything to go by, it hasn’t had much impact. Graphically things do look a little crisper but that doesn’t help when the scenes themselves are interrupted by pauses and poorly placed load screens. I’m starting to be a little harsh but that’s only because a lack of any meaningful story development in this episode allowed these frustrations to boil over.
Somewhat shorter than previous episodes, Guardians of Gotham failed to pack much of punch as it looked to build momentum for what I hope is a more consequential and generally powerful final episode.
6/10
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