I went in to the game with high hopes that it was going to be the "underrated" but great Batman Arkham game, but in reality I think people say that because the game was traight up poorly receeived as straight up trash. I see now that the game isn't trash, but it really doesn't hold a candle to any of the other Arkham games, even though gameplay wise it's better than Asylum, at least Asylum knew not to go full on crazy with the extremely frustrating elements that plagues Origins. Let's start with how that as of now I only just finished the first boss fight with Bane and I am struggling with whether or not I should continue playing. The traversal is really boring as there's no landmarks to differentiate any part of the map, and about 2/5 times you can't grapple on to most buildings, so you're stuck with sometimes being forced on the ground until you find a building that allows you to grapple it. The enemies are way too fast to attack when you do any sort of combo, so just doing the boring spam X and Y to win is the only fun way to win, and to me it's not that fun to do. It might be my fault for setting the game to hard, but I recently finished City, and hard mode was very fun in that game, but here doing simple things like batclaw slam, directed arial attack and beatdown are so boring to perform when 4 other enemies with mega fast attacks rush you, they also lock on to you regardless of what you do besides evading. It doesn't help that the game has this sort of cool gray-ish look coupled with muted blue attack indicators that makes it hard to tell if an enemy is even about to attack. All the time I was playing I kept thinking: "Can't wait until I'm done so I can play Arkham Knight..." The game has too many boring and frustrating parts to make it consistently fun. Game breaking glitches that forces you to restart. Boring map with no character or soul. And DON'T get me started the the Dark Knight challenges, the most anti-fun system you can put in the game.
Played and finished it on Steam recently. Batman: Arkham Asylum is definitely showing its age when compared to the other Arkham games. It's much slower and more cutscene focused than I'd like, but the basic gameplay is the same as the rest of the franchise. The story to be had is really good until you get to the end and it does a 300 mph faceplant on itself. I won't spoil anything if you want to play it for yourself, but do be prepared that the end might leave you wondering what just happened. The game is the easiest in terms of combat in the franchise, but it's also the most frustrating in the franchise when it comes to the stealth sections as you're left with very little room for error if you make a mistake. If you never played the Arkham games, definitely start with this one, despite Origins being the prequel to the franchise. It's very jarring to go back to where it all started when you played any of the other games, so be warned if you just up and skipped this one. Stylistically it's way cooler than the other Arkham games I played(didn't play Origins). Might seem like a negative review of the game, but the game itself isn't bad, it's just not as good as any of the sequels, unless you like a more linear Batman experience.
Played and 100% the main campaign on Steam recently. Almost all issues I had with Asylum has been fixed, except some parts of the game mimicking some of the frustrating parts of Asylum for "difficulty" when those parts are just boring and not fun in any sort of way. Story is pretty good and overall well put together. Ending doesn't screw up the same way Asylum did either, so the game is fun all the way through(except 2-3 parts) and even if you play for story you will still be well pleased I imagine. Not much else to say. Better than Asylum in almost every way, except the comic style Asylum had, but for more fun gameplay and more cohesive story, I think that's okay.
