Fine up until you get to what the fool calls the "Challenging" bit. Better know as the cheating bit. If you like being held in place? Enemies defying physics to hit you by punching through each other? Or those same enemies hitting where you will be after the game gives no choice but to go there? Then enjoy. If not? Buy low or not at all.
I bought this "game of the year" after reading so many comments and reviews glorifying it and after playing more than half of it, I uninstalled the game, considering finishing it a serious waste of my time. I understand different tastes, I really do, but seriously guys? THIS is 10/10 for somebody today? Are you kidding me, or is it 6 for the game and +4 for nostalgia?
Let's start with dislikes. Controls are poor and unresponsive, graphics are dated and glitchy, combat animations seriously lacks frames and dialogue animations are mediocre at best, enemies and locations are not only constantly reused, but you're constantly backtracking through them, so they all look samey after a short while. The riddles, puzzles and challenges all look like they were made to amaze a 10-year old. And the story I found dull and uninteresting for the first half of the game. Generally, for an arcade'y - like game where fun should be its main selling point, I found this one to simply be boring.
On the good side, the game has great voiceacting, listening to it makes you forget about game's shortcomings. The world building is really good also, being informative and not intrusive at all. And the atosphere of the game, both the delyric insides and dark, slightly moonlit outsides, are absolutely brillant, and it is my favourite part of this game. The comic-like stylish choices, while very over the top, fit into this world perfectly. Boss fights are nice and some moves (like gargoyle grab) are pretty cool.
I do know this is an 11-years old game at this point, but if you're reading this, you're most likely considering playing it today. And it really pales in comparison to even a semi-modern games available today. Pick Mad Max if you're looking for a discounted arcade'y game that does not feel outdated.
Overall, this one was a big disappointment for me. 6/10 is the best I can give it with clear conscience.
It's only got one good thing going for it. It's Batman, and it ends there. Co-staring some familiar voice actors and trademark criminal antics that will get annoyingly old very fast. The most repetitive thing you'll do is collect-a-thon style item and lore collecting while and using batterangs to destroy some chattery teeth for xp points. But, the most damning thing is the highly repetitive combat and movement system. This was tailored for consoles with a very clunky fighting system that is pretty much WB games style two button combat and a self defeating combo system with a few weird enemy types thrown in fure pure frustration.
I can understand if this was baby's first console game. It got a lot of praise back in the day by such vivid users of systems and ground breaking graphics before the big 2010's started coming around. I gave up torwards the final fight and decided just to watch a youtube vid of the ending because of how pathetic the buildup was towards the end.
I wanted to like it and give it a chance as Gog offered me a very nice discount on the lot of these. I hope the later games fare much better.