Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight Review

When this game was first announced and it was said to be a Lego game based on Batman movies, it was going to be like the Arkham games and Rocksteady was co developing it, I said to myself, "this is Batman Arkham: The Force Awakens". After playing through it, that's exactly what the game was. By no means is it something I consider "bad", if you ignore it as an "apology letter" for games like Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, it greatly loses it's luster for me. It also serves as sort of a "back to basics" reboot since Lego Batman 3 was going overboard with the greater DC Universe and it might've rubbed off the Batman only people the wrong way.

The narrative is kind of interesting on paper where it combines various aspects of Batman's on screen appreances like the live action movies, 90s animated series and the aforementioned Arkham Games into one narrative. It does kind of feel more interesting in concept than execution. You'll start the campaign doing Bruce's training in Batman Begins and Talia's there at the start this time unlike in the Nolan Trilogy. After that, you'll go through the Burton films and surprisingly even the Joel Schumacher Batman movies are featured here. You'll get into some run ins with some of Batman's comic villains but were in the Arkham games like Firefly and Black Mask. It all culminates with a homage to the following the Joker sequence in Arkham Asylum and one big homage to the Dark Knight Rises. There's also a shot for shot sequence of the Batman TAS intro too.

It can all feel very haphazardly put together since it combines various different Batman media with different tones and styles all into one narrative. Sure Talia is at the start this time but then she no shows for a while and you'll have different side kicks like Gordon and the Bat Family along for the ride. You also got Jack Nicolson Joker just out of nowhere turning into Heath Ledger Joker and there's even a weird tie in to the Killing Joke prior to the former.

The game's story can almost feel like a Batman history highlight reel than something fresh featuring Batman. This was definitely the point but it also goes back to my comparison to the Force Awakens I made earlier.

Gameplay itself is interesting in that it was more or less what the advertising entailed in that it was "Batman Arkhamlite" which while is true for aspects like on foot city traversal and the Batmobile.

Surprisingly, the actual combat and stealth shares a striking resemblance to the Spider-Man games by Insomniac. It was hard to unsee it. For one, remember how in the Arkham games of yester year required the player to use stealth with some degree of profiency in order to avoid Bruce getting pummeled by hitscan machine guns? Now, it's just large enemy waves where you can't even clear a room using stealth and it's just there to thin out the herd, like the Insomniac Spider-Man games. Enemies now give health drops in the middle of combat even on the highest difficulty. Health regain did work differently in Insomniac Spidey but the fact that you can get back health mid combat is something you couldn't do in past Arkham games. You had to clear out an enemy wave to get health back. There's also area of effect attacks that are marked with a circle or an enemy having a line of sight to shoot you to get out of the way. Enemies will also have try to shoot you from a higher vantage point too like in those games.

As easy as it is for me to throw in a "gotcha" moment for all the years when Insomniac Spider-Man was said to be an Arkham "ripoff". It just tells me that when Legacy of The Dark Knight isn't borrowing from past Batman media, it's borrowing from the very games that borrowed from the Arkham series itself. It can give the game the feeling of being "souless" especially if you don't hold care for or hold games like Gotham Knights or Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League with an extreme level of contempt.

Dark Knight difficulty feels quite superfluous in the grand scheme of things since you'll have to try hard to get an actual game over or if you die to the buggy platforming or misunderstand the solution needed to damage a boss. Not that I'm demanding challenge out of a Lego game but I thought this whole thing would amount to more.

The puzzles are just kind of there. You just activate detective mode, look at what's highlighted and then break the lego items to build them. Lego games of the past at least had you just keep smashing things to find what you need to build the level progressing item or choose a character who had the right skill set to build them but that's streamlined now too.

Overall, I don't dislike Lego Batman Legacy of the Dark Knight, it's a perfectly serviceable and enjoyable game in the moment but it's existence and how it's made is hard for me to not look back upon my time with it an immense cynicism. I can say it's more consistent as a whole than Skywalker Saga was which is a complement I'll give.