REVIEW – I’m writing my thoughts on the virtual paper roughly fifteen minutes after completing the episode. It’s not common when I play episodic games. Perhaps the concept helped me (or was it the inspiration?), but one thing is sure: Batman’s back, baby!

 

The shock at the end of the first episode was nothing after seeing what the second episode had me to offer. Although there won’t be a large-scale crime investigation (there’s something, but it’s very trivial, and not complex at all), the story didn’t just get on its foot, but it ended up running around the Batcave…

Police & drugs

One of the essential scenes will be a police officer pulling off an unexpected move. This event results getting rid of one of the principal characters, which triggers a chain reaction for later scenes, too. We’ll have much more to deal with than before. Meanwhile, we have to risk our relationship with one of the mayor candidates, while cutting the tree under the other one.

That’s just the beginning: we’ll also meet Catwoman in multiple ways, and one of the funniest events might just be the one in the bar.

Hill

I liked the part where the game has offered me a choice to visit one of the characters as either Batman or Bruce Wayne. This option gives replayability a boost. (It’s probably not a spoiler if I say that I picked the suit instead of the mask.) Not bad! There’s also the usual action planning part, and now a partner can be assigned a target, too. I get rid of two goons; this other person took care of the third one.

Maybe I’m allowed to say that we’ll end up attending the debate between the two mayor candidates, although the result was worse than what we will see between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. There’s also a twist with the appearance of a villain, and another villain, who’s possibly controlling a group. A spoiler here: the title of the episode is not related to us at all.

Put another Dent in it

Dent will play a significant role in two choices. Will we support his campaign financially while he talks sh_t about us in the press, or we refuse him, potentially making our future bleak?

I don’t see my decision’s effects yet, but I can tell you that the story has lifted off the ground in a major way, and there’s still three episodes remaining. Telltale doesn’t screw around with the Batman game, and I certainly appreciate this approach!

Less glitches

With these episodic games, the biggest challenge is to write about them without spoiling everything, but I hope I slipped through that filter this time around as well. This is not a televised revolution, but it’s going to be a bloody awful one. The gameplay, however, isn’t revolutionary – it’s still enjoyable, though.

There’s not much research to be done here (we still end up sitting in front of that supercomputer – at least Telltale fixed the Codex glitch… instead, the news program still repeats only two news! so how about some drama instead? Graphically, I didn’t see any major glitches, if I don’t count the subtitles having three typos. (Grammar Nazi mode on, I know…)

It’s improving!

The first episode got a 76 score, and Children of Arkham‘s improvements result in an 80. This chapter was better than the first one, but it could have received an 85 if it wasn’t that short. No joke, I beat it in 72 minutes, and I messed up a QTE once. Perhaps this is the reason how Batman‘s series continued after 1.5 months.

Regardless, I enjoyed Children of Arkham, and I can feel the quality is going to go higher, too!

-V-

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Publisher: Telltale Games

Developer: Telltale Games

Genre: Point-and-click, adventure, episodic

Release date: September 20, 2016 (PS4, PS3)