Was that Telltale Batman game any good?

[Zhukov]

Just curious.

I like Telltale and I'm fine with their point-and-click movie format, but I'm not so big on Batman or superheroes in general.

"Well", I hear you say, "If you're not into Batman why would you even consider it? It's a game about fucking Batman."

Thing is, I'm not into Borderlands either but I found Telltale's take on that property downright delightful. So perhaps this could end up being a similar deal.

I'm not hurting for games at the moment so I'm in no hurry, just wanted to see if anyone had an opinion. Never heard anything about it after it came out.

 

[DeadProxy]

It was pretty decent, not as good as the borderlands one in my opinion, but I still had a good time.

My experience was soured though due to the horrible bug or feature or whatever it is. There is no "rewind" feature for chapters, so if you wanted to change one of your choices without having to replay the whole episode, you're out of luck. You have to replay the whole chapter, making all the same choices while being unable to skip any dialogue until you reach the one you actually wanted to change. But there is a huge issue with that, because if you wanted to change a choice in episode 3 for example, if you picked "Restart Chapter 3" from the menu, the game will not use the data from episode 1 and 2 you already have, and instead randomize all your choices. So you will have to start over from the very beginning of episode 1 because that's the only way for the game to actually remember your choices. This gets really boring and horrible when you have to replay the entire game because you wanted to change something in episode 4 before 5 comes out, and learn that by then, this bug was still not fixed, and you would have to sit through about 5 hours of game again, because I had already restarted the episode and already basically erased my save data. If that ever got changed, then awesome, but if not, holy fuck are you stuck with your choices.

 

[Erttheking]

It's probably decent, Telltale has a good team of writers on board...not that I'd know. To be honest I just got a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of games they're pumping out. I have, Walking Dead Season 2, Tales from the Borderands and their Game of Thrones game, and I haven't played any of them yet. It just overwhelms me. Still, I don't regret paying for them, they're a good company and I'm glad they've found their niche.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Love the telltale design more than most, but can't muster any enthusiasm for this Batman, Game of thrones or the Minecraft series of theirs. If any them are worth it, maybe I'll give in. But they're IPs that generate no emotion for me personally. Then again had similar thoughts about Borderlands till reading some reviews. One of their best.
Ehh...ehhmm...nyhaargh.

The new walking dead is out btw. Not sure how much of it though. Or if it contains Clementine.

 

[King Billi]

If I was to be branded a "fan" if anything it would have to be Batman so I'm actually predisposed to enjoy pretty much anything with him in it moreso than some other people so take my comments with a grain of salt.

Anyway I felt that it certainly started strongly and it held my interest through to the end though the finale didn't really affect me much at all.

It told something of an altered year one/early days story which may make it seem redundant to a lot of people sick of origin stories and such but it does change quite a lot of established characters and events.

In spite of my love for the subject matter I don't think it was anywhere near as interesting as either 'The Walking Dead' or 'The Wolf Among Us' and I felt I noticed a few more inconsistencies in how the story progressed like certain conversations or scenes were missed though thus could just he due to my having an increased understanding of how these kinds of games work.

Other than that nothing much else to say except...

I really liked that the Penguin is featured as one of the major adversaries.

Batmans voice was weird.

The "investigation" scenes sucked.

One thing that really irritated me...

Spoiler: spoiler

I was quite impressed when it seemed apparent Telltale were determined to tell their tale(Ha!) without including or even referencing The Joker... But nope, as always there he is by the end drawing focus!

 

[darkcalling]

I really enjoyed it. It had some really neat twists that I honestly didn't see coming. Rather than just retell a version of an established story Telltale chose to tell a brand new story in a completely new timeline for Bruce. He's just starting out as Batman. The police and the public don't entirely trust him. Some don't even know about him yet. And rather than have the villain be an established character they do their own thing and created someone new.

Characters like Penguin, Harvey Dent and Catwoman are along for the ride but their mostly secondary issues to the main mystery. And while yes minor spoiler the Joker does appear (not spoiler tagged because who really expects a Batman game without at least a cameo from the Clown Prince of Crime?) he doesn't show his face for long and isn't anything even close to a major player in the mystery. At most he's a hint at what might happen if they get to do a sequel.

Though I will admit that if someone didn't like previous TellTale games this probably won't change their mind. Nothing else that I've played really feels quite like a TellTale game and this has their style deeply ingrained into it.

 

[Zaltys]

It was okay, but not one of Telltale's best.
At least it wasn't tedious like Minecraft, or poorly written like Game of Thrones.

My main gripe is that it was too obvious that your dialogue choices do nothing. Most of the ' will remember that' turned out to be outright lies, as expected. And although there are some alternate scenes (which gives it a bit of replayability), it's no Tales from the Borderlands. Which I've played at least four times by now, and am still finding new things.

 

[Nick Cave]

Granted, I haven't played it, but watched most of a full Let's Play (which isn't as much of a crime it usually is when it comes to Telltale games), and, ehhhhhhhhhhhh...

Honestly, the main thing that made Walking Dead season 1 work was the strong writing, and without the writers Telltale games have just been a series of "watch this mediocre TV-Show and smetimes make choices that characters will comment on only once in a very stilted way".

As for their take on the Batman mythos, it's not as absolutely horrendous as most Batman related things are, there is more of a focus on Bruce Wayne as a character, and the game even pretends he's slightly flawed (holy shit!). But judging by actually well written things it's not even a tier above the Arkham series, which isn't exactly a series you play for the awesome storytelling. It's more Batman, and doesn't really do anything new that can justify getting it if you want a creative spin on Batman.

Honestly, unless you were *really* hot on previous Telltale titles, this won't do all that much.

 

[Kingjackl]

I enjoyed it; pretty standard Telltale for the most part, not exceptional like Tales from the Borderlands, not mediocre like Game of Thrones. The main gimmick of linking interactable objects together for investigating and planning out takedowns is really shallow.

However, I recommend it much more strongly for anyone with an interest in Batman lore, because it deviates from the standard template in some interesting ways. There's a big reveal at the end of episode 1 that becomes the "core" premise and everything else spirals out from that.

Villains are well done too. The primary threat is an original villain (whose identity is a massive twist on established lore in it's own right, but we won't go into that), while Two Face and Penguin act as the "heavies". Their version of Penguin is pretty cool, like a cross between the cockney gangster version from Arkham with the modern-day young tech-bro interpretation of the rich evil megalomaniac that Batman vs Superman was going for with Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor (except not shit). Two-Face is standard by comparison, but his relationship and eventual falling out with Bruce makes up a big part of the early drama. Joker is in it too, and refreshingly he doesn't steal the focus from the main villains this time. It's a more restrained take on it than the Hamill version too, acting friendly and "normal" but occasionally letting a little mania slip out. He only shows up for one segment in Arkham Asylum where he and Bruce meet for the first time. They're obviously setting him up to be the main villain for the sequel, but for now I really like this version.

Most importantly, it's focused more on Bruce Wayne than Batman; all of the villains have the most interesting interactions with Bruce, while Batman is just there for the action sequences. If you like the idea of exploring a slightly different take on Batman, then I'd recommend it. Otherwise, maybe wait til it's on sale.

 

[votemarvel]

The new walking dead is out btw. Not sure how much of it though. Or if it contains Clementine.

The first two episodes are out and yes, Clementine is in it although she is not the main character.

Sadly it borrows the technical limitations of the Batman game, in that you can't rewind the story in order to make different choices or to watch a scene again.

As to Batman, I really enjoyed it. The combat, which I was most worried about is simplistic but fun enough to get some enjoyment out of. I liked that Telltale didn't feel the need to stick to established mythos and character designs, it made things really quite unpredictable.

If you enjoy Telltale games then you should like their Batman.

 

[sXeth]

I really enjoyed it. It had some really neat twists that I honestly didn't see coming. Rather than just retell a version of an established story Telltale chose to tell a brand new story in a completely new timeline for Bruce. He's just starting out as Batman. The police and the public don't entirely trust him. Some don't even know about him yet. And rather than have the villain be an established character they do their own thing and created someone new.

Characters like Penguin, Harvey Dent and Catwoman are along for the ride but their mostly secondary issues to the main mystery. And while yes minor spoiler the Joker does appear (not spoiler tagged because who really expects a Batman game without at least a cameo from the Clown Prince of Crime?) he doesn't show his face for long and isn't anything even close to a major player in the mystery. At most he's a hint at what might happen if they get to do a sequel.

Though I will admit that if someone didn't like previous TellTale games this probably won't change their mind. Nothing else that I've played really feels quite like a TellTale game and this has their style deeply ingrained into it.

Spoiler

Vicki Vale isn't a new character, though Lady Arkham is ttbomk. I guess it might've been too obvious if they just introduced a random new character and a masked villain (Like Mask of the Phantasm did, which is kind of obvious watching it and not being 10, lol), but yeah.

Its uh, very Telltale-ish. Its worse then previous games for the actual "gameplay", as you only need like half the prompts correct to fill your win button up and then the "action" is resolved. Even if you miss all of them, about 25% of the time the scene completes anyway with no real drawback. The usual contrivances to get around choices you do make and keep their story going are there, along with crazy 390 degree mood swings (although some are handwaved with a plot device) often present, and a liberal dose of "Everyone's an a-hole" that afflicts basically everyone but Gordon (he gets a few hits of the random stupidity ball though) and Alfred.

 

[Frankster]

I wouldn't recommend it if you're not already a batman fan.

See Tales of the Borderlands was awesome regardless of if you played or even liked borderlands (i sure didn't), but batman is more like game of thrones in that you have to actively be really into the source material cos otherwise the game itself is meh by telltale standards. Batman is not in TTBL's league by a long shot.

 

[SirSullymore]

My problem with it was it was ANOTHER "Batman just starting out" story. After Year One (comic and film), Earth One, All-star Batman and Robin, Batman Begins, Arkham Origin, The Batman, Beware the Batman and arguably Gotham did we need another young Batman story?

Keep in mind I've only played the first chapter, so maybe it doesn't feel like an early Batman story the whole way through.

 

[darkcalling]

I really enjoyed it. It had some really neat twists that I honestly didn't see coming. Rather than just retell a version of an established story Telltale chose to tell a brand new story in a completely new timeline for Bruce. He's just starting out as Batman. The police and the public don't entirely trust him. Some don't even know about him yet. And rather than have the villain be an established character they do their own thing and created someone new.

Characters like Penguin, Harvey Dent and Catwoman are along for the ride but their mostly secondary issues to the main mystery. And while yes minor spoiler the Joker does appear (not spoiler tagged because who really expects a Batman game without at least a cameo from the Clown Prince of Crime?) he doesn't show his face for long and isn't anything even close to a major player in the mystery. At most he's a hint at what might happen if they get to do a sequel.

Though I will admit that if someone didn't like previous TellTale games this probably won't change their mind. Nothing else that I've played really feels quite like a TellTale game and this has their style deeply ingrained into it.

Spoiler

Vicki Vale isn't a new character, though Lady Arkham is ttbomk. I guess it might've been too obvious if they just introduced a random new character and a masked villain (Like Mask of the Phantasm did, which is kind of obvious watching it and not being 10, lol), but yeah.

Its uh, very Telltale-ish. Its worse then previous games for the actual "gameplay", as you only need like half the prompts correct to fill your win button up and then the "action" is resolved. Even if you miss all of them, about 25% of the time the scene completes anyway with no real drawback. The usual contrivances to get around choices you do make and keep their story going are there, along with crazy 390 degree mood swings (although some are handwaved with a plot device) often present, and a liberal dose of "Everyone's an a-hole" that afflicts basically everyone but Gordon (he gets a few hits of the random stupidity ball though) and Alfred.

Spoiler

Yes I know Vicki is an established character but she's sooo different here that she counts for at least half a brand new character. More so than Jason Todd as the Arkham Knight at least. Who here can say they didn't see THAT coming from a mile away.

I agree that it has a strong case of what me and my friends call "Telltale Syndrome" but that kind of thing has rarely bothered me. Is this a game that people will be talking about for years like The Walking Dead? (Which i quite enjoyed despite HATING the show) Probably not. But I do think it's worth the asking price.

 

[gorfias]

Glad to hear so many positive reviews. I don't expect it to be another Gotham City but loved Walking Dead and Batman and figure this will be fun. I just got it for my birthday and loaded it but waiting to start for next time I have my bud over who is dying to play through this with me. He has to bring the beer.

 

[mad825]

If you've played a Tellltale game...Then you've played them all. The hype about their "new gaming engine" is barely noticeable.

 

[gorfias]

If you've played a Tellltale game...Then you've played them all. The hype about their "new gaming engine" is barely noticeable.

I do have the Back to the Future games. Are they pretty much the same?