What Videogame(s) Are You Playing?

[Silvereyes]

@Rimland

Ah, yes, this one caught me off guard in terms of what an honest answer would lead to

Was that in the Gondawara substory? The series has so much of this pervy stuff that I fail to keep track of what was where (also, if/when you do Koyuki’s substory, I highly recommend trying the “sniff the panties” option - one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a videogame, ever)

Ha yeah, that sub story is… something else. I love the fact as well that later on the boss can be fought in the colosseum in his baby outfit. I haven’t hit that sub story yet you mentioned, I’ll definetly select that option.

I am enjoying Kiwami 2 overall. It’s definetly an improvement over all, even if it is just lots of small things. No more limited inventory, items just stack now thank god. The XP system is less grindy, and really combat is just easier overall this go round, which considering I really suck at these third person action games, is a bit of a god send. I also like the fact you can see where to trigger sub stories now, which makes finding them and completing them so much easier, compared to the first game where you had to basically explore everywhere and interact with everything in the hope of trigger sub stories to start.

I am enjoying the story. Yakuza is known so much for its wackiness in the side content but the main storyline tends to be fairly serious crime drama, and honestly, it can be very cool. The first game definetly felt like it was written to be a self contained story, whereas here you can feel Yakuza really begin to build its lore and characters, the seeds for what will become a saga.

I do enjoy the side stuff, and I do appreciate how in-depth alot of it is. I guess Yakuza likes to make really in-depth side content? Kiwami 1 had that card collecting and stock car racing, and Kiwami 2 has the cabaret grand prix and the tower defence stuff, and I know the new game, Infinite Wealth, has the Pokemon and Animal Crossing like side content. I mean, it certainly is interesting, but I suppose the issue is, when you buy an older game at a cheap price (or in my case, I think I’ve gotten Yakuza 0-4 all through Humble Bundles), and there are now 9 mainline games in the series, I can’t help but sortof glaze over this stuff and just want to focus on the story content and get through the game at a reasonable pace. Whereas if I bought the new game at full price I’d probably be a lot more invested in exhausting all the side stuff out I imagine.

Anyway, yeah, I think I can say I’m becoming a Yakuza fan, and I’d like to work my way through the games. Probably going to take a long while before I hit the newest one at this rate. I guess I am a little worried how jumping into 3 will be, since that is a bit older than the remakes are, and I’m hoping it’s not too much of a step back or it being a lot harder. I am definetly excited to hit 7 and 8 since those are turn based RPGs and really, that is far more my thing than third person action, so I imagine gameplay wise 7 and 8 will probably be my favourites honestly. I’m doing the games in release order (barring the remakes of 1 and 2 obviously) so will probably do 0 between 5 and 6.

[Rimland]

@Silvereyes

I guess Yakuza likes to make really in-depth side content?

That´s an understatement By the time you reach Y5 and Y0, you´ll probably wish it had much less of it. I played through five games from the series last year (YK2, Y3, Y4, Y5, Y6) and am still doing the (major) side stuff from all of them (the quality can vary quite a lot)

@Silvereyes

Kiwami 2 has the cabaret grand prix and the tower defence stuff

I thoroughly enjoyed Kiwami 2 for the story when I played it last year (although the pace kinda drags mid-way through), but the more I got into the side stuff, the more I started to have a gripe with it. I haven´t played the OG Yakuza 2, but from what I´ve gathered, that game had quite a lot of side content unique to itself, and rather than trying to bring it over to K2, they basically just copied (with certain adjustments) the major minigames from Y0 (cabaret) and Y6 (clan creator). Kind of devaluates the point of the remake for me. The worst offender in this regard is the Bouncer substory which turns out to be a side story of sorts and nothing but grindy filler content imo. Then there´s of course the infamous absence of the whole Shinseicho district and the fact that Kiwami 2´s Kamurocho layout is very obviously copied from Y6 and thus kinda messes up the whole continuum feeling when you get to the next three games, but that might be just an issue for people like me.

At least the cabaret minigame is much less grindy than in Y0 and someone in the porting team was actually smart enough to allow for using mouse controls during it (sadly, the same can´t be said for clan creator). Though the entire minigame is Y0 fan service and you´d probably appreciate it more if you´d played Y0 before this, since there are some recurring characters and references. Oh, and the substory I mentioned is part of the cabaret stuff.

@Silvereyes

I’m doing the games in release order (barring the remakes of 1 and 2 obviously) so will probably do 0 between 5 and 6.

It´s a bit of a double-edged sword, since both Kiwami games feature lots of references to Y0, so you´ll only keep up with those if you´ve played it (for K1 it´s mostly things featured in the Majima Everywhere stuff, and for K2 it´s the cabaret club side-story and Majima Saga mini-campaign, see below). Also, Kiwami 1´s combat comes directly from Y0´s (but is slicker), so the transition there feels really smooth and natural if you start with 0. Lastly, the whole thing with Nishiki in K1 feels more impactful when played after Y0, since you actually spend a lot of time with him in that game (that goes for some other characters as well). On the other hand, playing Y0 between 5 and 6 will mean that you´ll be able to pick up on all the references it has to the previous games (mostly in substories) and also some plot points which were obviously meant to be callbacks to Y1 (when I played K1 after Y0, it almost felt repetitive here and there). Not to mention the general increase in storytelling quality.

On this note however, I do strongly suggest that you do not play the Majima Saga side-campaign until after you´ve played Yakuza 0. The whole thing largely serves as fan service for Y0 fans and follows up on Majima´s story ending from there, and without having played that first, I doubt it will have the intended emotional impact on you.

@Silvereyes

I can’t help but sortof glaze over this stuff and just want to focus on the story content and get through the game at a reasonable pace

I can totally understand that. I´m trying to catch up on the story asap and at the same time - like I said - am still doing side stuff from 5 games. You definitely don´t need to do everything and certainly not immediately before moving on to the next game, but I do recommend trying to do all the substories at some point, since they often provide you with interesting/useful rewards (or unlock additional content), and more importantly, they can sometimes expand on a lot of the characters and lore (I feel like Y3 and Y4 did this really well). Plus they tend to feature recurring characters.

In case you haven´t come across them yet, if you ever get stuck on something, there is a series of great and detailed guides on all of the games on GameFAQs made by CyricZ. Especially useful if you´re missing some substories or want to know some strategies on getting through side content quicker.

@Silvereyes

I guess I am a little worried how jumping into 3 will be, since that is a bit older than the remakes are, and I’m hoping it’s not too much of a step back or it being a lot harder.

Was worried a bit about that myself, but it turned out ok. If you´re at least somewhat used to games from the mid to late 2000s, then you should be ok. Visually it still holds up nicely (even if it is a downgrade from both Kiwami games), but the main issue will probably be having to get used to lack of user-friendliness again, e.g. limited inventory space, no autosave or ability to save anywhere, loading screens when entering/exiting buldings, etc. And of course getting used to the different combat again. A lot of people hate on Y3 for the enemies constantly blocking everything, but honestly it´s not as bad as they make it out to be and it applies mainly to the stronger enemies like bosses and Colliseum fighters. Just make sure to upgrade your abilities (Komaki moves ftw) and you should be fine. Frankly, the bigger issue for me in that game was the slow Heat gain (and rather quick depletion) plus the slow XP gain later on (and the fact that you can´t see what skills you will be able to unlock afterwards in the skill tree).

On the bright side, this will be the only major setback in visuals and mechanics you´ll experience (I wouldn´t say everything will improve, since I think subsequent games made questionable decisions here and there which hamper the experience, but it´s the only time you´re jumping to an older title, so that´s that). I can definitely understand the OG Yakuza fans who recommend playing the series in the exact release order from Y1 onwards though.

@Silvereyes

I am definetly excited to hit 7 and 8 since those are turn based RPGs and really, that is far more my thing than third person action, so I imagine gameplay wise 7 and 8 will probably be my favourites honestly.

To me it´s the opposite. I´m not used to turn-based RPGs at all and am afraid that it will make what will already be very long games feel even longer by dragging out the fights I am thoroughly looking forward to playing the Judgment games and Ishin remake though.

One last thing (jeez, this turned out to be a long post, sorry). Since you are playing these on PC (right?), I highly recommend checking the individual games´ PCGamingWiki entries for potential fixes, since the ports have their isssues.

Namely, I would suggest SilentPatches for YK2, Y3 and Y4 (available here: Mods & Patches | Silent’s Blog) which address some performance issues, and then Canzah´s content restoration mods for pretty much all of the Kiryu games, since the western releases lack licensed music and some have censored content (the Y4 mod which adds back Tanimura´s original model and VA is especially a godsend). You can find those here: Canzah's profile at Nexus mods and community

[Watson]

Tail end of 2020. Has it changed much?

[Screaming_Meat]

yeah, quite dramatically. There’s about 7 dlc released since then that revamped vassals, first contact, the economics, combat, and leaders. PS4 is a year or so behind so I’m not sure how the first contact and leader dlcs affect things, but it seems like I’m going to have relearn the game for the fifth time

But if you don’t dig the basics, I can’t imagine forking out for 7 chunks of DLC.

[TheChicken]

I feel like most of my deaths on No Return happen from my own trip mines. (Only enemies can set them off - but they do damage to you, especially if you’re right next to it)

The Last of Us Part II Remastered_20240126121630

Both last night and this morning I tried a one-time Daily Run… oof, both times I died this way.
Note-to-self, don’t lead enemies on your tail right into it. And don’t place one when you know there’s some incoming…

[Swangtheugly]

Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.

I’ve played some of it, I can talk about it. Won’t be posting spoilers since early access began not long ago for people in New Zealand.

What I can say is this, the game getting delayed a year was probably the best thing Rocksteady could have done. While it doesn’t shake up the core mechanics of the game, that being a looter-shooter with some degree of resource management that you will grind to enhance, tweak, and suit to your own play-style.

What I can say is performance-wise the game runs really well and I haven’t had any hiccups on console. Thats a huge positive for me especially in an era of games where so many especially AAA launch buggy ruining a lot of first impressions.

One thing that does bother me is the tutorial section, the game focuses very heavily on movement and while in some ways the movement is easy to learn, it’s very hard to master given the player’s advance movement abilities are class specific.

Boomerangs and Sharks in my opinion are the clunky while Harley’s and Deadshots are more straight to the point with their approach. Because of this I’ve opted to main Harley since her gimmicks will be the most familiar since you’re using Wayne Tech items from the Arkham Trilogy such as the grapple hook.

One praise I can give Rocksteady with their approach to Live Service is FOMO doesn’t exist, they’re taking the Halo approach to things and all Seasonal Content especially Battle Passes both past and present especially future can still be accessed down the line without issue.

An issue I see since I have yet to roll credits is that as of typing this is player attention. Yes updates will solve this issue down the road especially with the implementation of episodes, but right now grinding out the specific stuff we have now for that optimal player build doesn’t entice me.

The game while fun in most areas gets watered down because of repetition, because of this story beats are the saving grace of this game. The writing is strong, that was never the concern when it came to Rocksteady, but keep that in mind when playing this game.

There’s a lot of good with Suicide Squad, but with that there’s plenty to complain about. The game isn’t perfect, but their approach to how they want to do this live service is probably one of the best in the industry where studios and parent companies will attempt to nickel and dime their player base after the $70 entry fee.

[lukefsje]

So I’ve been replaying Rocksteady’s Arkham Trilogy in anticipation of playing Suicide Squad (If I can even play it when it releases). I didn’t replay Origins cause I just played it in December. This is probably the fastest I’ve ever played the trilogy: 5 days for Knight, 2 days for Asylum, 3 days for City. This time I did something I always recommend new players avoid: saving all the Riddler stuff until last and collect them all at once.

This was the first time I played Return to Asylum and City on my PS5. On my PS4 I never had a playthrough of Asylum where it didn’t randomly crash at least twice and a playthrough of City where it didn’t randomly crash at least three times. On PS5 I only had one crash on City and no crashes on Asylum! Also, I’ve seen several people wishing that they had made Return to Arkham City 60 fps, but I’m happy to have finally had a playthrough at a fairly stable 30! On PS4 it ran like dogshit, especially when going around the overworld quickly.

I no longer consider the Return to Arkham games terrible remasters, they’re promoted to meh remasters.

[Silvereyes]

@Rimland

That´s an understatement By the time you reach Y5 and Y0, you´ll probably wish it had much less of it. I played through five games from the series last year (YK2, Y3, Y4, Y5, Y6) and am still doing the (major) side stuff from all of them (the quality can vary quite a lot)

That’s certainly dedication!

@Rimland

I thoroughly enjoyed Kiwami 2 for the story when I played it last year (although the pace kinda drags mid-way through), but the more I got into the side stuff, the more I started to have a gripe with it. I haven´t played the OG Yakuza 2, but from what I´ve gathered, that game had quite a lot of side content unique to itself, and rather than trying to bring it over to K2, they basically just copied (with certain adjustments) the major minigames from Y0 (cabaret) and Y6 (clan creator). Kind of devaluates the point of the remake for me. The worst offender in this regard is the Bouncer substory which turns out to be a side story of sorts and nothing but grindy filler content imo. Then there´s of course the infamous absence of the whole Shinseicho district and the fact that Kiwami 2´s Kamurocho layout is very obviously copied from Y6 and thus kinda messes up the whole continuum feeling when you get to the next three games, but that might be just an issue for people like me.

I’m about to do the finale of the story. I’ve enjoyed the story, it’s nice to see how it ties back to the plot of the first game and the ramifications it had, as well fleshing out characters and lore. It feels like this is the game that it feels like Yakuza is sowing the seeds of becoming a proper saga. Shame about the content lost from the original Yakuza 2 though, doesn’t really make it a definitive remake but more like a reimagining.

@Rimland

It´s a bit of a double-edged sword, since both Kiwami games feature lots of references to Y0, so you´ll only keep up with those if you´ve played it (for K1 it´s mostly things featured in the Majima Everywhere stuff, and for K2 it´s the cabaret club side-story and Majima Saga mini-campaign, see below). Also, Kiwami 1´s combat comes directly from Y0´s (but is slicker), so the transition there feels really smooth and natural if you start with 0. Lastly, the whole thing with Nishiki in K1 feels more impactful when played after Y0, since you actually spend a lot of time with him in that game (that goes for some other characters as well). On the other hand, playing Y0 between 5 and 6 will mean that you´ll be able to pick up on all the references it has to the previous games (mostly in substories) and also some plot points which were obviously meant to be callbacks to Y1 (when I played K1 after Y0, it almost felt repetitive here and there). Not to mention the general increase in storytelling quality.

On this note however, I do strongly suggest that you do not play the Majima Saga side-campaign until after you´ve played Yakuza 0. The whole thing largely serves as fan service for Y0 fans and follows up on Majima´s story ending from there, and without having played that first, I doubt it will have the intended emotional impact on you.

I’ll keep that in mind. With me nearly finishing YK2 and moving onto 3 (although with Persona 3 Reload coming on Friday, I may put 3 on the backburner, we’ll see), I am probably going to do 0 between 5 and 6, seems to make the most sense at this point anyway. But I’ll definetly remember to come back to the Majima Saga thing when I’m done with 0.

@Rimland

I can totally understand that. I´m trying to catch up on the story asap and at the same time - like I said - am still doing side stuff from 5 games. You definitely don´t need to do everything and certainly not immediately before moving on to the next game, but I do recommend trying to do all the substories at some point, since they often provide you with interesting/useful rewards (or unlock additional content), and more importantly, they can sometimes expand on a lot of the characters and lore (I feel like Y3 and Y4 did this really well). Plus they tend to feature recurring characters.

In case you haven´t come across them yet, if you ever get stuck on something, there is a series of great and detailed guides on all of the games on GameFAQs made by CyricZ. Especially useful if you´re missing some substories or want to know some strategies on getting through side content quicker.

I am definetly trying to do as many sub stories as possible. I think I’ve hit about 61/76 of the sub stories in YK2, but I think I’m going to finish the game and move on. Aside from the 2 tied to the baseball and golf minigames which I utterly suck at, there’s like 8 tied to the cabaret stuff. I ended up clearing the first grand prix league, and I think by that point I knew I had enough. It’s not bad per se, but it took me something like 7 rounds of cabaret to beat it and I’m assuming it will only take more per league, I’m just not interested enough to keep putting time into it. I mean I will say I do like how both the cabaret and the clan creator have their own unique story content. I was actually amused and surprised when after clearing the clan creator’s tutorial mission, you get a 5 minute long cutscene establishing the villians of that side storyline, the Three Musketeers. (Yakuza loves its old wrinkly guys, doesn’t it?) I can see the appeal of both side stuff but I don’t find either of them fun enough to put the time into them. Although the fact that the Y0 cabaret is more grindy just puts me off that game’s cabaret even more from the start.

I actually did look up that GameFAQs guide by that user so I could do as many sub stories as I could, and that was really helpful, so I will definetly keep that in mind.

@Rimland

Was worried a bit about that myself, but it turned out ok. If you´re at least somewhat used to games from the mid to late 2000s, then you should be ok. Visually it still holds up nicely (even if it is a downgrade from both Kiwami games), but the main issue will probably be having to get used to lack of user-friendliness again, e.g. limited inventory space, no autosave or ability to save anywhere, loading screens when entering/exiting buldings, etc.

I can live with the loading screens, Kawami 1 had them. The limited inventory though, hoping that won’t be too much of an issue.

@Rimland

To me it´s the opposite. I´m not used to turn-based RPGs at all and am afraid that it will make what will already be very long games feel even longer by dragging out the fights I am thoroughly looking forward to playing the Judgment games and Ishin remake though.

I’m sorry to hear that. Well, when I reach 7 (in however long it takes haha), I’ll be sure to give my thoughts on it. Hopefully it won’t be too grindy at least, although obviously the genre does mean that fights are slower and more methodical. But it is definetly my sortof genre, so will probably do a lot for me more than the older games are gameplay wise.

@Rimland

One last thing (jeez, this turned out to be a long post, sorry). Since you are playing these on PC (right?), I highly recommend checking the individual games´ PCGamingWiki entries for potential fixes, since the ports have their isssues.

I’ll keep them in mind, cheers.

[lukefsje]

My game? Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Yes I am one of the clowns who preordered the Deluxe Edition. This was the first time in ages I stayed up late playing a videogame, I didn’t get to bed till like 3:30

The game is good. Not earth-shatteringly great, but nowhere near the level of dumpster fire some people online have been saying it would be. And who knows, maybe the post-launch will be able to push it into the great tier. The gunplay is solid, the story is engaging, I like the banter between the squad, character models and facial animations are outstanding, each character feels unique, and I loved how seamless it is to swap between characters when not in missions. As a solo player, I was worried that the AI wouldn’t be good, but it was actually outclassing me in some spots. I don’t know if that says more about the AI or my shooting skills. What’s cool is the AI characters will still have the gear and upgrades you selected when playing as them. The missions and combat hasn’t gotten stale to me yet, at least.

I’ve seen people complaining that the story is super short. Well a) none of the Arkham games really had super long stories if you ignore side missions, and b) there’s the whole Endgame that players are meant to spend time in (though I’m not sure how good or bad it is). I played for about 12 hours today doing both main and side missions and it was near the end of my session when I finally killed the first Justice League member: The Flash! Unlike IGN, I didn’t think he moved too fast, though it was a pretty hectic fight. The AI squad also did good work at damaging the boss which really surprised me. Also, at some points there were two Flashes on screen. I’m not sure if that’s a glitch or if they were just trying to make it look like he’s so fast it’s like he’s in two places at once. I will probably post more spoiler-heavy story details when I actually beat the main game.

I know some people in New Zealand (and people claiming to be in New Zealand) couldn’t get access to the game for like 12 hours since they had to take the servers down to fix a bug where people started the game with story progression totally completed. As an apology, they’ve given people 2000 Luthor Coins ($20 worth). I didn’t have any issues playing it today but I still got the apology Luthor Coins!

On the subject of Luthor Coins, I feel I should address the in-game shop. I’m glad all the major post-launch content will be free, but man they are charging a fortune for stuff in the shop! For example, since I preordered the game I got access to classic costumes: a head style, a body style, and a color swatch for each of the four characters. There are additional styles and color swatches of the classic costumes for sale in the shop, but just for the basic stuff I got for free it costs $40 worth of Luther Coins (1000 per character).

I’m afraid to see how much they’ll be wanting for the Battle Passes. The Deluxe Edition comes with 1 Premium Battle Pass, but I don’t plan on getting any more unless the Luthor Coins gained from the first one + the 2000 I have is enough to get another. My prediction is that the high prices they’re asking for cosmetics will lead to not that many people buying them, WB saying it’s not worth it to invest more in the game, and there’s just the one year of post-launch and that’s it. Hopefully they actually add their promised offline mode before support ends (and it’s more substantial than Hitman 3’s)

By the way, if you have any interest in getting this game, either now or months down the road, they are doing Twitch drops for the first four weeks of launch and you don’t need to own the game to get them! 90 minutes each week gets you a weapon trinket, weapon doll, and nice looking Cyber Crime skin for each of the 4 members. Based on the shop prices, that’s like a $5-$10 value given away for free each week!

[Swangtheugly]

I also want to add that rocksteady completely didn’t have to give free premium currency especially $20 worth so I think this is a good sign with how they’re approach to this game unlike most companies that are like sorry (looking at you Bethesda with their $5 worth of atoms apology that couldn’t barely get you anything) with this you can atleast get a battle pass.

[Accidental_Kills98]

@lukefsje

On the subject of Luthor Coins

I still have some Luthor Coin in my wallet, that bald fuck said he would take the valuation to the moon if I just HODL another week.

But now I am all in on WayneBit and I think I am gonna earn my diamond tendies with this one boys.

Kill me.

[TheChicken]

Real Bros know its all about JokerScrip

I’m gonna cackle my way to the top of the NFT charts with this one!

[TheChicken]

Been trying out some Dead By Daylight today now that Alan Wake is out.

I’ve only been a casual player in the past, 80% of my time usually being survivor because Killer never interested me.

However, I tried out Hillbilly today and I quite enjoyed it, even if I wasn’t that great at catching survivors. His charge-up sprint tackle is cool. Gotta see what other killers I have might be like.

Alan Wake himself has a good Flashlight perk if you have that item on-hand, and two decent to risky perks for himself too.
What’s most impressive is the voice-acting they got Matthew Porretta to do. He starts out a match with a fun voice-line, and whenever he’s injured or hooked, he lets out some great screams and moans, even a shuddery cry of sadness. Even a few lines while being carried by the killer, such as a frantic “–'mGonnaKillYou!” which surprised me. Way better than the generic moans and groans of regular survivors.

I still wish I could turn down the screaming sound effects in the game, rather than the whole game at once. Because damn, they’re good screams, but damn they are loud.

[Freezer]

Been playing an old Japan exclusive Digimon World game that has an English fan patch. Originally for PSP and with an enhanced 3DS port.

I love this game so much, it’s so satisfying as a fan of the first World game which was admittedly too hard and cyptic, without being too easy like the most modern game. It’s personally my favourite Digimon game.

[pissfloyd]

Just finished the new freebie silent hill walking sim. It was really good for what it was. Highly recommend it.

[Swangtheugly]

Been unsurprisingly playing Suicide Squad, still enjoying it and preparing myself for the End Game despite not rolling credits yet.

I got my Harley maxed and have created a clan.

So if anyone/everyone wanna join the Super Dweebs let me know your username and I’ll send you an invite because it won’t hurt if we all collectively work towards the clan rewards

[Bardachenko]

Now Robocop: Rogue City! Then I’ll start Slaps and Beans 2

[Silvereyes]

I was hoping to play Persona 3 Reload since it releases today. I pre-ordered the collector’s edition on Amazon back in September. Get an e-mail from Amazon saying “We’re encountering a delay in shipping your order. We’ll make every effort to get the delayed item to you as soon as possible. We apologise for the inconvenience.” No explanation of what has happened or any sortof delivery estimate. So yeah, kindof annoyed. If it was just the standard version I’d just cancel it and go buy it at the nearby toy store but I bought the collector’s version which has sold out everywhere, so will just have to wait and hope it doesn’t take them long to resolve the issue.

In the meantime, guess this is a good time to jump into Yakuza 3. I’ve been playing Dying Light with @TheChicken as well and that is a lot of fun, great co-op game.

[Tetrafish_21]

Found the site tetr(dot)io.

[lukefsje]

Well Suicide Kill the Justice League is done! Actually, it’s nowhere near being “done” but I’ve completed the main story. Apologies if this post is super long, I have a lot to say. I’ll try to mark spoilers as best as I can.

Do I recommend the game? Yes, especially if you’re a fan of looter shooters, love the Suicide Squad, enjoy playing games with a group of friends, or just like DC stuff. Difficulty-wise it was pretty solid. I played on Normal, and although I did fail a few missions I was able to do everything by the second try. Impressive considering I don’t have much shooter experience. I don’t agree with the notion that the campaign’s too short, I thought there was a decent amount of both main and side missions to do, and plenty more have just opened up now that I’m in the endgame. Plus there’s gonna be a shitload of stuff added down the road in the post-launch.

My favorite aspect of the game as a solo player is the squad dynamic. Deadshot’s Level 17, King Shark’s Level 15, Captain Boomerang is Level 15, and Harley Quinn’s Level 12. It’s really fun switching between characters and changing things up each mission. Gameplay-wise Harley’s my least favorite. I just don’t like her traversal that much, she uses the Batclaw to climb buildings but I wish she was able to get the Grapnel Boost to send her flying at high speeds.

The overworld of Metropolis is pretty great! It’s fun to traverse, and you can move around the city pretty fast. I love how right off the bat the game makes it clear how FUBAR the situation is, and as the story progresses Metropolis becomes more and more of a mess filled with destruction caused by Brainiac. I can’t wait to see how even more messed up the city gets in the post-launch as all the Elseworlds begin merging into the main universe! Also, I love how smooth the performance of the game was, there were basically no frame drops even with a ton of enemies on screen at once.

I loved Brainiac in this game! He’s voiced by General Reza Zaydan himself, Jason Isaacs and I thought his performance was great. His character design is also really solid, and it seems like we’ll see a lot more of him in the post-launch. All the character designs, animations, and voice work were pretty great in the game!

One thing that really disappointed me was the Riddler collectibles, and this comes from a huge fan of the Riddler stuff in the other games. The navigational challenges are pretty fun and test your mastery of each character’s abilities, plus they unlock a good amount of free cosmetics for the squad. The Riddler trophies, however, were a huge step down. All 40 of them are out in the open with no real puzzle attached (unless you count needing to shoot some of them down a puzzle). It’s a shame cause they could have made interesting puzzles where you need to work together with multiple squad members to figure them out. Also, scanning the riddles doesn’t unlock any lore stories like in City and Knight, just concept art and character bios/models for people, enemies and vehicles. As far as I know, there isn’t any way to have all the trophies and riddles marked on the map like the other games. If you have line-of-sight to a trophy, even from a long distance away, it will get marked on the map for you. However, several of the trophies are hidden in areas you aren’t likely to visit, and with how big the city is it’s tough to actually find them all by yourself (but I managed to!).

Outside of the Mr. Freeze fight in City, the bosses in the Rocksteady Arkham games all range from okay to bad. I had hoped that since there’s a bigger emphasis on bosses in this game (I mean, you’re fighting members of the Justice League!) they would be higher quality, but sadly they were still pretty meh. Green Lantern was my favorite and actually pretty fun, Flash was okay, but the other three bosses were a real let-down. Batman was very repetitive, Superman was very simple for a fight against the Man of Steel (and the easiest fight in the game to me), and Brainiac was a reused version of the Flash’s boss fight. I know: the other Arkham games had reused bosses that slightly change things up for the second time, but you would think they could have come up with something better for Brainiac.

Now for the elephant in the room: Batman’s role in the game. One criticism I’ve seen is that it’s disrespectful to Kevin Conroy. That’s wrong, they had no idea it would be Kevin’s final role, if Kevin didn’t want to do the game he wouldn’t have, and they put a nice tribute to him in the game. What I think the game is, however, is disrespectful to Arkhamverse Batman. I get it, the Suicide Squad wouldn’t have any reverence for Batman, but the way he was easily taken out was very poorly done imo. The same Batman who overcame Scarecrow’s Fear Toxin and used it against him multiple times couldn’t foresee the possibility that his own version of Fear Toxin could be overcome and used against him? The Fear Toxin section was okay, but I thought the segment at the end of Arkham Knight was a lot better. The Batman who was so strong he could take on an entire small army, lock up most of the major supervillains, and overcome Joker taking over his mind in a single night decided to just stand in one place and let the Squad constantly shoot at him with barely any proper attacks to them?

Outside of Batman, I did enjoy the story quite a bit and it was nice seeing the squad grow as a unit and hearing all their banter on the way to missions. The big question is “Do you actually kill the Justice League?” The answer: Yes, at least seemingly so for now. It surprised me that they didn’t resurrect them by the ending. I still doubt they will remain dead forever since if they want to continue the Arkhamverse not having the Justice League around really limits the stories they could do. There were some hints that they aren’t really dead. Flash had his finger cut off but then it was intact when he showed up evil. Was it just Brainiac regrowing it? Maybe. Green Lantern’s ring didn’t fly away like it should have when he died. Brainiac also retrieved their bodies for some reason. Was it just so he could still use their powers to infuse his enemies? Or was it so people wouldn’t realize that they’re just clones of the real Justice League who are still trapped on the Skull ship?

Here’s my thoughts on what’s to come in the post-launch (spoilers for the ending): So at the end of the game, it’s revealed that there are 13 Brainiacs in existence across universes. We kill one in the story, leaving 12. That implies to me that each Season of post-launch content we go after one (with hopefully different boss fights for each), and they’re hoping for three years’ worth of post-launch content. Will they get those three years? I honestly don’t know, but I hope so! With how good the cutscenes are, I hope there’s like a whole chapter’s worth of story added each season so we have enough time to really get a feel for the new characters. They’ve said you can use the post-launch characters in the main story too, but I wonder if they’ll have any dialogue based around story events or if they’ll just be mostly silent the whole time. The characters I’d like to see added the most are Deathstroke (from the Arkhamverse), Black Manta (can be either Elseworlds or Arkhamverse), and Riddler (an Elseworlds version but still voiced by Wally Wingert).

I’m curious to see how different the post-launch boss fights will be. They announced Green Lantern and Superman fights for Season 1, I assume they’ll be largely the same as the main game fights, maybe with a few modifiers. I wonder if they’re clones or Elseworlds versions of the heroes. If they’re Elseworlds versions, I’d hope that every few seasons they have us face a totally new superhero since surely alternate Justice Leagues would have had different members. There’s a ton of potential for superheroes to face: Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Cyborg, Green Arrow, Zatanna, Supergirl, a version of Wonder Woman who actually got corrupted, Hal Jordan’s Green Lantern, Thomas Wayne’s Batman.

I wonder what they will do regarding Batman given Kevin’s death. I doubt he was able to do any voice work for post-launch stuff, unless they really recorded things in advance. If they’re wanting to do more with Arkhamverse Batman, I’m honestly fine with them just recasting his voice. Same if we face an Elseworlds version of Batman. However, the Batman fight in the main game doesn’t really feel like it would work repeated over and over again like the other fights.

Finally, I hope they can improve the Riddler stuff in the post-launch! I’m sure I’ll share my thoughts on the endgame when I have a chance to as well.