While I feel like it still has a lot of potential, particularly the merge of 3D platformer and soulslike could have been explored a bit more (the last level was particularly great and the rest of the game doenst quite reach that), this game is great. The writing and commentary is as witty and hilarious as in Going Under, and it tackles its themes with surprising nuance and maturity for a silly crab game.

The gameplay is really fun, while it doesnt reach the heights of other recent soulslikes like Lies of P, it holds its own and has its own unique spin that works well. Just really lovable game and lovable studio, I cant wait to see what they do next.

I have to mention though, Chitan was a complete dogshit boss and they need to nerf him or something cause genuinely some of the least fun ive had fighting a boss in years. Other than that its great

Complex thoughts on this one, while gameplay wise it improves on asylum in every single way, the atmosphere and creativity that made asylum so cool is severely downgraded here. This might be because they wanted a new art direction more inspired by the Nolan movies, and I dont like those movies so makes sense im not as into it.

To add to this, I didnt do any of the side content, imagine its high quality and pushes the game further than the main story, but I just wasnt invested enough to try them. I think the core problem is that I just dont really care about batman, this game bleeds love for batman, and assumes the player has it to, if you dont, I think a lot of the game doesnt hit like it wants to.

Lastly, maybe its in the side-content, but there are not a lot of memorable moments in the game, wonder city and the bossfight with Ras were amazing, and I wish it had more stuff like that. The ending and a lot of other missions felt underwhelming. For as underbaked a lot of asylums gameplay was, memorable moments were NOT missing.

All this being said, a 7/10 is the lowest score I can give, the game is really good, just doesnt do much for me personally. Im sure if I played the side-content (and gave any level of fucks about batman) it wouldhve been an 8 or 9

Towards the end of the game, I was ready to call it "style over substance". Finding the gameplay too underbaked and simple o carry a 40 hour game. But the last few hours change that notion completely. Did the gameplay ever intend to be challenging and deep? Exciting to play and replay similar to MGSV? I dont think so. It was simply there to push the theme of the rest of the story, and that it does in a very creative and unique way. It isnt until the last moments that everything clicks, but once it does I cant really judge the game for this anymore.

Once ive realized the gameplay was not meant to be what I thought it should be, all the parts I already loved became more prominent, and everything came together (you could say, connected) so beautifully. The world, characters, way the story is told, the damn music, are amazing, and witnessing them all come together is incredible.

I felt like it was a "proof of concept" that would truly reach its potential in the sequel, but it isnt. This is complete, achieves everything it wants to and does so beautifully.