Well, side missions are totally better than in Arkham City. While I really love some of them, I hate others, and specially yet, I've got found feelings about others.

Deacon Blackfire's mission is quite fun! But my issue with it is its lack of background and preparation. It's just a one-mission story, with a bit of background if you ever get to go inside Jack Ryder's office at GCPD and listen to the tapes (which I did for the first time ever during this playthrough). Ryder's an interesting character by himself since he's such a punchable guy; and I would've loved some more obligatory preparation so the climax feels like a climax.

Firefly's mission is fun, just that... Which I kinda hate, I wanted more story there, but the mission has always been fine for me forever, and this time it wasn't the case, so not that bad.

Penguin's mission is also fun, and I love the dynamic that the... well, the DYNAMIC duo has in it. One of my favs, actually. I'm proud of you, Dick.

Riddler's mission is SUCH an improvement in terms of collectibles coming from Arkham City's. I loved to see so much less of the locations screaming RIDDLER every time I looked around. Although, his challenges were cooler back in AC, it's still a fun mission to go through though; and I loved the stories more this time.

The Militia's bombs are actually pretty fun once you fully upgrade the Batmobile. My hot take, really! Although, yeah, this mission is trash if you haven't got those upgrades. Deathstroke's boss fight is really disappointing tho.

The watchtowers were my favorites during my first playthrough, they are just so... Addictive! I LOVE the satisfying feeling of just seeing the city getting less red all over and that dominating feeling it gives you. Fun as hell.

Professor Pyg's mission is a masterpiece to me, specially remembering the first time through. Seeing those bodies, the opera music, and the final battle... GOSH I love it!!! Pyg became one of my favorite villains ever since.

Hush's mission is TRASH. Nothing more to say there, aside from telling the writers this: What the fuck?

Azrael's mission is fun, yeah, but just that again, quite a constant issue in this game really. But I do like it tho.

The car chases are really fun and I loved them! More points since you get to play them with other batmobiles.

The Fire Fighters are really fun too and kinda feel like the direct improvement of the political prisoners in AC. Still, I hate how difficult it is sometimes to find them.

Two-face's mission could've been way greater. I could complain about how much he feels like a cartoon in this game, but he has been one since AC. It's worse here tho. Also, fun gameplay.

Man-Bat!!!!! Holy shit is he so much fun! My only issue with this mission is that you can beat it in a really short time.

The Militia Checkpoints feel just the same for me as the watchtowers, lovely!

And that's it! Hope you liked this small review. :)

All right. I've finished the main story and most side missions with only Riddler's, Ra's Al Ghul's, Mr. Freeze's, and Killer Croc's. Now I DO HAVE a lot of thoughts on this story.

First of all, let's go with the main villains and their relationship with Batman:

Scarecrow

The main villain of the game, the one Arkham City had been foreshadowing in the backstage. I fucking LOVE his design in this game and it's my favorite iteration of the character, period. But... I feel a bit unsatisfied about him. He once again wants to flood Gotham with fear toxin like in a lot of his stories. Of course, he also wants to make Batman suffer... Whatever that means since it feels so superficial in general.

I recently saw a video essay by Pastra (I really recommend his channel), where he explains that the majority of Scarecrow stories use him more as a channel for Batman's inner conflict rather than a main villain. And I think Arkham Knight tries to break that curse and exploit Scarecrow's potential in a more effective way, but that fails. Joker is back thanks to Scarecrow, making him once again a plot point rather than a character.

A lot of stuff that happens because of him makes Scarecrow feel like a background character, and I'm not a fan of it. The Militia, the fear toxin Joker, Gordon and Oracle take so much of your attention! And they make you think about those plot points more than the fucking MAIN VILLAIN. Lost potential definitely.

The Arkham Knight

The worst of the three main villains imo. To be honest, I do love the idea of Jason Todd being a villain with another name and look before becoming Red Hood, it's cooler! But... This was poorly executed.

I remember when I first played this game, it was before playing Asylum and City. I remember thinking the Arkham Knight was a genius character! And I was excited to play the first games to see all the foreshadowing with Jason Todd (as they did with Scarecrow and Arkham City), but... There's nothing! Not even Red Hood's bio on Asylum and god does that game have bios of characters who appeared as new menaces in the next game (Hush, Hugo Strange). Where did the idea come from??? It's just bad storytelling. Dini's absence feels a lot in here. It feels like the writers just wanted something that looked cool, but what the fuck is this???

In my opinion, there were a lot of characters with better potential than Jason Todd to be the Arkham Knight:
-Bane
-Azrael
-Any character from the Al Ghul family or the League of Shadows
-Damian Wayne (kind of)
-Fucking Killer Moth (that would've been so funny)

Honestly, I do love the idea of a story coming back to Origins about Bane coming back to Santa Prisca, getting clean of the Venom and Titan, and remembering what happened in Origins, creating the militia (even Oracle mentions the Militia came from Venezuela), and coming back to Gotham with Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight title.

Worst villain of the game. And it had so much potential even if his name sounded like Rocksteady getting out of ideas about a new place to call Arkham something.

The Joker

Sadly, he comes back yet again, and worst of it all, he's the best of the three main villains!!! He didn't have the right (also, god bless Mark Hamill).

His arc is amazing and I didn't remember it to be so fucking great. He doesn't feel like a hallucination of the fear toxin, he feels like the actual Joker showing up inside Batman's head! Announcing his comeback, and that he'll take over the mantle to become a really dark Dark Knight.

He fills Batman with dread of becoming the Joker. Pushing him into selflishness, hiding it under the idea of not wanting to lose his allies anymore. It's a horrible idea, to be taken over by your greatest enemy, to become the antithesis of who you are, it's a fear we've all have, and the Joker here embodies that.

The end is actually pretty great, actually. With the Joker actually taking over Batman's body, and comfronting his greatest fears once Scarecrow (being a means to an end yet again) fills him with fear toxin: his fear of being forgotten, of the vengeance, the night, the Batman. It's actually genius.

But you know what? It's still lost potential, because the other pilars of the story are so flawed. Scarecrow is left behind and the Arkham Knight... Well, he's the Arkham Knight... The story loses impact because of that, and just feels like an attempt of doing something great.

I still have more to say, but I'll do it in another time, talking about the side missions once I'm finished with them. All I can say about them is this: they are implemented better in this game and the Riddler trophies aren't excessive like in Arkham City; but god does the storytelling feels so much worse in them. Hush's, Azrael's, and Two-Face's missions are more examples of bad use of foreshadowing and lost potential.

P.S.: Too Much Batmobile OMG

After finishing Arkham City, it was time for me to finish the trilogy (I don't have Arkham Origins), and... I have some new thoughts on this one.

First of all, I gotta say that this game came to me in a vulnerable part of my life, helped me to pass through all the pain, so I do love this game in a very special way. All that said, I'll begin.

A lot has happened during the last three years after playing this game. I came out as a transgender woman, I abandoned my career to pursue one that I liked the most, I became less interested in becoming a game developer and started on a journey on becoming a writer myself, so my view on life is really different than last time.

Of course, I just want to take this out of my system first: As I replayed Asylum and City with these new knowledges on storytelling, narratives and character development; I couldn't get out of my mind the fact that Arkham Knight is so different from its predecessors: the Titan formula is almost completely forgotten, as well as some of the key characters like Bane are too. Batman stops feeling like Dini's and starts feeling like an amalgamation of Nolan's and Reeves's.

Batman is kind of a Terminator here; he's emotionless, apathic, and distant; and I know that's one of the main criticisms this game has from the community, but I think there's a reason about it: Kevin Conroy said in one interview that this game's Batman is in search of a new identity. The Joker has been a part of him for a long time as it also is viceversa; and his death brings all of that to question: Who will Batman become now?

The Joker comes back thanks to the fear toxin to fulfill a new role: Bring an answer to that question, symbolizing the darkness inside the light. And tries to lure Batman into stepping away from his allies to turn him into full darkness. It's kinda genious, if you ask me, but I still wouldn't give you a conclusion to that just yet, I'm still starting the game, so wait me out on this one.

Also, just to close this long review, WTF happened to Poison Ivy??? She feels so different from her last appearances in the saga, like she's a whole different person. She seems also so apathic in comparison to that passionate plant woman from before. A lot of characters suffer from this, but I feel that Ivy's case is criminal.

P.S.: Scarecrow best glow up in the series.

Finished NG + and gotta say: replaying the main story in this mode was really fun! Specially since I got all the gadgets from the go, some parts were quicker and felt like a breeze. Also, HOLY SHIT THE MR. FREEZE FIGHT!!! It gets so much better on this mode, I'd recommend playing it only for that.

Remember my last reviews where I said the side missions, although well written, kinda sucked? Well, they suck the worst in this mode (except for Riddler's which is also a breeze); they kinda appear after the main story and stop to work as they were intended to work in the main mode.

Now, about Harley Quinn's Revenge, I've got no complaints. The story is great, the setting is great, as well as the characters and the level design. I loved playing as Robin a lot! I remember I didn't like this DLC that much the first time I played it about three years ago, but this time was great! I loved it.

Just normal stuff, going around completing riddles.

In my last review, I was talking about how badly designed are most of the side missions on this game, but Riddler's is just the worst.

A lot of people are around on TikTok with that trend of "POV: You finally found all the riddles and are going to kick Riddler's ass after years", and I'm like, "You think darkness is your ally. But you merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it." (Even though Knight was my first Arkham game lol).

But I mean, it's true. It's so ridiculous how Rocksteady could fit 440 riddles all around Arkham City; it's excessive. It's also ridiculous that there's a lot of moments where you finish a riddle, then look into the map for the next one, lock the destination, and realizing it's right at your side! And it happens a lot of times.

Interrogating Riddler's henchmen is never enough, you'll always need more and more.

But there's a good part of this, and I also discussed it in my last review: LORE. Solving riddles give you stories full of lore on Arkham City; about how and why did some inmates got there, wether Hugo Strange persuaded them, or trying to escape, or simply just a transfer from Blackgate or Arkham Asylum. Some of the stories tell you how some villains died and how and why, or why some of them hate each other, and the list goes on and on.

Solving whole sections give you audio tapes on the main characters, and they are so interesting! It's such a shame you have to do excessive (and boring) work to get it.

Still, it's a great game aside of that, and still, I'm completing it once again, and still, I'm loving it!

(A bit of Arkham Knight's side missions spoilers too)
I'm... Surprised, of myself...
I've beat the secondary missions now, I've only got to do the Riddler's one to finish this game before the NG+. And I played like, two hours.

Something I'm thinking after this is that, if this game feels aged, it's because of the secondary missions. Badly designed is an understatement. Of course, I love how much they deepen Arkham City's lore, talking about not only the villains, but the undercover cops and the political prisoners. It's amazing to see how these villains go rampant in this PRISON as if they were kids at Kidzania; with turf wars, dominating districts, etc. As Batman is around.

I love to see Deadshot fulfilling his role as Strange's hitman, or Zsasz killing other criminals via telephone, or Hush's murders, and so on with the rest of them.

But, I mean, these missions are way too random to be continued in an organic way, or they simply don't work in a satisfying way if you don't attend them in the moment they appear; like Zsasz's for example; or Azrael's (specifically this one, since you either have to know where he is, or be looking around exhaustively with detective mode around the city, or simply encounter him by pure luck; Hush's mission is kind of the same thing), and don't get me started on the excessive amount of riddles there are on the city, they are way too much.

For what I can remember, that is mostly fixed on Arkham Knight, where the clues are more easily seen but not given to you on a silver tray; like Azrael's burning bat symbol, or Pyg's ominuous opera music.

Being this about my fourth time playing Arkham City, I get an idea of where to find the next clues for the side missions, but it still is a bit hard. I spent about half an hour running around alleys to find Hush's victims with no use (in that case, and Azrael's, I recommend getting on high spots and looking around with detective mode, looking for bodies laying around or a guy just standing there respectively if you don't want to use any guides).

Once again, the stories on these missions are way too good to be spoiled by these bad design choices, but I still find it a bit frustrating to play for moments (RIDDLER). But that's mostly my main complaint about this game otherwise it is PERFECT.

So to continue the series of replays, I'm now on Arkham City! God how I love this game! It's kind of a comforting one to me.

The atmoshphere here is great! Not as good as Asylum's imo, but still great. Aside of that, it is better than its predescesor in every way and it's so nice to play, it feels like butter compared to Asylum.

For now, I've just reached the part where you get Ras al' Ghul's blood sample for Mr. Freeze. I'm minutes away from the best boss fight in the saga!

I decided to replay the Arkham triogy once again! (I don't have Origins and have never played it) Starting with Arkham Asylum, damn, this game is a blast! I always get really surprised every time I replay this one to see just how short this game is even with the Riddler's side mission, but that isn't a bad thing imo.

Obviously, this game has some flaws here and there, but they aren't really bad when you see the big picture; it's not as good as City or Knight, but it's a bit below them. Although, the missing parts gameplay-wise are easily seen once you've played the other games.

My favorite part is definitely Killer Croc's lair; actually, I love Killer Croc as a villain in general, and he really shines in this game since the beginning.

I love the art style and how unique it is compared to the rest of the trilogy (well, they kinda are unique in every game, but the cartoonish style of Asylum is just amazing.)

I could talk for HOURS about how much I love this game and wouldn't even finish, and the best part? It's the one I don't like as much as the other two, so imagine when I get to replay them!

Great story, art style, music, characters, and on, and on, and on.

MASTERPIECE

Finished it for a second time now!

Yeah, the endgame isn't really good imo, but everything before that is really great; I didn't enjoy any of the final battles, not even Sephiroth's.

Still, the fight against Rufus Shinra, and Jenova, and that one on the highway, are really good and loved playing every second of it. Now, it's time to replay and finish Intermission so I can get to Rebirth's demo.

Almost at the endgame now! It has always been really surprising to me that this game as a whole is a 7-hour-long segment of the original classic.

Yeah, really excessive fillers are here, and they are a lot of them! But you don't really see it during the first playthrough, it is really rough when you replay it? Of course, but man, the parts that are really focused on telling a story or the fillers that try to do some more character development (like the Drum with Hojo, during this playthrough) are really great!

Although, I do remember that the final fight during my first playthrough wasn't really a good one, so I'm actually dreading it, just gonna be there for the story...