Batman: Arkham Series Reviews


Batman: Arkham Origins is a game that’s always had a harsh reception compared to the other games in the Arkham series, and to be honest, that might have been for the best. It’s the only mainline game that Rocksteady didn’t have a hand in making. Instead, it was a mandated title that was developed by Warner Bros. Montreal as something to fill in the gap between Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Knight, which was being worked on for the upcoming console generation at the time. It only had about 18 months of development time and it partially reused an edited portion of Arkham City’s overworld, which I remember was a heavily criticized aspect of the game at the time of its release. Despite all of this, upon replaying Arkham Origins for the first time in a decade, I found it to be very good. It is a very iterative sequel that barely does anything new mechanically, but it still offers a lot to enjoy, way more than you’d expect from a game made under those types of conditions.

Origins doesn’t really deviate from the conventions that were established in Asylum and City. Its only truly unique gameplay feature is the new crime scene analysis segments, where Batman will use Detective Vision to observe the aftermath of a murder and piece together exactly how it happened and who the culprit is. There’s not really any input from the player as far as figuring out how things happened, you just rewind or fast forward through a recorded scene until you find a stray piece of evidence that ties the perpetrator to the crime. It’s not much, but I do like the attempt at actually making detective work a mechanic as opposed to just calling Oracle like Batman usually did in the previous games.

Other than that, Origins introduces a couple of new gadgets which mostly just do the same things the gadgets in the Rocksteady games do (one of them is a literal reskin of City’s Freeze Grenades). You do explore a lot of completely new locations, outside of one small trip to City’s Steel Mill. These locations are mostly well designed, with the Pioneers Bridge being a confusing exception that was a chore to navigate through. Combat is pretty much the same outside of a couple of new enemy types like the martial arts masters and enforcers, but they still fight like reskinned City enemies. The boss fights are cool and mostly unique. They’re solid spectacles, with a couple of really stand out ones like Deathstroke, Copperhead, and Bane.

The leveling system was changed for the worse. As opposed to the prior games, where you can simply choose which upgrade you want when you level up, Origins requires certain challenges to be completed in order for you to unlock the ability to level certain things up (you still need XP in order to unlock the upgrade). It’s an extensive and arbitrary process that I pretty much just ignored during my playthrough, opting to focus on the upgrades that were immediately available to me instead.

Even though the game does reuse a portion of Arkham City’s map, it is heavily edited to the point where it's only faintly recognizable. It’s no longer decrepit and falling apart. It actually looks like livable, and all traces of Hugo Strange’s propaganda posters as well as the flair from City’s villains that made each district look like it belonged to them are gone. Instead, it looks like a proper city, covered in snow with neon signs and Christmas decorations lighting up the dark. Origins’ art direction is my favorite in the series. I love how this game looks, it’s such a vibe and it’s the perfect December game. The soundtrack also stands out as well. Not that the previous Arkham games had bad music or anything, but the tracks in Arkham Origins are a lot more bombastic, whereas I feel like the previous Arkham games’ music was kinda just there. It captured the Batman vibe but that was about all it did.

Origins may not be innovative in terms of gameplay, but I think it does an amazing job at expanding the Arkham games’ universe. Just as the name implies, Arkham Origins is a prequel game in the Arkham series. It takes place two years into Batman’s career, when he’s a much angrier and less stoic and hardened crime fighter. It’s a solid premise with what I honestly believe to be the strongest story in the series (though my stance on that may change depending on how my replay of Arkham Knight goes). The character writing is really strong here, with excellent portrayals of a younger Batman, Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, the Joker, and weirdly enough, Bane (in hindsight, this did come out about a year after The Dark Knight Rises dropped, so that’s probably why a lot of emphasis was placed on him). I really loved how this game establishes the relationships that Batman has with these characters. Alfred for example isn’t especially approving of Bruce Wayne’s mission, seeing it as an unhealthy coping mechanism for the loss of his parents (and to be honest, he’s right). The game also tackles the initial animosity between Batman and Commissioner Gordon, which is also handled really well here. There is a serious tension between the two, which reaches a boiling point when lives are on the line, making the plot all the more thrilling.

I am a little bit miffed at how prominent the Joker’s presence here is. If you had been following the marketing for this (now ten year old) game, you’d recall that a lot of emphasis was placed on characters such as Black Mask, Deathstroke, and the rest of the assassins. Deathstroke in particular was heavily pushed in the marketing material, to the point where he was a big part of a nearly five minute long cinematic trailer for the game, and was even made a playable character in Challenge Maps as a preorder bonus. However, Deathstroke and the rest of the assassins play less of a role than you’d expect them to, while the Joker takes the spotlight. I’d be a lot more frustrated about this if it weren’t for the fact that this is the first time the Arkham versions of Batman and Joker meet. Origins handles their first encounter in a fantastic fashion, and highlights how Batman’s character and his no killing rule initially grabs Joker’s curiosity before it develops into a full-blown psychotic obsession. If Origins didn’t do such a good job establishing the two’s relationship with one another, I’d be a bit more upset.

Bane is also another highlight, as he’s the assassin who has the most presence and screentime in the main campaign. Rocksteady handled Bane in a very disappointing fashion in Arkham Asylum, so Origins’ take on him was a delightful surprise. He’s a lot more accurate to the comics, taking specific cues from Knightfall, where he’s more than just a musclebound brute. He’s a calculating master strategist here, as well as a commanding and imposing force whenever he’s on screen, in part thanks to his immensely talented voice actor JB Blanc. Speaking of voice acting, everyone in this game does a tremendous job. Roger Craig Smith and Troy Baker in particular are excellent as a younger Batman and Joker. They both take cues from Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill’s performances while delivering their own unique takes on the characters.

After my most recent playthrough of this game, I found that I enjoyed Origins way more than I expected to. It is a bummer that this game doesn’t get the recognition that I feel like it deserves. The harsh reception upon its release led it to being subsequently ignored by Warner Bros and the general public, with Origins being the only game in the series to see no rerelease on modern consoles. Despite how much I like this game, I feel like if it had been more positively received, then Warner Bros likely would’ve started pumping out annual releases of Arkham games like Assassin’s Creed or other similar titles, and that would’ve really sucked. Still, I think that Origins deserved more love than it got. There’s so much it got right, and even though it doesn’t really innovate at all, I think it at the very least maintained the same amount of quality as the games that came before it. It might not be available on modern consoles, but if you can get your hands on the PC version and you enjoy the other Arkham games, then I implore you to give it a shot.

Yakuza 0 is generally considered the modern day gateway into the Yakuza/Like a Dragon franchise for numerous reasons. Not only is it a prequel that doesn’t require any prior series knowledge to understand what’s going on, it’s constantly regarded as one of the best games in the series by a majority of the fanbase. While I had emulated the original Yakuza prior to my first playthrough of Yakuza 0, I didn’t really have a desire to play the rest of the franchise until after I finished Zero, so for all intents and purposes, it was my gateway too. After playing it back in 2022, I spent a good chunk of 2023 playing through every single game in the series currently available on Steam, including the spin offs. Needless to say, I’ve become a huge fan of the franchise. After playing almost every game in the series, I wanted to return to Yakuza 0 and re-evaluate it with my knowledge of the titles that come before and after it. I was really pleased to find that I still consider it the best of the Kazuma Kiryu-centric games.

Coming from Yakuza 5, which had five playable protagonists, Yakuza 0 scales down to just two: series star Kazuma Kiryu and his long-time rival/eventual close ally Goro Majima. I think that dialing back on the amount of playable characters was absolutely the right call. It allowed for both Kiryu and Majima to have plenty of room to breathe in each other’s own lengthy campaigns.

The story is undeniably one of, if not the best in the franchise. It’s more straightforward compared to the complex conspiracies of Yakuza 4 and Yakuza 5, and I think that it’s better off for it. Its focus is on telling an emotional narrative that enriches the background of both Kiryu and Majima while giving some sorely needed additional context to the original Yakuza game, and it absolutely knocked it out of the park. This is in part due to this game’s mostly original cast of characters. These characters and events do an absolutely tremendous job explaining how Kiryu and Majima become the characters that we know today. The clash of each character’s extreme and over the top personality is what makes Yakuza 0 such a thrilling and emotional joyride.

The three lieutenants of the Dojima family are some of the best and most memorable antagonists in the series, with Daisaku Kuze in particular standing out with his venomous tenacity. Other characters such as Makoto Makimura and Tetsu Tachibana serve as the core of the story’s emotion and mystery, as getting to the bottom of their true aspirations and learning about Makoto’s tragic backstory is a huge appeal of the narrative. Then there’s Akira Nishkiyama, Kiryu’s sworn brother. He was the primary antagonist of the original Yakuza, but one of the biggest problems with that game’s narrative was that it barely featured him. We had no real context to their relationship and how close they were, so the character was completely forgettable as a result. This game fleshes out their relationship immensely, with some of the most heartbreaking and hypest moments of the entire series featuring the two brothers.

To make up for the lack of multiple characters to play as and to keep combat feeling fresh and varied, the game uses the Style System that was introduced in the original version of Like a Dragon: Ishin to offer multiple ways for both characters to approach combat. I really like how the Style System was implemented in Zero. Each of Kiryu and Majima’s Styles concentrate on a particular element that makes up the complete moveset that they would go on to use in the games that take place after Zero. It’s a brilliant idea, even if it does come with some flaws.

Kiryu’s Styles are Brawler, Rush, and Beast. Brawler feels like a slower and less snappy version of his moveset from the prior games. It feels like he hasn’t quite figured out his approach to fighting yet, but he’s on track to getting there. It’s a solid all-rounder Style that’s good for just about any occasion. Rush is a boxing-inspired Style that places emphasis on speed. It’s mainly used for taking out a single, troublesome enemy, as well as during boss fights. Beast is Kiryu’s crowd control Style. It places emphasis on his raw strength. He becomes extremely slow in this Style, almost immobile. In exchange, his attacks become a lot stronger and way more effective at clearing out a group of enemies… so long as he has a large object in his hands. By itself, Beast is not a very effective Style. Kiryu’s attacks are just too slow unless you’ve got a large object that you can use to help you armor through attacks while swatting away groups of enemies at a time. Otherwise, enemies are generally able to get easy potshots in on him and keep him from getting started simply because his attacks just have way too much wind up. More often than not, this Style is a hindrance, and you can do some smaller scale levels of crowd control with the Brawler Style, so I tended to mainly swap between that and Rush when I played.

Majima’s Styles are Thug, Slugger, and Breaker. Thug is Majima’s equivalent to Kiryu’s Brawler Style, only Majima has had more experience as a yakuza than Kiryu at this point, so this Style feels faster and more precise compared to Brawler. Slugger has Majima wield a baseball bat. He can swing the bat in very wide arcs which makes this Style great for crowd control. He also has access to a really easy and brutal Heat action with this move. Breaker is a bit confusing. It also seems to be a crowd control focused Style, only it’s a lot less effective than Slugger. Similar to Kiryu’s Beast Style, it takes too long to perform the crowd clearing attacks that Breaker has. It’s not as unwieldy as Beast, but Slugger just provides easier and more effective crowd control, so I saw little reason to use Breaker.

There is a fourth Style that Kiryu and Majima have which are both referred to as Legend. Both Legend Styles have Kiryu and Majima play the way that they do in previous games. I can’t really give my opinion on these Styles because they’re locked behind two obnoxiously long and grindy mini games that I’ve never bothered to complete. I wish that weren’t the case and that these Styles were either unlocked by reaching the climax of each character’s narrative or by simply beating the game. I think that it would’ve been extremely satisfying unlocking them after the biggest emotional moments of the story to use during each character’s finale segment as opposed to completing two overly long mini games.

The game has 16 total chapters, and it’s structured so that every two chapters, you swap between Kiryu and Majima. This does unfortunately lead to some pacing issues early in the game, as in addition to both characters’ narratives being slow at the start, you have to sit through a tutorial for every single combat style. All six styles come with their own little mini-story completely separate from the main plot. They make the opening hours of the game a bit of a drag. Once the narrative begins to pick up however, it really picks up, and the game becomes immensely hard to put down once you make it past those early hours. There’s also all of the various substories and side activities that you can do, which can add some spice to those slow early hours. The substories might not be as effective if you haven’t played the other games in the series, because a lot of them feature younger versions of characters that you’ll go on to meet later in the franchise, like Shinji, Daigo, and Ryuji, so the significance of them isn’t apparent. It’s not a big deal though, as it just makes it all the more rewarding when you do encounter them in the future and remember the funny substory they were featured in here. There’s still plenty of substories that are just there for pure fun, in fact, I think that Yakuza 0 has the best substories in the series. There are so many memorable and satisfying ones that are worth going out of your way to complete.

Yakuza 0 is such a good time. Returning to it after playing the other games has been an absolute joy. It was really fun comparing and contrasting it to the games that come before and after it. It perfectly captures every single aspect that makes the series appealing. The fun and satisfying combat, the exciting and heartstring tugging story, and the enticing side content are all mostly at their peak here. It’s a game that’s truly earned its reputation, and I feel like I’m never, ever going to get tired of revisiting it in the future.

Batman: Arkham Series Reviews


Harley Quinn’s Revenge is a pretty mediocre expansion for Arkham City. If it was still being sold separately as DLC, then I’d be a lot harsher on it, but since pretty much every version of Batman: Arkham City being sold nowadays is the version that’s bundled with all of the DLC, it’s a lot easier to overlook how lacking it is.

The biggest draw of this expansion is that you’re able to play as Robin. Robin’s cool, he plays like a combination of Batman and Catwoman. He’s faster and more agile than Batman, but hits harder than Catwoman does. He’s not quite as fun as playing as Batman, but I still prefer playing as him than playing as Catwoman. He doesn’t really have much in terms of his own gadgets. He does have a couple, like the Bo Staff Ballistic Shield, which can protect him from gun fire, and he can use his grappling hook to propel himself towards enemies as opposed to drag them to him.

The expansion mainly takes place within a slightly modified version of the Steel Mill. You’re only able to explore the Steel Mill and that area of the city. You have a couple of decent combat and Predator segments where you play as both Robin and Batman, a showdown with Robin and Harley Quinn, a section where you need to quickly go to the various sections of the Steel Mill to disarm bombs, and that’s pretty much it. It’s decent enough if you’re just looking to extend your time with Arkham City, but there’s nothing here that’s particularly new or especially interesting or exciting.

The story doesn’t really serve as much of anything except for an epilogue to the main story. It pretty much shows how the fallout from the main campaign has affected Batman and those close to him, as well as Harley Quinn, who is extremely emotionally distraught and not handling things well in the slightest.

If you had to pay extra money for this like you had to back in the day, then I’d rate this a lot lower. But nowadays, you can get it for free with the rest of the game, so I feel like I can cut it some slack. It’s not at all a substantial addition to Arkham City, but it’s a fine and harmless 90 minutes.

Batman: Arkham Series Reviews

Batman: Arkham City is a natural evolution of everything that was introduced in Batman: Arkham Asylum, to the point where it’s difficult to describe the game as anything but Arkham Asylum yet bigger and more refined. It doesn’t really do anything particularly different from its predecessor. Instead, it just expands upon everything that it introduced. You’re no longer confined to the facility on Arkham Island. Now you’re patrolling a decently sized chunk of Gotham that has been cut off from the rest of the city. There’s more gadgets to wield, more enemy types to deal with, more ways to deal with those enemies, more famous Batman villains to face off against, and more characters to play as. Strictly in terms of mechanics and overall scope, Arkham City is much bigger and better than Arkham Asylum.

The titular Arkham City is a fantastic playground for roleplaying as Batman. It’s not something I really noticed while playing it, but the only thing that Arkham Asylum was really lacking when it came to capturing the feeling of being Batman was going from rooftop to rooftop, patrolling a worn down, gothic looking city crawling with criminals. You couldn’t really do that because of the nature of the previous game’s setting, however, you can do that here in Arkham City, and it’s fantastic. Making your way through the city is sheer joy thanks to the expanded gliding and grappling hook mechanics. They make traversal both immensely satisfying and engaging. It’s not the biggest open world in video games, but it is compact and way more detailed than the vast majority of open world games I’ve played.

The City offers a lot to do if you’re keeping your eyes open. The Riddler challenges return and are greatly expanded upon, with trophies generally requiring you to complete more elaborate puzzles that require the use of your gadgets in order to grab them. There are a number of side missions featuring Batman villains who aren’t essential to the main plot that get triggered randomly as you explore. There are some that you can stumble upon yourself, but intentionally trying to get these side missions to trigger can be both difficult and frustrating. A number of them are broken up into sections, with each section having its own random trigger. It’s best to just let those side missions occur naturally, as trying to force them will just lead to irritation. The quality of these side missions is generally pretty solid, with a particularly exceptional one that I always do every time I do a new playthrough of this game. However, there are a few side missions that came off as strong hints towards the series’ future that aren’t really followed up on in a satisfying manner. I’ll elaborate on them more when I review Batman: Arkham Knight, but since these side missions were essentially meant to build up hype for the next game, the fact that they ultimately don’t impact Arkham Knight all that much makes them huge let downs in my eyes.

The horror atmosphere that Arkham Asylum had is mostly gone. In exchange, Arkham City has a gothic noir atmosphere that’s more comparable to that of the comic books and other modern depictions of Batman’s world (at the time of 2011). A very underrated aspect of the game that I love is how you can listen in on conversations of thugs as you patrol the city. They’ll discuss their thoughts on the events that transpire over the course of the story, or they’ll boast about how they could easily take down Batman or other big name players of Arkham City. These conversations can be interrupted at any time by engaging in combat as well, making them feel very natural and giving the city life.

Everything that made Batman feel great to play as in Arkham Asylum returns in Arkham City. Gadgets can potentially play a bigger role in how you approach gameplay. In combat, there are new shortcuts you can input that make them easy to use during the heat of battle. The grappling hook can be used to pull weapons out of thugs’ hands, you can quickly plant and detonate explosive gel on the ground to take out groups of enemies when you’re surrounded, etc. While the gadgets aren’t a strict requirement for combat, they definitely make it much easier to manage and they make it all the more fun. Thugs are way more equipped in this game than in Arkham Asylum. They’ll have body armor, riot shields, blades, all of which need to be dealt with by using either different combat techniques or various tools from your arsenal. For example, you could take out a thug with a riot shield by stunning them and then double tapping the evade button for a specialized take down, or you could use the grappling hook to rob the thug of the shield altogether. The game gives you an abundance of options, and combat feels at its best when you’re rapidly switching between them. Gadgets can also play a role during the Predator segments as well. They offer additional ways to take down armed thugs, such as using the new Disruptor to jam guns or detonate mines that enemies place down. Again, they’re never a requirement for completing Predator segments, but they’re really rewarding to use and a great way to instill further fear and confusion in your foes.

Boss fights see a noticeable improvement coming from the previous game. While they’re still relatively easy, they’re all a far more enjoyable spectacle and none of them become a recurring enemy type. I especially want to highlight the Mr. Freeze fight in particular as one of the best boss battles in the entire series. His battle is essentially a Predator segment where the two of you actively hunt one another. It's a fantastic way to test the player on the many options Arkham City provides to take down foes.

The story is a truly fantastic Batman adventure. It really puts him through the wringer, physically and emotionally. He’s forced to make many hard decisions over the course of the narrative and though he maintains a strong and stoic demeanor, you can tell that the events of the game really take their toll on him. There are some aspects of the story that do let me down a bit though. Without going too deeply into spoiler territory, Hugo Strange, who was hyped up to be the game’s primary antagonist at the beginning of the game, plays far less of a role over the course of the game than you’d expect him to. This was really disappointing for me. Strange is a character that historically hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention as the other members of Batman’s Rogues Gallery over the years, and the premise of Arkham City offered the opportunity to tell a really unique story with him. Yet he doesn’t really have much of a presence in the game at all except for in missable optional content. The game ends in a really surprising manner, however future games take away from the impact the ending has. I’ll elaborate on this more when I review Arkham Origins and Arkham Knight in particular, but if you’ve finished Arkham City as well as played those games, I think you’ll understand what I’m getting at.

Throughout the main campaign, there’ll be times where you briefly switch over to and control Catwoman for a while. She plays as you'd expect her to. There’s more of a focus on her speed and agility, and she lacks the power and impact that Batman has in combat. Traversing the city as her is a lot less enjoyable since she can’t glide and doesn’t have the grappling hook. Instead, she pounces up the sides of buildings, which takes longer to do since she doesn't have a grappling hook that allows her to quickly get to the tops of buildings. Truth be told, I don’t really enjoy playing as Catwoman all that much. Not only is she not as fun to play as compared to Batman, she feels really shoehorned into the game in general. She doesn’t really add a whole lot to the story. She doesn’t detract from the game at all, but she doesn’t contribute much to it either aside from being a different character to play as.

The PC port for this game is better than Arkham Asylum’s. Cutscenes are at a much higher resolution and the game in general still looks really good even without HD textures. I still had the game crash on me a couple of times, but thankfully it didn’t corrupt the file path for the game like the PC port of Arkham Asylum did. Still, I will once again lament about the lack of a PC version of the Return to Arkham remasters of Asylum and City.

All in all, Arkham City is truly the ideal sequel. Everything that made Arkham Asylum great is expanded upon and polished to an almost mirror sheen. It’s a game whose influence is extremely hard to live up to, and in many ways, I feel like Rocksteady peaked with this title. There wouldn’t be another superhero game whose quality lived up to this one until Marvel’s Spider-Man in 2018. It goes hand in hand with Arkham Asylum as an absolute must-play for any Batman fan.

Batman: Arkham Series Reviews

After ages of superhero games whose quality mostly ranged from terrible to middling at best, Batman: Arkham Asylum felt like a huge breath of fresh air back in 2009. Coming back to it today, it’s still a very good game that is bursting at the seams with love and appreciation for the character of Batman and his mythos. While the subsequent Arkham games definitely eclipse this one in terms of scope and mechanics, I think that Asylum still has a lot going for it that makes it stand out and worth playing today.

Having Arkham Island as the primary setting for a Batman game was honestly a pretty genius idea. The island isn’t a sprawling open world city like the games that would come after it, but the island is still decently big and elaborately designed. This game often gets referred to as a Metroidvania, and while I don’t think that’s quite an accurate comparison, I do see why people come to that conclusion. Exploration is very straightforward, too straightforward for the game to be one. You never really need to figure out where you need to go, you just go where the game tells you to when it tells you to go there. However getting to your next destination isn’t as simple as moving from point A to point B, as the Joker and other bad guys will frequently do whatever they can to slow your progress. You’ll be traversing up elevator shafts, crawling through vents, using gadgets to get past various hazards, rescuing Arkham staff, and battling infamous Batman villains over the course of your night in the asylum.

Games journalists have gotten flack over the years for their repeated praise regarding how the Arkham games “really make you feel like Batman”. While it’s always morally correct to dunk on games journalists (/j), this is one thing that they’re definitely right about. The Arkham games absolutely nail the feeling of playing as the character of Batman. In combat, Batman fights with the perfect combination of agility and power. There are many other games whose combat works similarly to the Arkham games, but to be honest, they aren’t games that I tend to play. I can understand feeling like the combat is rehashed and played out when a lot of other triple A titles lift from it. Personally speaking, I find the combat to be rather satisfying, despite being relatively easy. It has its roots in the idea of originally being a rhythm action game. After landing a certain amount of hits on an opponent, you will enter what the game refers to as a “freeflow” state, where your speed and power gradually increases as Batman leaps from enemy to enemy. This state lasts until an enemy manages to land a successful hit on you. It’s really easy to get the hang of, but it’s not as simple as just mashing the attack button and occasionally pressing the counter button. There is a sense of rhythm to the freeflow state, and combat feels its best and most rewarding while you’re in it.

In addition to the combat, the game also captures the feeling of playing as Batman with the “Predator” segments. These are stealth sections of the game where Batman needs to infiltrate and clear out a room filled with armed guards. Guns do a lot of damage, and trying to take out enemies that are using them head on is extremely ineffective. Instead, you have to sneak up on them from behind and take them out silently. Alternatively, you can also take them out using a location-based context sensitive takedown, but these will create noise that can alert the other enemies in the room to your location. These are my favorite gameplay segments by far. Taking down armed thugs one by one while completely unseen and instilling gradually increasing amounts of fear into them as their numbers dwindle is such an incredible thrill. The enemy AI is actually rather impressive too, especially for its time. They’ll catch on to commonly used tactics, and when they’re especially afraid, they’ll even trip and fall over themselves in a panic as they desperately search for you.

The one area in terms of gameplay where the developers sadly fumble the bag is with its boss fights. They’re unfortunately quite bad. They’re not so terrible that they become frustrating to fight, but they’re incredibly easy, not very fun, and do nothing to impress. One boss fight in particular just becomes an enemy type that you encounter many times over the course of the game, making it completely forgettable in the process. The final boss especially is just… really lame. It’s especially disappointing because a huge part of the Batman mythos’ appeal is the villains, and what’s supposed to be climactic showdowns with them are not done any justice at all.

Arkham Asylum’s story plays out like a traditional Batman story. It doesn’t really do anything particularly unique or different with its characters, however it’s still decently entertaining nonetheless. The core concept of the inmates taking over the asylum was inspired by the graphic novel Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth by Grant Morrison. In it, Batman is faced with the possibility that he in fact may be mentally ill himself. Arkham Asylum does hint at this idea, but it really doesn’t go anywhere beyond some provocations from Joker. One of my biggest criticisms of the Arkham series as a whole is that it’ll constantly reference and play with this idea, but the games usually don’t really explore it in depth or in a particularly satisfying fashion, likely because it would detract from the player’s power fantasy. Batman: Arkham Knight explores it the most out of any Arkham game, and while my memories of that title are foggy, I don’t recall the idea being handled especially well there either. Still, as far as Arkham Asylum goes, it's a good albeit standard Batman adventure that ends in a pretty sudden and slightly unsatisfying manner.

What it lacks in a particularly unique story, it makes up for with its distinct atmosphere. Arkham Asylum has a horror vibe that its sequels completely lack, with disturbing environmental storytelling and gruesome imagery that really pushes the boundaries of the game’s T for Teen rating. Rocksteady did a great job of capturing that feeling of being trapped in the lion’s den with Arkham Asylum, despite the fact that you play as one of the most stoic and hardened superheroes out there.

For the most part, the developers over at Rocksteady hit the nail on the head with their interpretation of Batman and his world. It is a darker interpretation, but the dark aspects are balanced out by the unabashed embracement of Batman’s campy comic book roots. Everyone talks and acts like they came straight out of an episode of Batman: The Animated Series (minus the swearing). It helps that Kevin Conroy (R.I.P.), Mark Hamil and Arleen Sorkin return from the show to voice the characters of Batman, Joker, and Harley Quinn respectively. This version of these characters are great and very true to their source material. The voice actors deliver some of the best performances of their careers in this game. I especially want to highlight how Joker takes over the asylum’s P.A. system, allowing him to constantly taunt, gloat, and goad you all throughout the game. It does a great job at making you feel like he’s in control.

There is a clear love for the source material in this game, best demonstrated with the side content involving the Riddler and his challenges. One type of challenge he offers is to solve various riddles by scanning the correct object in a room or an area. The solution to these riddles are usually easter egg references to other Batman characters that aren’t featured in the game, such as Penguin and Two-Face. There's quite a large number of these too, and they even reference Batman’s more obscure villains like Killer Moth, Great White Shark, and Prometheus. You can also unlock special artwork and biographies for each of these characters as well, allowing you a glimpse into how they look and operate in the Arkham universe.

Sadly, I do feel like I should mention that the PC port hasn’t aged well, and is in a rather poor state. Cutscenes in particular look very crispy and low res. This makes it all the more upsetting that the Return to Arkham remasters of this game and Arkham City were never brought to PC. There are mods out there for high definition textures and upscaled cutscenes, but I did have the game crash on me a couple of times, which caused the file path for the game to become corrupted, and forced me to format my hard disk drive. I don’t know if this was because of the mods or not. It’s just a shame that the PC port is the way that it is, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Return to Arkham eventually makes its way to PC.

It’s clear that Rocksteady adores the character of Batman and his history very much, which earns them my sincerest respect. There is so much detail in this game’s carefully crafted world that pays homage to the character’s legacy. They had grand ambitions, not just for this title, but for the games that came after it as well, as clearly evidenced by the famous Arkham City easter egg that players never found and the devs had to reveal themselves. It's absolutely a must-play for Batman fans (though chances are that pretty much all Batman fans have played it by now). Even if you’re not a huge Batman fan, I do think that you’ll get some decent fun from the rather satisfying combat and stealth. Overall, Arkham Asylum is not just an extremely well-crafted love letter to the Dark Knight, but also a solid video game as well. It laid out a strong foundation for the games that would come after it and is a great start to one of the best interpretations of the Batman mythos out there.

Superliminal is a physics-based puzzle game with a lot of unique and surprising mechanics that I’ve never experienced in anything else I’ve played before. However, in some ways, it feels more like a tech demo than a game. It’s a hodgepodge of interesting ideas that don’t really make a coherent experience. I feel like there was a lot of potential for Superliminal to be something more impressive than it currently is. Upon completing it, it fails to leave much of an impact, despite clearly attempting to do so.

Writing about how this game’s mechanics work is a huge pain because they’re really difficult to put into words. Essentially, the game is about utilizing your visual perspective to manipulate objects and the environment to solve puzzles. For example, one of the earliest things you can do in the game is increase or decrease the size of objects by moving them closer or farther away from you. You can then use those objects as platforms or move them over walls. This is just one of the many perspective-based mechanics that the game utilizes. These mechanics are very cool when experiencing them for the first time. I definitely said “wow” and “woah” out loud as I experimented and learned about how they worked as well as what I could do with them. The problem is that as the game goes on, these mechanics are constantly discarded without ever being expanded upon. As a result, nothing really leaves a lasting impression in this game. I feel like I’m at a funhouse at an amusement park when I play Superliminal, constantly switching from one neat looking attraction to the other.

The game does have a story, but it doesn’t go anywhere or have anything really interesting to say. Its key message falls flat because it’s meant to coincide with the developers’ assumed difficulty of the game. The thing is, the game isn’t really hard, and it’s super short. As a result, the core theme of the story just feels like preachy rhetoric. It comes off as desperately wanting to leave some sort of emotional impact on the player, but its attempts to do so just don’t really pan out. There are sections of the game that have some darker narrative implications and the game does a great job at setting up a tense atmosphere during these sections, to the point where they border on horror. But these sections never go anywhere beyond presenting new mechanics, and as a result, they’re discarded and abandoned alongside them.

Superliminal just feels like a presentation of neat ideas and that’s about it. Since it doesn’t really push its mechanics beyond just figuring out how they work, nothing really sticks with you after having played it. This combined with its low difficulty and short playtime causes it to feel like a game that you just quickly move on from. It isn’t memorable beyond the novelty of its mechanics. It’s a decent way to kill two hours, and that’s pretty much the extent of what I can say about it.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed this way more than I expected to. I have absolutely no experience with Streets of Rage and very little experience with beat 'em ups in general, I only got this because SEGA was giving it out for free a few years ago and because it was Yakuza-themed. I actually had some decent fun with this and I wish it was longer. It's kind of lame how the game doesn't tell you how to do special moves like Grand Upper (I think that's what it's called). I actually had to look up how to do it myself. The biggest problem I had with it is that enemies can just walk off screen and you have no way to interact with them if they do, you have to wait for them to come back. I might actually consider playing the Streets of Rage games as well as beat-'em-ups in general after having played this, because I really did have a solid 45 minutes with it, and I'm interested in playing a full length game in this style.

Like a Dragon Gaiden is exactly how it was advertised as: it’s a short romp with Kiryu as a secret agent that serves to explain what he’s been up to in-between Yakuzas 6 and 7 as well as expand on the role that he ultimately plays during the events of Yakuza 7. The game isn’t anything particularly groundbreaking for the franchise, but it was explicitly never trying to be. I wouldn’t really blame you if you questioned whether or not this game needed to exist. That being said, it is currently selling for $10 cheaper than the average price of a new game (or $20 cheaper now I guess, considering the upcoming Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is priced at $70), and most importantly: it’s pretty fun. Unless you’re an extremely dedicated fan of the franchise like I’ve become this past year, I don’t think that it’s necessarily an essential purchase. It is still a good time though, and if the trailers/promotional material for Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth are to be believed, then this may be the final time we’ll be playing as Kiryu in the fashion of the traditional beat-’em-up Yakuza games (for real this time).

For the most part, Gaiden doesn’t really tell a particularly intricate or emotional story. The plot is really straightforward: it sets the stage for the role that Kiryu plays in Yakuza 7 and not much else honestly. In fact, the game is padded out with a number of sections that don’t really do much to advance the main plot. There are some potential hints towards the future of the series, but it’s not clear whether or not these hints are specifically for Infinite Wealth. I’d be shocked if they weren’t, though. The game does conclude with one of the most well-executed, gut punching scenes in the entire series that genuinely made me tear up. It really rewards long time and dedicated fans. Personally speaking, this ending alone made the game worth the $50 purchase for me. It actually made me bump my original rating from a 3.5/5 to a 4/5.

After ditching the multiple styles for Kiryu in Yakuza 6 and Kiwami 2, Gaiden brings them back with the new Yakuza and Agent styles. The Yakuza style has Kiryu essentially play the way he does in 6 and Kiwami 2, with some minor adjustments that make him feel a lot better to control. They brought Extreme Heat Mode back and I’m so, so thankful that the camera no longer zooms in on Kiryu when it’s activated. That was a huge gripe for me in those two games and made me not want to use it altogether. The Agent style is brand new. Its primary focus is on crowd control, and it utilizes a number of fun spy gadgets to stun and distract enemies in order to give yourself some breathing room. It’s a little weird and hard to get used to at first, as to activate the gadgets, you need to hold down the corresponding button until it’s charged. If you get hit by an enemy, it cancels the charge. This means that you have to make breathing room in order to make breathing room… which doesn’t sound quite right, and doesn’t really seem what they were going for. The jet boots that you get partway through the campaign takes far less time to charge than your other spy gadgets, and they’re essential for clearing out groups of enemies so that you can safely plant your explosive cigarettes or summon your drones. There’s also a new counter move exclusively for bosses that Kiryu can do, where quickstepping during a special attack bosses can perform allows you to parry them and retaliate with an extremely satisfying drop kick. You can also upgrade it to perform an additional grapple attack following the drop kick. It’s not hard to pull it off at all, and it feels damn good when you do.

As usual, there’s a plethora of side content to do in Gaiden. While I focused primarily on clearing the main campaign, the few substories I engaged with were pretty solid, especially the ones where some surprise guests appeared. The Castle, which is a key location that you constantly travel back and forth from, holds this game’s Coliseum, and it’s the most fun iteration of it in any Yakuza game. I actually really want to go back to it and play through it some more now that I’ve finished Gaiden. The Team Battles in particular are a lot of fun, and I’m not going to lie, it makes me happy that I pre-ordered it so that I can fight alongside Majima, Saejima and Daigo. Playing as those characters however, is a different story. Majima and Saejima in particular feel pretty boneless in comparison to how they were in previous Yakuza games. I’m over the moon to be able to play as Saejima again, he’s one of my favorite characters in the series. However, he feels very hollow to play as, and it's quite disappointing. If you missed out getting these characters by not preordering, you’re really not missing much.

Like a Dragon Gaiden is definitely a game for the fans. In some ways, it does feel like a game whose sole existence is to squeeze money out of people that are hyped for Infinite Wealth. However, it offers a lot to enjoy, and still provides a decent experience all-around. I can’t stress enough how great that ending is. I’m really looking forward to going back to it and playing through some more of the side content. I think that if you’re a huge fan of the series, then you won’t be disappointed with this, but if you’re more of a passive enjoyer, you’re not going to get a whole lot out of it. I do still recommend at least looking up the cutscenes on YouTube though. I will say that I will likely look back on this game a lot less fondly if the trailers for Infinite Wealth turn out to be a red herring. If this game and Infinite Wealth really do end up being the final times we’ll be playing as Kiryu like the Infinite Wealth trailers strongly suggest, then I think that Gaiden is an excellent way to prepare fans for what I hope is a tremendous and fitting send off to one of the greatest protagonists in video games. Otherwise, this game will likely wind up just being a small footnote in the franchise’s legacy.

It’s always surprised me how much harsher the general opinion of Hotline Miami 2 is in comparison to the first one. Like I mentioned in my review of Hotline Miami 1, both games are extremely important to me, and 2 is no exception. I’ve always enjoyed this game, to the point where I’ve spent a little over 100 hours playing and replaying it in comparison to the 20 hours I’ve spent with the original. I understand and sympathize with a few of the reasons why most people don’t seem to like it. Its approach to level design is vastly different from the previous game, and a good amount of the levels don’t accommodate the way a majority of people preferred to play the original. I don’t believe that this makes the game inherently bad, though. It definitely has some problems, a few of which are shared with the first game, but overall I think that Hotline Miami 2 is a fantastic successor and most people judge it a little unfairly.

Nothing has really changed between the first game and the second in terms of core gameplay. You’re still clearing out rooms of enemies that all die in one hit while avoiding that instant death yourself. This is both to Wrong Number’s benefit and it’s detriment, as pretty much every single problem with Hotline Miami 1’s gameplay goes unaddressed here. Enemies still don’t react if someone in front of them gets shot, and it’s still a bit random whether or not they’ll consistently react to the sound of gunfire. The cursor is still really thin and hard to see, it doesn’t contrast well with the game’s environments at all. There’s still the problem of not being able to tell which weapon you’ll pick up from the ground when multiple weapons are in close proximity to one another. It’s actually a bit of a worse problem here because the level design of Hotline Miami 2 generally forces you to manipulate enemies by alerting a squad of them to your location and ambushing them, meaning you have to frantically comb through piles of weapons stacked on top of each other rather frequently. It’s pretty disappointing that these problems from the first game don’t really get addressed here.

What does get addressed though, is the undercooked mask system. It’s pretty heavily reworked to fit the large cast of playable characters. Some characters have a smaller selection of minor gameplay modifiers you can pick before a level, like Jake and The Son. Others like Beard and Evan Wright have their own playstyle or spin on the core gameplay. I greatly prefer the changes Hotline Miami 2 has made in this regard. I really enjoy being forced to vary my tactics slightly depending on who I’m playing as, it keeps things feeling fresh.

The biggest and most controversial change from Hotline Miami 1 is Wrong Number’s approach to level design. While the game starts off with shorter and more cramped levels comparable to those of the first game, the levels gradually increase in terms of scale. They get much, much bigger and far more open. These levels can force you to change up how you approach them compared to the smaller and more claustrophobic levels of the first game. You can’t really run through them guns blazing, as constantly exposing yourself will subject you to gunfire from enemies that aren’t even on the screen. Instead, they require you to rely on manipulating enemy behavior and having them come to you, either by briefly exposing yourself to their line of sight before taking cover, or with the sound of gunfire. This allows you to take out groups of 6, 7, 8+ enemies at once in an adrenaline fueled scramble that’s just as satisfying as the gameplay of Wrong Number’s predecessor. You’re definitely not going to realize this initially though, especially if you have a lot of experience with the first game. I think that’s a big reason why people dislike this game so much. Coming to terms with its level design approach is pretty essential to enjoying it. One could argue that this makes the gameplay boil down to trial and error, but in all honesty, I don’t see it as any more trial and error than Hotline Miami 1’s gameplay, especially its latter levels.

Second to the level design, Wrong Number’s next most controversial change is its approach to storytelling. Unlike Hotline Miami 1, which was sparse on story details and generally required the player to fill in the blanks themselves in regards to how the world works and what’s going on, 2 tells a much more detailed and involved story with a huge cast of characters and a lot more dialogue. It presents a series of events that take place before, during, and after the events of the first game that really flesh out the characters and world. However it presents those events in a non-linear fashion, and in conjunction with the surreal aspects of the plot, it seems to cause a lot of confusion among people who initially experience it. Personally speaking, I’ve never found Hotline Miami 2’s plot to be confusing or hard to follow at all. Yes, each character’s story does take place at different points in time, but that character’s story is still presented in a proper sequential order, and even if you’re not paying attention to the dates that are displayed whenever you switch characters, the game offers plenty of context clues in regards to when a certain cutscene takes place.

I love this game’s story, in all honesty. The alternate take on the Cold War and its effects on history is fascinating. It enriches the story of Hotline Miami 1 by providing gut wrenching context to the world and the events that transpire in that game, including Jacket’s motivations. I love all of the characters and what their individual stories represent. The game might beat you over the head with its core messages and themes, but considering how the themes of the first game largely went over most people’s heads (including my own initially), I can’t really blame the devs for taking a more direct approach with their storytelling this time around. The developers had a lot to say with this game’s story, and they said it loud and proud. I don’t like to go too in-depth with story details in my reviews, but the video Hotline Miami 2 is a Misunderstood Masterpiece by Ovandal does an immaculate job explaining the symbolism and appeal of the game’s story in great detail, and I highly recommend it (spoiler warning, obviously).

The game manages to have an even better and more bombastic soundtrack than the first game. A big reason why this game is so special to me is because it introduced me to the absolutely phenomenal music of Carpenter Brut, who became one of my top 5 favorite musicians of all time. His music continues to motivate me and hype me up to this day, and I am not exaggerating when I say that I’ve been able to lose dozens of pounds working out to his songs, which are blood pumping synthwave masterpieces. Roller Mobster and Le Perv, are used in the game’s soundtrack, and in my opinion, they are two of his best works. I don’t want to get too off-topic though, pretty much every track in Hotline Miami 2 is fantastic, and used to brilliant effect. The opening scene to the level Execution, where The Henchman tries to reach his girlfriend on the phone as The Fans pull up to the Russian bar is synched to the intro to Perturbator’s Sexualizer, and the way the bass kicks in just as The Fans’ van screeches to a halt gives me goosebumps every single time I come back to this game. The developers utilize this game’s music in a way that I wish more games did. Writing a scene and creating a level based on a specific song amplifies the song’s effectiveness and really adds to the immersion.

Hotline Miami 2 is a powerful and bold statement, and I feel like most people that play it just don’t want to hear what it has to say. It just completely floors and frustrates me that people don’t see the value in Hotline Miami 2, that they get so blinded by their frustration that the game isn’t what they want it to be that they write it off entirely. The learning curve is higher than the first game, the approach to level design forces you to play differently from before, and the story requires you to slow down and process what is happening, where it’s happening, and why it’s happening. Not everyone wants to go through all of that to enjoy a video game, and I get it, but man does that make me sad. I treasure both Hotline Miami games, but a lot of what I love about this series comes from Wrong Number. I hope that as time passes, people give it another chance, and see it for what it is. It challenges its players not just through its difficult gameplay, but also to see the bigger picture regarding its themes and messages as well, and coming to terms with those challenges led to one of the most rewarding experiences in video games I’ve ever had.

Both of the Hotline Miami games are very important titles to me. They introduced me to entire genres of music, film, and other video games that have come to be major cornerstones of my taste in art and media. While the dark 80s aesthetic is far more commonplace nowadays, to the point where you could even call it played out, at the time there weren’t really many games with the look and feel that Hotline Miami has. There’s a serene, dreamy feel to the game that’s complemented by the rush of its immersive and addicting trance-like gameplay. The gameplay does have some quirks that can bring it down a bit, but once you get used to those quirks, then it becomes a truly memorable experience that’s hard to put down and really sticks with you.

The game is a top down arcade-like shooter that involves raiding the hideouts of Russian gangsters and murdering every single one of them, clearing them out room by room. Weapons are found on-site. Sometimes you can just find them laying around, but most of the time you’ll be acquiring them from knocked down or killed enemies. Once you’ve taken out everyone in a room, you move onto the next and continue the process until everyone in the building is dead. Enemies all die in one hit, however the same goes for you as well. If you die, you can press ‘R’ to restart from the beginning of the room. There’s no loading times, so pressing R allows you to instantly respawn. This plays a big part in what makes the gameplay so addicting. The adrenaline rush of slaughtering your way through a room with a dozen armed guys that can all take you out in a single hit is intoxicating, and if you screw up and die, all you need is one quick key press and you’re immediately back in the fray. The game’s hypnotic electronic soundtrack and hazy neon visuals really play a huge role in making the gameplay as addicting as it is. The droning, bass heavy beats of M.O.O.N’s tracks not only add to the adrenaline, but also put you in a sort of zen-like trance as you play.

While the game generally rewards a fast, guns blazing approach to clearing out rooms, it is possible to play slow and steady. There’s also a way you can exploit enemy behavior: they’re attracted to the sound of gunshots, which you can use to lure them to specific locations and line them up for easy ambush kills. While I do think that this is a really cool aspect of combat, the consistency in which it works has mixed results. There will almost always be enemies that react to the sound of gunfire, but whether or not it’s the enemies that you expect is a toss up. Sometimes an enemy allllll the way on the other side of the map will react to a gunshot, but the enemies in the room right next to you will just ignore it and continue their patrol route. The AI in general behaves in a really finicky and kind of stupid fashion at times. Enemies on the other side of the map will react to the sound of gunfire, but enemies generally won’t react if someone gets shot right in front of them. I wish there were more ways to influence the behavior of enemies. Maybe frighten them by continuously murdering people out of their line of sight and forcing them to go on a different patrol route. I just feel like they could use some small touches that make them feel a bit more like actual people and less like dumb video game enemies. It would really drive home one of the core themes of the game, which is the desensitization to violence that video games can cause (more on that later).

As you play through the game, you can unlock additional animal masks you can wear which can modify your gameplay. These modifiers vary in terms of their usefulness. They can range from minor gameplay changes, like allowing you to view secrets or increasing the amount of gore to major ones like allowing you to instantly kill enemies with your default melee attacks or muting your gunshots so that enemies don’t react to them. The devs have gone on record saying that the masks weren’t originally supposed to provide any gameplay modifiers, and it definitely seems like this system is kind of undercooked. I honestly find little reason to use any mask other than Tony for the instant kill melee attacks, and the devs have also gone on record to say that they felt like Tony in particular wasn’t balanced well. For my most recent playthrough, I decided to only use the default mask Richard to get what I feel was the intended experience with the game. This is a system that would later be expanded into the different playstyles that we’d later see with Biker as well as the cast of Hotline Miami 2.

There’s a pretty steep learning curve to Hotline Miami. Initially, the game can feel really hard and unfair. However, once you get used to it, it’s really easy to blaze through this game in a little over an hour, assuming you skip the cutscenes. Still, like I mentioned before, the gameplay has little quirks that can play a role in making that initial learning curve in the game a bit unnecessarily steep.The game has a cursor that you can use to help you aim, but the cursor is extremely thin and really hard to see. Eventually I got a feel for where the cursor generally is at all times, and I also frequently lock onto enemies to ensure that my shots hit their targets. There’s also the infamous problem of trying to pick up a specific weapon on the ground when there are multiple weapons in close proximity to it. Unfortunately this is an issue that can continue to screw you over no matter how used to the game you get, and is my personal biggest issue with both Hotline Miami games. Still, once you get over that initial learning curve, being able to blaze through this game so quickly is extremely satisfying, even if that weapon issue never stops rearing its ugly head.

I briefly touched on the game’s soundtrack during combat, but I also really want to highlight the tracks that are used outside of it as well. The track Crush by El Huervo, which plays once you’ve finished a level hits really hard during your initial playthrough. The haunting noise really snaps you out of the hypnotic trance that the gameplay and fast-paced, more upbeat music can put you in. It really forces you to stop and take notice of your surroundings and the horrific violence you’ve committed before you leave a level. Eventually though, you become numb to it and you start tuning it out, immediately heading for your car to exit the level without a second thought. Then on the results screen, you’re treated to the beautiful track Miami by Jasper Byrne, a song that truly feels euphoric to listen to and never gets old. Not only does this song perfectly encapsulate that 80s aesthetic the game is going for, but it evokes feelings of nostalgic comfort. The transition from Crush to Miami feels like you’re going from being sober to inebriated. You forget all about the consequences of what you’ve just done once the pretty lights and music of the results screen comes into view. Even though the vast majority of music in the game wasn’t made for it, the way the developers utilize it to evoke specific feelings from the player is extremely well done.

The game’s story, when taken purely at face value, may not seem like much to most people. It’s not a particularly detailed story, in fact, there are many aspects to the game’s plot that aren’t really elaborated on until the sequel. The protagonist, Jacket, is silent, so you have to infer much of what’s going on based on the actions he takes. However, there are some little details that really add to the story that I feel go overlooked if you’re not paying attention and just rushing to get to the next level. In particular, the subtle changes to Jacket’s apartment as you advance through the game do a great job framing the gradual changes to his life and his mindset. It’s very solid and effective environmental storytelling. I will say that I feel like this game’s story hits a lot harder after playing the sequel, though. Hotline Miami 2 adds a lot of context that Hotline Miami 1’s story is really lacking. 2 also really helps to drive home 1’s themes as well, since it’s a bit more direct with them.

It’s no secret that Hotline Miami was meant to be a critique on the desensitization of violence through video games, as well as using violence and violent fantasies as a way to cope with our emotions. There are a lot of mixed views and responses regarding how effective the game actually is as a critique. This review is already getting pretty long, and I don’t think that there’s room for an in-depth discussion of it here, but as far as my personal opinion goes, I don’t think that the fact that it is critiquing anything becomes explicitly clear until you play the second game. The ways it goes about critiquing violence, namely through the initial feelings the music at the end of each level evokes, as well as very short but notable moments in the story such as Jacket vomiting after he murders the homeless man at the start of the game do clue you in, but they’re a bit too lowkey for their own good, and fail to really drive the point home. I think this makes the violence critique very easy to go over people’s heads as a result. I certainly didn’t realize it myself until I started hyper fixating on the games and reading about the developers and what they intended with them years ago when I first played them.

I think that it might be hard to sell Hotline Miami to new players nowadays. Its influence has been widespread throughout the indie scene, which can make the game and its aesthetic seem far less unique as a result. As someone that was there close to when both of these games were making their impact on the gaming landscape, my initial experience with them really stuck with me, and I’m still able to come back and thoroughly enjoy Hotline Miami today. If you’re not completely burnt out on the oversaturation of 80s throwback media, and if you have the patience to stick with a game with a high learning curve, then I can’t recommend Hotline Miami enough. The gameplay is exhilarating and the vibes are immaculate.

Part of Spooky Season 2023.

My dumb ass accidentally restarted my save after I died and I don’t feel like playing through the game from the beginning again, so I’ve just decided to shelve it for now and write out my thoughts. It really sucks because I was approaching the game’s climax too. Ah well.

I think that Dead Rising has a great concept that unfortunately doesn’t quite live up to its full potential. It’s a game that heavily revolves around escorting NPCs with AI from the mid-2000s, and that alone should raise some red flags. The game can be thrilling and really enjoyable when the AI works, but that’s just it: the AI frequently doesn’t work. This coupled with other poor design decisions oftentimes makes the game more frustrating than fun. It bums me out because I can see the vision, and when things do work, it does manage to be a very good time. It’s just that it’s also janky as all hell, and while the jank can be charming, it’ll also frequently take you out of the experience.

Dead Rising is a timed game in a similar vein to The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. It takes place in a zombie infested mall, and you have 72 in-game hours to not only complete tasks that advance the game’s main storyline, but rescue as many survivors as you can and escort them to the one safe location within the mall: the Security Room. Everything operates on a schedule, so you’ll only have specific opportunities to complete objectives. If you miss those opportunities, they’re gone for the rest of your playthrough. These include main storyline quests as well. I really love this structure. It forces you to memorize the layout of the mall (which isn’t particularly complex) and plan ahead as far as which side quests (which are referred to in-game as “Scoops”) you tackle and how many people you can try and save.

Thankfully, escorting survivors isn’t vital for completing the main story except during specific missions, and I think that is one of this game’s saving graces. That doesn’t mean that successfully escorting them isn’t extremely important, though. There’s a leveling system where Frank gradually gets stronger and more agile the more you play. In addition to gaining exp from killing certain amounts of zombies and completing certain tasks, you get the most exp from successfully escorting survivors. This is where a majority of the game’s frustration comes from. Missing out on exp because the survivors you’re escorting die from not listening to your commands, getting caught on level geometry, or just dashing straight into each other and not moving at all is infuriating. Sometimes the survivors can even accidentally shoot and kill you, and that especially got on my nerves.

I will say that the game does throw you a bone when it comes to the survivors. Simply meeting up with them and getting them to join you is enough to grant you some exp, but actually getting them to safety is what gets you the biggest exp boosts. You’re going to really want them too, because Frank does not feel very good to play as early in the game. I realize that it was the developer’s intention to not make Frank very good early in the game, in order to make replays where he starts off at higher levels more rewarding, but still, it’s rough. If you ever feel like the game isn’t going your way and that you’re stuck or that you’ve missed out on more Scoops than you’d like, you can always reset your campaign with Frank’s current level and upgrades, which I think is a really solid design choice (though I did this by accident, which is how I lost my save).

In addition to the AI of the survivors, the AI of the boss fights is also pretty bad as well. Granted I haven’t fought every boss in the game, but there were a few bosses that were easy to exploit in pretty hilarious ways. I think that the famous Convicts are the best example of this. Almost every time you go through the park after their introduction, they will immediately just drive the humvee straight into a tree and you can shoot them from a safe distance where the AI won’t even register your presence.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the game is how you learn about new Scoops that are available to you. There’s a character named Otis that will call you on your walkie talkie whenever he discovers someone in need of help or if there’s something strange that Frank should consider investigating. The problem is that whenever he calls you on the walkie talkie, Frank is unable to attack or jump, as doing so will interrupt the call from Otis and he’ll call again, angrily telling you “Don’t cut me off like that, it’s rude!” before repeating everything that he just told you. This honestly makes me more angry than it probably should, but it’s incredibly annoying when the walkie talkie is going off over and over again while I’m in the middle of a stressful situation such as escorting survivors through a heavily zombie infested area or in the middle of a boss fight and I can’t answer it without risking either my own death, or the death of a survivor. You can talk to Otis directly in the Security Room, so I don’t get why you can’t just get Scoops by simply talking to him while you’re in there as well. You can only get Scoops when you’re outside of the Security Room via the walkie talkie, and I think that’s just really stupid and shortsighted.

I also really wish there was more than one route to the Security Room. Unless there are hidden routes that I just never discovered during my playthrough, you have to escort survivors through Paradise Plaza, through the warehouse hallway, up the elevator to the roof and then through the air duct every single time. I think this was done to make sure that the player most effectively learns the layout of the mall through repetition, but escorting them also becomes really repetitive as a result. I did learn of one shortcut to Paradise Plaza, but you still have to go through Paradise Plaza every time to get to the Security Room.

A majority of this review has been complaining, and I do want to stress that the game is actually really fun when these frustrations aren’t getting in your way. I loved learning about the layout of the mall, memorizing where I can find certain weapons or certain zombies that wield certain weapons, or discovering secret weapons like the sub-machine gun you can find above the roof of one of the stores in Paradise Plaza. I loved planning which Scoops I should tackle and agonizing over which ones I just didn’t have time for. I also think that Frank gradually becomes much better to control as you level him up and unlock faster run speeds and techniques like jumping off of zombies’ heads. Eventually, fighting hordes of zombies becomes very satisfying and enjoyable. It just feels like there’s a lot of factors outside of your control that hinder your efforts and subsequently your enjoyment. I think that if Frank was a bit stronger at the start of the game, and if the survivors and bosses had better AI, then Dead Rising would be much better than it is.

The story was pretty interesting from what I’ve played, and I was pretty invested in what was going on. Like I said, I was at the climax of the game when I lost my save and it was really demoralizing. Not quite sure what made Frank such a popular character back during this era of Capcom. He’s been a decent protagonist, but I can’t say there’s much to him or his personality that makes him especially stand out.

It’s possible to have a lot of fun with Dead Rising, just keep in mind that it has a lot of jank and really lacks polish. For all of its faults, I never found it to be boring. There’s a lot of charm to it, especially those aspects of it that feel straight out of the mid-2000s, like the nu-metal soundtrack and the overall design of the mall in general (finding stores that just sell CDs made me feel super nostalgic). It says a lot that despite all of the things that drag it down, I still want to go back and finish it eventually. Maybe I’ll save it for Spooky Season 2024.