(Played on Series X via remaster)

This is the first time I've beaten Arkham City. I got a disc copy for PS3 when it came out in 2011 but my German Shepard puppy (who is now 13 lmao, shout out to Zeus) somehow got the disc out of the console and chewed it up. One whole dog lifetime later, I finally found the time to play through it.

As a disclaimer, I am doing a series playthrough so I didn't do any side content really, just an 8-9 hour mainline through the story. With that said, I liked City roughly as much as Asylum, maybe a tiny bit less. It feels like a one step forward, one step back type thing.

The better: I think the pivot from metroidvania to open zone with some Metroid flavor is a similarly successful pivot to the one the Jedi games made between Fallen Order and Survivor. It's a good evolution. The combat is more fun and has more impact, with thoughtful new tricks that iterate its now-legendary gameplay to solid effect. The story is better and more personal, even if the characters still vary in quality a lot. Better boss fights. Slightly less backtracking than Asylum. The high points here story/game wise are better than the equivalent points in Asylum.

The worse: Something big was lost in the shift from the cohesive, consistent, polished, perfectly paced structure in Asylum to City's downright strange pacing. City tells 70% of its story in 3 hours and then makes you spend another 4-5 hours on the last chunks. it has a tendency to make the story move too fast when it should take its time and then pad things out with enemies/puzzles when you're ready for the game to be over. City has good, real boss fights but it also has a bunch of really flimsy boss encounters that make it seem like Rocksteady ran out of money at the finish line.

Really good, important game -- just maybe shows its age a little bit more than I expected in 2024. As an aside, I played the BioShocks last year and the thing I realized is that PS3/360 era games now totally have a classic games vibe to them. It's so odd.

A worthwhile sequel to Valfaris. Switches format from "Contra but a bit more manageable and with checkpoints" to "side scrolling shmup but a bit more manageable and with checkpoints." Shorter, easier game than the original and fun overall, though it has the same issues as the first game where the levels can sometimes drag a bit.

Gorgeous game, similar biomechanical/heavy metal/stop motion style as the first but with in a 3D space this time. On the whole I generally liked this -- a fun action game with cool twists on established shooter action. Bosses were pretty slick.

However, I found it more frustrating than original Valfaris in some ways. Some of the enemies/patterns felt cheap given that they can shoot from offscreen (or at least the millisecond they get on screen) and I felt my character needed a small invincibility window after getting hit. The weapons were mostly cool, though I stuck to the first weapons I got for almost the whole thing.

I don't know. I got it for like $1.50 in a Fanatical bundle, I beat it, I liked it!