Review Of Telltale’s Batman Episode 5: City Of Light
The final showdown between Batman & Lady Arkham happens in Episode 5: Children Of Light
Here we are, the finale of Telltale’s first season of their take on Batman. In my opinion, episodes 3 & 4 took some pretty hilariously awful turns in terms of story. And unfortunately, story is all a Telltale game every has going for it. Does it manage to reverse course in episode 5 and provide a satisfying finale while leaving plenty of things open for a seemingly inevitable second season? Read on to find out.
I’ve spoken at length about my issues with the technical performance of Telltale’s Batman series. Originally I wasn’t planning to focus it too much on it here, but honestly episode 5 might be the worst of the bunch. There’s numerous frame rate issues, lots of noticeable missed sound cues and one freaky glitch of a character in a scene that is just eyeballs and a mouth. Granted, nothing here is game-breaking, but that’s only because there’s so little “game” to begin with.
So, according to Telltale, based on your decision on what you decided to do in episode 4. Did you decide to stop the Penguin and cut off his access to your tech? Or did you run to Wayne Manor to save your home and Alfred from Mayor Two Face and his crime squad? It’s supposed to show some real consequences to your choices, but it all ends up in the same place. With Alfred being kidnapped and you having to rescue him from Lady Arkham in a final showdown.
The worst part of this episode might be the “detective sequences”, as they have little reason for being included other than that they’ve been a feature from episode one. Like it takes Batman 20 minutes to figure out what happened at Wayne Manor when Alfred was kidnapped. Why? Do you need something other than “there was a fight and he was kidnapped”? Your investigation doesn’t reveal any clues as to where he was taken at that point, it just lays out the fight. This is one of two sequences like this where it’s taking a very long time to point out the extremely obvious and you aren’t doing any useful detective work.
I thought the final confrontation between Lady Arkham and Batman was done pretty well, actually. The epilogue was kind of dumb and absurd but a lot may hinge on what happens in season two, which they have set up a lot of stuff for. At the end of the day, this is Telltale’s Batman, you’ve been on board this long because you like where they are going with it, technical and gameplay issues be damned, or you probably jumped off awhile ago and never looked back. I would be perfectly fine with there not being a season two, but it doesn’t look like this is ending anytime soon.