Batman: Return to Arkham Reviews
Batman: Return To Arkham is a good way to experience both games if you haven't already played them previously. Returning players and PC gamers will probably be better off sticking to the original releases, which still hold up quite well, despite the technical improvements.
With many recent reissues one may think that Return to Arkham would only be for the true fans of the series.
Expect perfect gameplay that’s as wonderful as you remember, let down by lazy and unnecessary remastering. And part of us thinks that the Clown Prince of Crime is behind it all, because the last laugh is on you. You may don the cowl and cape, but don’t expect to see Arkham in a different light.
Arkham Asylum ranks up there with the best of the last-generation and is simply a must-play.
Overall, the Return to Arkham wasn’t quite as welcoming as I’d hoped it would be. The changes to certain character models and environments, be it subtle or blatant, have combined to strip the Asylum of some of its creepy charm, whilst technical issues mar both titles in the collection. It almost feels like the game could do with another few months of development, even after the delay, as the performance is something that could theoretically be tweaked and improved. Hopefully the team at Virtuos can get some patches together and tighten up the frame rate and adjust some of the lighting and colour grading, because if they do? This will be essential. As it stands, though, it’s a collection of two technically underwhelming ports of two incredible games that make some disappointing art style choices.
In my book, this game scores a good ‘ol 7. Of course, the upgrades done on this game cannot be simply ignored and its just the remastered version of its ancestor so I won’t beat it down that much. ‘Nuff said.
Batman: Return to Arkham is neither the game that Gotham fanboys deserve or need right now. Not even the dark knight can foil a plot to downgrade the visuals of two video games which defined his legend for a new medium several years ago.
There’s only so much that the excellent Arkham Asylum and Arkham City can do for this remaster collection, however. It should have been an easy slam dunk: port the game over to the Unreal Engine 4, apply some polish, maybe through in some behind-the-scenes features, and profit! Instead, what we end up with is a poorly-optimized port which sees even the older Arkham Asylum stuttering from the game’s first moments, and some odd lighting that cuts into the otherwise excellent ambiance of both games. Then there’s the glaring omission of Batman: Arkham Origins. It all adds up to feeling like an unfinished product. If you already have both Asylum and City on their original platforms, you can safely skip this re-release.
While the underlying games hold up as well as they ever did, Batman: Return to Arkham as a remasterwas very disappointing — especially compared to others that masterfully retouch games like Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection or Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Of the two, only Arkham Ayslum’s remaster is worth playing through; with no additional content beyond both games’ previous DLC, I would only recommend Return to Arkham to either die-hard Batman fans or those who don’t have access to an Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City are amazing games, but this collection doesn't stand up to the same quality. The visuals have been improved, but at a loss of the dark ambiance of the originals. The 30 fps frame rate isn't locked, with the occasional stutter marring the experience. Worse, there's no new content available here. If you own either game on PC, there's no reason to get Return to Arkham.
The Batman: Return to Arkham collection is the video-game equivalent of that old “You Had One Job” meme.