Batman: Return to Arkham Reviews
With Rocksteady turning their back on the caped crusader now that Arkham VR is out in the wild, this is your chance to own the defining titles that put them on the map, now with more clarity and pizazz than ever.
Batman: Return to Arkham is a good, but not great, package. The games have both aged very well and are still plenty of fun to play, and the remaster allows newcomers to experience them. However, the inconsistent remastering job means that it's tough to be overly impressed. Return to Arkham is effectively a mediocre port of two excellent games. If you've never experience the Arkham games before, then this is a good starting point, but returning fans may be more disappointed than excited by some of the changes. There's still a lot to like in the collection, and the nagging flaws aren't enough to distract from the excellent games.
Arkham Asylum is one of the best Action Adventure games I've ever played. The game is a perfect simulation of "being The Batman" and narrates a great story based on Batman's comics. The gameplay is based on three important property of the Batman's character. Stealth, Hand to hand combat and of course "The Greatest Detective in the World" stuff.
Review in Persian | Read full review
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.
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.
Arkham Asylum ranks up there with the best of the last-generation and is simply a must-play.
Batman’s popularity may be wearing a little bit as his novelty was quite high for a number of years, but playing as The Batman is something that will just never get boring regardless of the time.
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.
With many recent reissues one may think that Return to Arkham would only be for the true fans of the series.
Overall, Batman: Return to Arkham is a good purchase if you haven’t picked up the games included before or just want to return to the games and check out the DLC content at a lower price. The graphics could still be improved greatly but they are suffcient for now.
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.