BATMAN - The Telltale Series - Episode 4: Guardian of Gotham Reviews
While this is the weakest episode in Batman’s Telltale series yet, my investment in the unpredictable, multi-layered plot hasn’t wavered, thanks to the critical state of each of Bruce Wayne’s relationships. Episode four’s first act felt like it was just filling in time for the season finale, but some conflicts have still been built upon, including showcasing how the people of Gotham are reacting to the intense political climate. I’m still excited to jump into the season finale - especially to see the consequence of the series’ weightiest decision.
Though the limited interactivity during combat sequences is grating, this episode is one of the best in the series
Despite the abrupt ending in Guardian, Batman: A Telltale Games Series has been one of the most consistent works the developer has put out to date. I still get the occasional audio or jerky animation issue on PC, but at least on my machine, nothing in the first four episodes rang any major alarm bells. With just one chapter left, I think you're in the all clear for going all in on this.
Guardian of Gotham is a solid episode, but outside of a few little flashes, doesn’t excite or intrigue me as much as what went before. I’m torn on whether or not I like the Joker’s appearance, it doesn’t have time to really linger too much in the moment, and ultimately, it’s just one of those episodes that takes you part way on a journey without getting you to your destination.
Batman: The Telltale Series - Episode 4 might take a different narrative path than most players would expect, but overall it works well. While the Children of Arkham story kind of takes a backseat, what is presented here is engaging and fun. It also does a good job of tying up a couple of its many loose ends, and setting up for a climactic finale in the next episode. However, the minor technical issues that have been present since the beginning are massively exacerbated here, to the point that they impact the enjoyment players can have with the game. Perhaps after an update is issued things will get better. Hopefully the final episode is crafted with more care.
Framerate hiccups, a few glitches and seemingly missing audio still rear their ugly head occasionally but certainly aren’t game breaking.
A solid enough penultimate episode, but the overall quality of this series hinges on how Telltale brings the threads together to finish it.
"Guardian of Gotham" is some of Telltale's best writing to date. It masterfully paces several dangling story threads into one tightly delivered penultimate episode while also seeming to build the greater Bat-verse for future seasons. It's exciting and uniquely theirs at this point.
Guardian of Gotham continues on downward trend of this rickety episodic series. The script is sometimes too hasty, full of omissions, insignificant moral choiches and insipid plot twists.
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While it may mark a slight bump in the road, Episode 4 nonetheless still offers plenty of great action and suspense that builds on what has been offered so far, and with only episode to go I’m still looking forward (more than ever) to see where the path leads in the finale to Bruce and Batman’s story.
Clocking in at about an hour and a half, episode four did what it had to do to drive the story along without overstaying its welcome. While I would have liked a little more explanation from one of the plot points that was skimmed over way too quickly, Guardian of Gotham was otherwise a prime example of Telltale’s character development and relationship expertise.
Batman: The Telltale Series – Episode 4: Guardian of Gotham follows up nicely on the plot twists and themes introduced in Episode 3, providing Batman with his darkest and most challenging video game story yet. The proceedings border on unpleasant at times, but then again, it's Gotham we're talking about here.
This review will contain spoilers for all previous episodes and the current episode of Batman The Telltale Series. Here are our previous reviews for episode 1, episode 2, and episode 3.For everything that Guardian of Gotham does right, it makes all the wrong moves to get there. The story reaches a precipice of intensity after a very slow burn over the last three episodes, and the dire situations at hand seem impossible to resolve within a single finale, with far too many threads left open after the conclusion of this penultimate episode. I really wish that the story had built to this level of intensity much earlier instead of waiting this long, but it’s great to finally see this Batman tale coming to fruition with real stakes for the dark knight, even if it has to come through forced storytelling and a poor use of the engine.
If Guardian of Gotham tense atmosphere and hard choices are anything to by in this penultimate episode, then Telltale is on the verge of delivering the definitive Batman story in video game form.
An enjoyable experience with a disappointing final act. There's still plenty of potential left, if Season 2 ever comes along.
Completely self-supporting; and that’s okay.
Telltale’s Batman tale continues to impress and overcome its minor technical glitches to deliver one hell of a dark knight mystery.
Aside from the few technical issues we mentioned, the game was top notch as always. It seemed longer than other episodes. We have yet to play episode 5, but a friend and fellow gamer told us that episode 5 is one hour long. The episodes were said to be 20 minutes long. Episode 3 was easily half an hour. So be prepared to have a good amount of time set aside come episode 5.
Batman: The Telltale Series' fourth episode successfully avoids the pitfalls Telltale's penultimate episodes usually have, Guardian of Gotham is another great entry in to what may end up as Telltale's finest hour.
Overall I'd say the game remains stable. There's not much point to doing ranking for individual aspects, but in comparison to Episodes 1-3, the story takes a small hit this time. However, replayability gets a nice boost for sure and a couple small tweaks introduce just enough variation to the mix to give gameplay a small upward adjustment.