The first installment in Telltale’s Batman series is exactly what you would expect. The creators clearly have no intention of competing with Rocksteady’s Arkham series, so they’ve gone in a direction which is more suited to their abilities. With more story, world and character building focus, the first episode, ‘Realm of Shadows’, does a great job of setting up the remainder of what’s to come.
The game opens with the Caped Crusader foiling a robbery attempt at the mayor’s office. By following on-screen prompts, you’ll take down armed mercenaries in typical Dark Knight fashion. The action is well portrayed on screen, and despite the lack of direct involvement in combat, you get a real feel for every punch Batman throws and every trick or gadget he uses to outfox his enemies. The action cuts back and forth between the aftermath of the event and the event itself — Bruce Wayne tending to his injuries while debating his actions and their consequences with Alfred at Wayne Manor, and the act of causing justifiable bodily harm to the perpetrators of the robbery.
Interestingly, it wasn’t the Batman section of the prologue that interested me. I don’t think there’s been a game where players have been able to step into Bruce Wayne’s shoes, particularly this early in Batman’s story. In Telltale’s game, The Dark Knight hasn’t been around for very long (with the first episode, in effect, almost serving as an ‘origins’ story), and is still seen as a criminal; not as a vigilante. The interactive aspect of reasoning with Alfred, justifying your actions, admitting fault and creating your own Bruce Wayne is very appealing indeed. While playing as Batman, you’ll beat some heads in as well as do a little bit of detective work.
However, the game holds all its punches despite the on-screen avatar throwing his fair share, particularly in the puzzle department. While the combat seemed to flow freely, with the option of taking down enemies in more than one way, the one crime scene investigation in the game left me underwhelmed due to its inherent lack of complexity (Arkham’s ‘turn on detective mode and get to the other side of the map’ puzzles feel more intricately crafted by comparison).
Fortunately, there’s more Bruce Wayne in Realm of Shadows than Batman. Expect to be thrown into different situations: a fundraising event, a press conference, uncomfortable encounters with mob boss Carmine Falcone, Oswald “soon to be Penguin” Cobblepot and Selina Kyle. Managing these interactions and suffering the consequences of Bruce’s actions, both on himself and his alter ego, makes for an interesting story to experience. Now, the manner in which decisions individually or collectively impact the story remains to be seen, but the illusion remains, and that’s not a bad thing from the player’s perspective.
The story in Realm of Shadows is definitely one worth telling — it’s a wonderful mix of what we’ve seen in the movies, animated series and comic books. The writing is good, if not spectacular (a little less dwelling on the murder of Bruce’s parents would have been nice), while the voice acting fits the bill — you’re likely to take note of some familiar voices in unfamiliar roles. The visual story is a good one as well. Telltale has developed a signature visual style, which seems to fit glove-like with this particular story.
Telltale’s games have evolved (or devolved, as some may argue), from being more traditional point-and-click adventures (Tales of Monkey Island), to quick-time event laden visual novels (Game of Thrones, Tales from the Borderlands). With little-to-no learning curve to speak of, the games became more accessible, with the illusion of story-impacting player-made decisions being maintained through the adventures. This remains the case with Batman as well. This isn’t detrimental to Telltale’s first outing with their new franchise, but they will need to step up their game if they intend to leave an impression as lasting as the Arkham titles.
Overall, Batman – The Telltale Series is a good first effort at telling a new story about good old bats, and definitely worth picking up on PC for the low price of Rs 619 for the whole season (5 episodes). The game is also available on PS4 (Rs 2,750) and Xbox One (Rs 1,500), with Android and iOS versions expected to be released at a later date.
Note on the PC version: This almost seems mandatory these days, with PC players appearing to get the sharp end of the stick from most developers. There are many negative reviews on Steam complaining about poor performance on PC. If you’re a PC player, you might want to monitor the situation. However, I was fortunate enough to enjoy a smooth experience (I had a locked 60fps at 1920×1080 with no crashes). However, I did experience the oddest error — upon accessing the Codex console in the Batcave (before I was supposed to, perhaps?), I was unable to back out of it. This meant that I had to reload my checkpoint.
RATING: 7.5/10
Pros
Best Bruce Wayne simulator yet
Well written and voice acted
Visual style
Cons
Batman sections lack any sort of depth
PC performance issues
Review PC Specifications:
CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 @ 3.20GHz
GPU: GeForce GTX 970
RAM: 16GB
OS: Window 10 Pro
Minimum PC Requirements:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz
GPU: Nvidia GTS 450+ with 1024MB+ VRAM (excluding GT)
RAM: 3 GB RAM
OS: Windows 7 64-Bit Service Pack 1
Additional Notes: Not Recommended for Intel integrated graphics
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