Conveyor for the production of moral interactive series from Telltale Games works non-stop, but the authors clearly have to make a difficult choice themselves: which series to continue first? And they make controversial decisions. The public has clearly wanted a second season for a long time The Wolf Among Us and new Tales from the Borderlands, but here it comes out Minecraft: Story Mode… The continuation of the episodic adventures of Batman and Bruce Wayne in one courageous person was also not in the top three of the top list of expectations, but it was as inevitable as the release of the next comic book about the flying superhero. Moreover, apparently, it was a matter of honor for the authors to work on the mistakes.
If you do not have saves from the first season, then before the start of the second you can recreate your own history of key decisions made earlier.
Looking for connection
Let’s talk about mistakes right away. The main thing that the first season was criticized for was poor technical execution. So, in Batman: The Enemy Within this is all right, at least in the PC version. I didn’t notice any drop in frame rate or “glitches”, and everything is fine with high resolutions.
In the gameplay itself, changes are minimal, and they weren’t really needed. The main thing that stood out about the first season was the very dynamic, non-linear, combo-based QTE and quest elements with the search for evidence, their logical connection and the further building of the correct chain of events based on them. All this has become even more dynamic, variable and diverse.
Here, for example, somehow more often right in a fight, on the run, you have to choose how and with what to knock out enemies. And at the end of one grandiose fight, you need to have time to select several points at once in order to attach hooks to them and hold a huge metal cube, threatening to crush people in the casino. At the very beginning of the episode, our superhero is given a new drone, and at the end this gun shoots loudly: with its help, we must first correctly connect key objects and characters in order to understand how to blow up the cage where Batman was put, and then stop the launched missiles.
Using the same principle, by finding and https://ukcryptocasinos.co.uk/review/golden-pharaoh-casino/ linking similar words, we decipher an important radio signal. In general, about Batman: The Enemy Within you can’t say it like they often said about many other interactive series Telltale Games: these are, they say, exclusively dialogues and simple QTEs – the game is much more like a full-fledged action/adventure game.
Who are you, Batman?
But the main thing that has changed in Batman: The Enemy Within, – this is, of course, a plot. And the point is not only and not so much in the plot itself, which tells about the confrontation with the Riddler and the Joker and Harley Quinn looming behind him, but in the shift in emphasis.
In the first season, we saw a rather unusual story about a still young Bruce Wayne, and the writers largely focused on his inner world, on the need for constant splitting, throwing his personality between a superhero in a tight suit and a successful businessman. Plus the most difficult personal drama associated with finding out the truly shocking truth about Bruce’s parents and their role in Gotham.
Therefore, the confrontation with the Penguin, Two-Face and Lady Arkham was in many ways the background for the revelation of the inner world of the Dark Knight. Even his melodramatic relationship with Selina, Catwoman, was more compelling than fights with supervillains.
Here, in the first episode, we are told a more typical superhero story and are immediately forced to dash the faces of the Riddler and his minions. No, the theme of forced split personalities and wearing masks is also present, and from time to time we again have to choose in which image – Batman or Bruce Wayne – to solve problems, whether to break the code of the Dark Knight, framing others and brutalizing enemies, or not.
There is also personal drama associated with the loss of a close friend. But this is rather strained, due to inertia. And more and more attention is focused on the spectacular confrontation with the Riddler. The story is no less interesting, it’s just more traditional. In any case, for now – this is just the beginning.
Dilemmas and trauma
At the same time, you can evaluate the consequences of some decisions made in the first season and new ones (for example, regarding James Gordon, Gotham’s chief police officer).
And although we won’t have to decide who lives and who dies, our behavior still risks leading to unpleasant consequences – for example, one pretty girl may go deaf. In the finale, we learn that this will cause her mental trauma, and it will be all the more interesting to see how this will be reflected in the future, because it is with her that the hint of a new romantic relationship for the Dark Knight is connected.
By the way, in Batman: The Enemy Within, like in the third season The Waking Dead, a more visual system for building relationships with key characters is used. At the end we are shown what they became and as a result of what actions.
Starting episode Batman: The Enemy Within inspires exceptional optimism. There are no technical problems noticed at the beginning of the first season, the gameplay looks even a little more dynamic and varied, and the plot immediately confronts us with a cool supervillain who once kept all of Gotham in fear, and intrigues us with the brewing confrontation with the Joker and cutie Harley Quinn. Yes, perhaps someone will not like that the story here is told in a more traditional way, without the same emphasis on the internal drama and suffering of the young Batman, but this, as they say, is a matter of taste. And it’s too early to draw final conclusions.
Pros: a spectacular confrontation with the Riddler; the gameplay has become more dynamic and varied; a new system for building relationships with key characters.