So with the release of episode 5 the first season of Batman: The Telltale Series comes to a close and I'm eager to know what y'all thought of it as well.

I'll get this out of the way first: Yes the game played pretty much like trash, stuttering, crashing, the whole party of problems. In the final confrontation with Lady Arkham my game outright froze and I had to restart just as we got to the fighting!

But as a story (which I'd argue is Telltale's real strength over gameplay), I'd say that was a pretty well done thing. I'd never expected Vicky to turn out to be Lady Arkham, nor for them to violate the traditionally accepted Wayne parents legacy. They really tried to make it their own Batman and I'd argue that they succeeded. I've never really given the "Bruce Wayne" side of things much thought in a Batman game but in a Telltale series, yeah it absolutely works! There's plenty of serious discussion about how to implement lasting change. The whole arc about getting Harvey into office so he can change the city? That was great and I loved the relationship you got to build with Harvey.

That's another thing I really liked about the game: the relationships. I've pretty much been describing it to my friends as "Batman...but you're good buds with most of the villains" and that's what it comes across as sometimes. Batman can often come across as pretty ruthless, it's part of why he is so feared (hell I'd say it's a running joke that his takedowns in the Arkham games look lethal as opposed to knockout moves). Yet by making each of the villains somewhat connected to him makes you consider the more compassionate side of Batman. You know Harvey before mental illness kicks in and he becomes Two-Face. In fact I don't even think they refer to him as Two-Face at all if you play your cards right. In my story he never became the fully-deformed individual, his face was intact and yet in trailers I've seen the fully burned Two-Face that everyone knows. Seeing that made me feel like my compassion and efforts to help him out (or just my decisions in general) had actually mattered. It made me genuinely pretty concerned about his wellbeing. Though this isn't exclusive to Harvey, my Bruce/Batman made a fair show of apologising to Oz about all the monstrous things that had happened to him. If anything I felt the takedown of him was pretty harsh, I didn't feel there was any real comforting thing to say there which eh...I guess they can't get it all the time but eh. I felt the conclusion to that plotthread was pretty rushed actually. Why would Penguin attend the park personally for another Bat-trap? Why would he be alone? He's the head of Wayne Enterprises why would he risk this? Leaving episode 4, it felt like a huge handicap and yet it was resolved pretty quickly. I felt the same with the "Bruce gets put into Arkham" plotline though I figured they couldn't keep him there too long for plot reasons.

Still overall a very enjoyable experience and I look forward to more.

Here's some of the choices I made:

• Let Falcone into the parlour but was rarely kind to him. Only time I was kind to him was when I gave him Morphine and didn't brutalise him when I took him down.
• I was Harvey's best bro and had his back most of the time. I continued to fund him even when he wanted to distance himself, always tried to save him even when against Selena although....
• I did pursue a romance with Selena. What can I say? It felt right in the moment and I never really got the picture that Harvey and Selena were that serious from the one meeting at the cafe. Then again maybe I'm just making excuses for myself at this point.
• I punched Cobblepot right in his smarmy face...once. It was a real foul move he did dropping that pocketwatch, figured I'd leave him with a souvenir of his own. It was great, you get to crack jokes about the black eye he's got at the press conference the next day. That said I did respect the things he'd went through and how he'd been twisted so much. I felt the tiny flashback cutscene in episode 5 with young Bruce and Oz in the park was really quite touching. It's why I wished there was a more compassionate ending to Oz's tale because he'd really been through a lot.
• I made a deal with that fine upstanding fellah John Doe. Though in the end I didn't even take him up on his offer, choosing to stop the fight instead. Part of that was down to me thinking "The plot will probably break me out of here anyway" but sure I don't want to see anyone get brutally murdered. Plus he was genuinely helpful there. Whether I keep that promise in season 2...eh we'll see. Knowing what I know about John in other batman fiction I don't think there's really going to be any value in trying to help him the way you can try and help Harvey and Oz.
• I revealed my identity to save Alfred...kinda wished she had taken it better though.

I know there's obviously more decisions than these to be made but those are the bigger all-encompassing ones off the top of my head.

So what do you think of the whole package? What choices did you make?

This may have been the fastest a Telltale season has wrapped up, so kudos to them for that. Funnily enough, this actually ran pretty well for me until the opening action sequence of the very last game, at which point the framerate took a total nosedive.

I enjoyed this season overall, mostly for where the story turned. I didn't expect them not to treat the Wayne family as the sacred cow it usually is, and instead made them as dirty as the rest of Gotham. I halfway remember that there was some comic storyline a few years back where they almost went there, but it's still pretty gutsy of them to do that. I am as sick of that alleyway as I am of the spider bite in Spider-Man media, so any fresh take on some of that stuff is welcome.

My thoughts on some of the choices I made

• I allowed Harvey to get disfigured and instead saved Selina. At this point I guess I was guilty of thinking, "this is a Telltale game, he'll just become Two-Face some other way if I save him here." It's interesting to hear that he doesn't get disfigured at all though, but I wonder what leads him to becoming a tyrant if his face isn't busted. I did also hook up with Selina and he got pretty mad about that, but what if you don't sleep with her?
• Asked Selina to stay at the mansion, and then she immediately leaves in episode 4. She just totally disappears from this game, only appearing in a couple scenes after that. I thought she would be a bigger part of the story.
• Didn't take John Doe's deal. I was actually happy with their restraint in not using this guy, but I never really expected them not to bring him up. Either way, I didn't want to owe him anything.
• I didn't reveal my identity to Vicky. Okay, Alfred is my boy, so right here I'm thinking "they can't kill off Alfred" and put all my faith in that. Besides, he got a sweet eyepatch out of it, so everything worked out better than expected.

First off, yeah the game really had some performance issues. However, in regards to that first action scene in the finale (the one at the cafe), if you disconnect from the Internet, it runs WAY smoother. Seriously.

Outside of the mess of technical stuff, I actually thought the season itself was great. One of the better Batman stories I've seen in a while, with some fascinating interpretations of established characters. That, and some really solid action scenes (especially the final one, I thought that was one of Telltale's better action scenes, period) really helped to sell me on it. I personally can't wait for a theoretical Season 2, which it certainly seemed to be building up to.

This reminded me of a mix of Batman year one, and The long Halloween. There were personal elements that served to humanize Bruce Wayne and therefore batman as well. There were also really great detective and action sequences that showed off what batman can do.

I think they created a great story about a man, first and foremost, and that is why batman is relatable in both good and bad ways. I also replayed a few sequences and was surprised not at how everything changed and felt connected, but at how multiple outcomes led to very different internalizations of Bruce's experiences and emotions. He tries, he fails, he doubts, and ultimately does his best to live up to the moral compass that he created. It's not a world where batman saves everyone and no one dies.

Anyways, I really enjoyed the series. There were a ton of technical issues, horrible textures/models, and even some weird series of logic. In the end it delivered on what it tried to accomplish though - telling a good story.

@redyoshi:

ALFRED GETS A SWEET EYEPATCH?! My line of thinking went something actually different. It wasn't "They can't kill off Alfred," it was more "they can't let her live and know," because someone who knows Batman's identity is crippling. Fate proved us both right haha. It made for a cool finale really where we both fight with our masks off and then she blasts part of Bruce's ear off. I'm in agreement with other folks that the final fightscene was really pretty great when it works. Whenever I think of QTE fights I harken back to the Krauser vs Leon knife fight in RE4 as the Gold Standard and this one felt smooth exciting and dynamic as I'd hoped. Her Jet boots and concussion staff making her a pretty good match for a techless Batman. Hell the fact it was Vicky who turned out to be Lady Arkham was pretty unique too.

As for his face, he gets like a slight bruising from the beating penguin gave him but he's perfectly normal looking. In that one he mentions the drug caused some stuff from his childhood to resurface according to his therapist. Then he starts to act out the other personality with the coin. Starts getting paranoid that the Children of Arkham are everywhere and comes down hard on them.

I asked Selina to leave. Episode 3 really hammers home how Harvey thought he actually had a relationship with Selena and so I felt really bad for betraying him. Felt it was right to distance myself a bit after that.

By the way was the huge blue henchman meant to be Solomon Grundy or something?

It's kind of a real bummer that the game sets up this entirely new fascinating universe and then immediately drops all of it by the last episode to shift things back to a typical Batman status quo. I'd have liked to have seen Selina Kyle become a bigger part of the storyline, or for the Harvey stuff to have led to something more signifcant than a brief moment in the last episode, or... well, anything. Lady Arkham's a pretty great baddie though, so kudos on that storyline.

Also, the game hard locked on me at least three times. Three. That's crazy.

It wasn't my favorite Telltale series or anything but overall, I thought it was pretty solid. Better than Game of Thrones at least. I appreciated that they didn't just re-tell some tired Batman story and instead took a different approach. I assume the Lady Arkham stuff is exclusive to the game though I'm not a Batman lore expert by any means. I do wish there was a bit more of her since her only real showcase is in the final scene. As far of the some of the choices I made,

• I really tried to be Harvey's friend as much as I could (I saved him over Selina though my reasoning was that she's Catwoman, she can probably defend herself). Though I did end up pursuing Selina, which I guess is kind of a dick move.
• I made the deal with "John Doe" and went through with it. The game kind of asks you role play here since obviously, you know who he really is and obviously, you know you shouldn't trust but Bruce didn't know that so I just played dumb.
• I revealed my identity at the end. Alfred is ride or die, couldn't let him get done in like that and she ended up dead anyway (maybe, we never see the body, I guess).

@pierre42: Yeah, the fight was cool. I enjoyed a lot of the action scenes throughout the game, especially the ones where you get to plan out your attack method beforehand. Of course, all of it only really boils down to a choice of cutscene between Batman smacking a goon with a chair vs kicking him into a wall, but it's still a nice way to shake things up.

The Selina stuff just felt so odd to me. Harvey knew her for like, a day or two? Granted, that's about as long as Bruce ends up knowing her before she splits, but the way she's barely part of the story in the end except for the skeleton key stuff feels like big missed opportunities. I had assumed that by having Selina stay at the mansion, she'd be around to help out Alfred in case something happens. It all just makes me wonder what it would have been like if we were able to perhaps start a relationship with Vicky, and how it would play into the finale. I know you can be friendly to her early on, but I think by episode 3 anything else is pretty much off the table.

Also, the blue guy is Blockbuster, apparently.

I played the game as the worst person I could possibly be and it was pretty fantastic, even if they wipe away all consequence at the end regardless (seriously, everyone just forgot Batman impaled a guy on live TV around episode 4 and I don't know why). They kinda back-pedalled on how MUCH of an asshole you could be, unfortunately, but it was still super satisfying to constantly be in the minority for the choices for once.

Especially when Alfred turned into Big Boss.

@teddie:

Oh man tell me what constitutes being the "worst person I could possibly be?" I guess you brutalised Falcone but who is the guy who gets impaled on TV at episode 4?

@pierre42: I think he meant that they had forgotten about him impaling Falcone by Episode 4. Easy mistake.

@pierre42: Yup, sorry, there's only the one impaling and it's Falcone in episode 1. I don't think you ever get the option to brutalize someone ever again after the first episode. All the interrogations after ep1 give you the option to punch someone in the gut at most, which makes me wonder if someone stepped in and told them to tone it down?

Eh, really? They've done the whole "I want you but you're dangerous" thing in almost every single iteration of that character and Telltale jumped on that train by episode 2-- I was actually happy they didn't give her more limelight since they didn't bother to give her anything unique character-wise.

@teddie: That's what I mean. They had a chance to do something with that relationship they haven't really done in the comics or other versions, and they didn't. Instead it winds up being the status quo.

@sparky_buzzsaw: I saw some other grousing about that when I was searching around the internet to see how much various decisions change the game. I don't think I agree. Catwoman isn't Catwoman if she's actually faithful and reliable and there for you like another Batgirl. People like Catwoman as she is - desirable, flawed, and puts herself first sometimes. A change to that formula would disappoint me and probably a lot of other people once they saw how bland that made her. If anything, I was annoyed at how easy it was to warm the cockles of her heart by giving her inspirational speeches. I'll grant you she didn't have a secret past that was revealed or anything like that in this season like some of the others, but they haven't laid out her past, so that could easily come back later.

My thoughts on the series overall were that it was probably both my favorite Telltale game and my favorite Batman story in a game, so that's pretty good for their first effort. As usual, the story branching was more illusion and narrative framing than anything that leads to multiple story outcomes, but we've all lived through the era of "choice matters" and seen the perils that can bring for anything that is intended to last past one installment. Which, I assume this is. They certainly foreshadowed a season 2 and it's hard to think of anything more serialized than Batman. As with everyone, I hope that they improve their engine by then, though that would likely delay its release.

@veektarius: I don't think they will ever fix the engine at this point. Telltale has turned into an adventure game factory at this point. I don't see them delaying all of their projects; especially with people like all of us that just keep playing their games.

I haven't finished the last episode yet, but I've enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The stuff they did with Batman's parents was new & interesting (to me anyway) and, as always, being a mostly-silent asshole has been really entertaining.

I have extremely positive and extremely negative thoughts on the season, but I'm not really sure how to organize my thoughts in a coherent manner.

The most important thing that needs to be said though is in a game where you have to match a button prompt to do pretty much any menial task, why the fuck isn't there a button prompt when you're given the option to unzip Catwoman's costume?!?!?!?!

Kick Falcone out. Screw him

Allowed Harvey to be disfigured.

Pursued a romance with Selena.

Punched Cobblepot in the face. Screw him too.

Made a deal with John Doe. He seems like a fun guy.

Went after my tech, let the mansion burn.

Revealed my identity to save Alfred.

Not bad. But Vickie Vale as a criminal was hard to swallow. Thank goodness for season 3 of the Walking Dead. Still the worst Telltale game is Game of Thrones. But this isn't that much better.