Last spring, following the release of Street Fighter V, I thought I was done with fighting games. This had nothing to do with Street Fighter's troubled launch, but was more the acceptance of multiple realities. I had almost no history with fighting games outside of some Mortal Kombat II with friends in junior high and high school and occasional casual play of a few others. I've never been very good at competitive fighting games on the few occasions I did play. I had an, at best, rudimentary understanding of key fighting game concepts like zoning, footsies, and rushdown. I've always been a button masher; even if I knew certain combos or special moves, I struggled to input them successfully and have never had a feel for the key concepts of when to use them and how to do so effectively. Finally, Street Fighter's launch without a story mode to keep me engaged as a casual player crystallized that these types of games simply weren't what I come to games looking for. I appreciate well honed mechanics and responsive controls in all games, but execution for execution's sake isn't what I'm looking for – I want either a story that I'm participating in a la The Witcher or Persona or Mass Effect, or a story I'm helping to craft like in Skyrim or even in sports titles like MLB The Show and Madden. The problem is I'm a sucker for loot in video games. The bigger problem is I'm a bigger sucker for Batman.

Injustice: Gods Among Us was a 2013 fighting game from NetherRealm Studios, the people behind Mortal Kombat. While they had made a DC vs Mortal Kombat game years ago, Injustice was focused solely on DC Universe characters and told a story of Superman, driven mad with power and forming a regime (cleverly named The Regime) to end all crime and war on Earth at the expense of minor annoyances like freedom and free will. The heroes and villains of the DC Universe reshuffled themselves in support of Superman or, of course, Batman in an effort to shape the world into either the terrifying hellscape Superman envisioned or the terrifying hellscape that more closely resembles the modern world. Like all of NetherRealm's games since Mortal Kombat 9 in the Xbox 360/PS3 generation, it played really well and told a story that I wanted to follow. I didn't really have the same connection to the story of Mortal Kombat, but news of an Injustice sequel piqued my interest enough for me to watch some previews, follow roster reveals, and still think this wouldn't be the game for me.

I really am a sucker for Batman. Even though I wasn't impressed with some of the other roster decisions (Captain Cold? Really? When we know you're going to put Mortal Kombat's Sub Zero in the game as a cross-over thing?) I thought I might be enticed by the addition of loot – gear that is character specific that you can apply to your characters to boost their stats. Fighting games have so far resisted the gaming trend to add aspects of other genres and their systems, but this RPG-like feature spoke to my need to get better equipment. I bought Injustice 2, expecting to play through the story on Very Easy mode once and maybe get pulled back into the comic book series based on this story arc. Injustice has surpassed every (admittedly low) expectation I had for it and turned me into a die hard fan of the series, even if that might not translate to fighting games as a whole.

Injustice has a pretty good tutorial that helped ease me into the game. It certainly didn't hurt that you play as Batman. But not only did it demonstrate basic inputs and built on those into combos, it also explained some very, very rudimentary things like air dashes and air escapes and wakeup attacks – all concepts I was aware of from hearing people talk about fighting games but didn't really understand their application. There are also character specific, guided tutorials for everyone on the roster, showing key moves to be familiar with and starting to give you a feel for the character's style of play. This is immensely helpful, as the story has 12 chapters, and each one has you fighting as a different member of the DC Universe, or possibly choosing between two paired characters for each fight in a specific chapter. I completed each fight in one early chapter as Black Canary, jumped into the tutorial for her husband Green Arrow to see how differently he handled, then completed each fight in the same chapter with him using a completely different style. By the time I completed one playthrough of the story, I felt like I had a basic enough understanding of Batman, Harley Quinn, Black Canary, Aquaman, Cyborg, and Supergirl that I could complete match without just button mashing. I probably wouldn't win, but I'd at least know what I was TRYING to do with each character.

But what would I do once I finished the story? Besides replaying the chapters where you choose to fight as one character or the other and playing the ending to see the non-canon "Superman wins" ending, I had no intention of playing online multiplayer. Fortunately, NeatherRealm has built in two modes that I do find fun: The Multiverse and AI Battle Simulator. The Multiverse is the DC-flavored spin on Mortal Kombat's Challenge Towers: you're presented with a series of fights and completing that series will result in rewards (more on those in a moment). Each series of fight may have modifiers like "Gift of Health" that sees health "power ups" appear in the stage and give whoever touches them first a small boost of health. There may be a "meta challenge" to complete each fight without jumping, or you may be prohibited from using any special moves. These are time limited but refresh regularly, providing new challenges and new options to earn loot boxes. Finishing these fights and completing pre-defined objectives results in being rewarded with various tiers of "Mother Boxes," a blind box with one to 5 pieces of gear for a character. Gear is further tiered into Common, Rare, and Epic, and each piece changes the character's cosmetic look and can enhance one or all of their core statistics, like health or strength. I love Diablo. I love Borderlands. I love this game in the same way for letting me find a new way to improve Batman. This also encourages me to try out other characters; that cool Aquman trident looks awesome and makes me harder to beat – let me mess around with him and level him up to where I can equip it!

The mode I'm having the most fun with is AI Battle Simulation. In this, you set a team of three defenders, then are provided with a list of other teams available for battle. These are set by real humans, but you don't actually fight them. You see their chosen characters and each character's level, then choose who from your roster you want to attach with and the battles play out with both teams controlled by the CPU. It's a blast to watch, you can alter your AI behavior some by changing a character's gear and some more meta-stats like focus on rushdown or escapability, but the fight is largely out of your hands. You can even speed these up and watch at 2x, 4x, and 8x speed. It's a blast, and, winning a fight gives you a "gold" tier loot box (up to 5 a day while attacking) while losing nets you a "bronze" tier box. There is a limit on how many loot boxes you can win per day while attacking, but winning fights still adds some XP to your characters who participate and your overall profile level. You also win boxes if you're chosen to defend by another player, and I don't know if those are time limited. The mode is a blast and rewards me for watching DC characters fight without the stress of having to be good at anything beyond stat management.

I'm honestly stunned to be enjoying Injustice 2 as much as I am. I love that the story embraces its comic book nature, is over the top, and makes Superman a real jerk. I feel like even if I'm not good at the game, I am getting better and understanding the concepts behind fighting game strategy and character strengths and usage. And the "loot lust" to get one more piece of better gear keeps pulling me back in for a few more rounds in the Multiverse or AI Battle Simulator. And of course, if you want a friendly match, expect me to use my main, Batman. (You'll still win)

(And I'm sorry about the title. I couldn't help myself)