Batman: The Telltale Series is an episodic point and click game by Telltale Games, based upon the Batman franchise and is a new original story. No prior knowledge of Batman is required although it helps a lot in understanding why some facts are so impactful to Bruce Wayne when he finds out. You'll also see a few familiar faces and names, before the point that they become Batman's iconic enemies. The game is basically a glorified cutscene with some interactivity. As the cutscene plays, you'll have some QTEs and must press the button shown onscreen in order to progress. These prompts will allow Batman to fight, use his gadgets and investigate.
A major element is dialogue branches for both Bruce and Batman. These frequent points in the story where you get the choice will shape later scenes. For example, Bruce shaking the hand of a known criminal will come back later to bite you when a scandal happens. There will be hints that allow the player to know which decisions would have a later impact. A lot of these dialogue or action branches are usually placed at a tough decision point, and because there is a limited time to make these decisions, it puts a bit of pressure since you know that it might affect you negatively later on down the line. It keeps the player invested.
Lastly, there are investigation sections where you control Bruce. Bruce has limited mobility in these sections as you're regulated to walking around and clicking on everything to obtain clues and piece together what happened. Objects that can be interacted are conveniently highlighted, to not break the pacing of the game. The graphics are in a cel-shaded style and looks pretty good. However, disappointingly, there are stutters from time to time and slight framerate drops. The animations can be awkward, especially walking animations where they turn suddenly and unnaturally. Despite the patches, there are still the occasional sound glitches.
The game is split into five episodes, originally each released one month apart. Each episode takes around 1.5 hours to 2 hours to finish, with the whole game taking around 8-10 hours. To be honest, there's not much replayability afterwards since even though there are branching dialogue that has a ripple effect, the changes aren't significant enough.
Episode 1 is called Realm of Shadows and we get to learn about this iteration of Bruce Wayne. A bunch of characters are introduced, the most significant revelation being that Bruce is supporting Harvey Dent in the major election. Gotham's infamous gangster Carmine Falcone comes to Bruce and gives him a shocking revelation about this father. While in the background, other players are starting to make their move and the story slowly presents that these threads are all interconnected with each other. The stakes steadily escalate as the episode goes on and it doesn't relent its pace, capturing your interest.
Episode 2 is Children of Darkness and it begins with Bruce investigating the situation regarding the death of his parents back when he was nine years old. It is a familiar scene but expanded to fit within the scope of this game's story. Throughout this episode, the main cast starts to come together into their most well known personas. Batman recruits some allies in order to help him tackle the growing threat and like the first episode, it builds up to a nice climax that was exciting as well as highly impactful to the plot. You are not sure how Bruce is going to get himself out of the situation he is in.
Episode 3 is called New World Order and this is the episode where the main villains rise to power and Bruce's future seems bleak. It has a slow pace for most of the episode with less action and a lot more talking. This episode is spend developing the characters and solidifying their personalities. The plot points were obvious and something the player would have already guessed. However, it redeems itself in its last chapter where it threw a pretty big twist that changes the whole angle on things and makes for a pretty big cliffhanger for the next episode.
Episode 4 is called Guardian of Gotham and introduces an unexpected character late into the game. It feels like this new character will either have a large role in the last part of the game or more likely, for the sequel. The villains make their move and severely cripple both Bruce Wayne and Batman, and it makes you wonder how Bruce will get out of this one, considering how much damage to his reputation he has already taken. The episode is great at forcing the player to make tough choices, and there is a particularly neat one late into the episode where you must choose where to go, promising a unique and fairly significant event depending on your choice. It's a shame that there is no easy chapter select since it's a waste of time to replay the whole episode with unskippable cutscenes just to do something differently in one of the later branch offs.
Episode 5 is City of Light and is the final episode. After the tense build up of the previous episode, the ending felt a bit... lacking. The pacing felt out of whack and it slowed down too much and couldn't keep its momentum, even at the finale fight against the big bad. The investigation scenes were boring, even more so in this episode when you know it is supposed to be the one that resolves everything. The ending also felt truncated and it lost a lot of the political angle that the game was striving for. Despite that, it wasn't a bad ending and was still a lot of fun to experience.
Overall, Batman: The Telltale Series tells an intriguing and unique story. It takes on the familiar characters of Batman and gives each one their own unique twist which will surprise the player. The story is solid and while it lost steam as the episodes went on, it was strong enough to keep you interested until the very end.
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