Initially, I was abruptly frustrated that my video-card died a few weeks ago. I didn’t expect that Telltale Games’ season 2 of Batman would premiere as early as the second half of 2017. With Telltale titles, I usually play them on PC which means that I would be starting Episode 1 of Batman: The Enemy Within on PS4 at some random ending from its first season because my save file was not uploaded to Telltale’s servers – I stupidly didn’t connect my Steam account to my Telltale account and confidently relied on my local PC save file.
Luckily, Batman: The Enemy Within has the “Recreate” story feature where players get to choose decisions to get the ending they initially (or want to have) had from the previous season.
Platform Reviewed: PS4
Platforms Available: Xbox One, PC, PS4
Publisher: Telltale Games
Developer: Telltale Games
Release Date: August 8, 2017
MSRP: $19.99 (Season Pass)
But enough with all that ramblings, Telltale Games’ season two of Batman started off with a strong first episode, The Enigma. Following after the Children of Arkham story arc, Bruce Wayne is set to face another long-time criminal who disappeared from Gotham City – The Riddler (hence the title of the episode). Just a note before I continue: minor spoilers.
With your typical playboy philanthropist, Bruce Wayne, going undercover at a 5-star casino which is owned by an arms dealer Rumi Mori, he finds himself getting in the middle of a hostage situation conducted by The Riddler and his men. As usual, Bruce takes a casual walk through a hallway leading to the back-alley while taking down some of The Riddler’s men in the process, calls Commissioner James Gordon for backup, and finally dragging the Batmobile to get his upgraded Batsuit.
In the brink of saving the hostages from The Riddler after an intense fist-fight with the henchmen, the Arrow-looking Riddler left a puzzle box for the Caped Crusader. And to add more spice in the story, the person we all hate in DC’s universe who acts like she’s above every government agencies, Amanda Waller, steps in at the crime scene.
I find it a bold move from Telltale to bring the most infamous character and it’s interesting to see how the studio will branch the story out in the next episodes. Amanda Waller is a character who needs to have a deep and appealing plot-twists to make her involvement significant. And with the direction that Telltale is taking with the character, it piqued my interest. The Enigma was executed with a great pace; and it’s not an episode that overwhelms players.
In most Telltale titles, there is usually a moral lesson embedded in each season and even in the episodes, and the word “trust” is focused in The Enigma. The player gets to choose to either side with Amanda or Gordon in the process. It feels heavy every time when a player chooses to please one side or the other as it affects the characters involved – not just Amanda and Gordon.
You might want to choose to hold back from beating the hell out of a suspect at the precinct and please Gordon. Or you might want to give all confidential details to Amanda to get things move a little faster than with the Commissioner. The consequences you get in this season are far heavier than it was in the previous season; and aside from consequences, your relationship with each of the characters will also be affected.
You get to feel the emotional burden and probably wished that you could have chosen the other option instead. If you haven’t read any of my Telltale reviews, let me tell you that I don’t usually replay the episodes to see if I get a different outcome from choosing another dialogue. It kills the excitement and also the sense of its episodic approach.
I am also impressed with the PS4 version. In all honesty I never played a single Telltale game on a console – as I previously stated, I play these games on PC. Since my video-card died, I had no other choice but to continue my adventures with Bruce and Batman on the PS4. So, there I was in the concept where I thought that the console versions had more technical problems with performance and stability than it was on PC, but hell I was so wrong.
The optimization of Batman: The Enemy Within – The Enigma on PS4 was just superb! I only experienced frame-drops at the sequence where I was almost done with the episode but it was not something game-breaking at all. At the most part, everything was running perfectly stable at 30-frames-per-second.
After Batman Season 1’s finale, I said that it didn’t leave a memorable mark and I hoped that Season 2 will be better. I am happy to say that I was captivated with Batman: The Enemy Within – The Enigma. Despite the mediocre voice acting from Troy Baker (I still prefer Kevin Conroy), the pacing was great and I can’t wait how the story slowly unfolds in the next episode.
