A city of blight

In the ten years I’ve experienced Batman lore, never before have I seen a story arc so shoddily tied up. Sure, Telltale’s take on Batman has been grand and awe-inspiring at times, but wow, this is a bad Episode. The worst Telltale has ever made, actually. Review over.

On a more serious note, City of Light continues the less dour tone of Guardian of Gotham with Harvey defeated and Lady Arkham and Penguin still out there. Penguin and Lady Arkham have been the most enthralling characters in this Season, because Telltale took two characters I normally wouldn’t have given a second thought to and given them an added layer of personality that makes me want to care about these characters. Penguin, is just a childhood friend whose wounds came up to the surface and Lady Arkham is brute force combined with sheer wit and a dark past.

The Season Finale’s biggest problem is that inside of every scene, you can predict what will happen next, and even goes to vast lengths to make Batman moronic in the hopes of building artificial suspense that isn’t present. To give a specific example, Bruce is tasked with finding Lady Arkham’s location by investigating the living room, then prolonging that scene into another that’s ultimately pointless, considering we already know where she is.

City of Light has its’ grand moments, in regards to Lady Arkham’s backstory and how Bruce interacts with Gordon, Selina and Alfred. However, this Finale is so concerned about getting to that Finale that it sacrifices character development. Instead, you’re being guided through pointless “investigate this room” scenes trying to connect the dots so you can just get on with it already. Even worse, sometimes an entire scene will play out entirely using QTEs.

Batman – The Telltale Series – Episode 5: City of Light is boring and finishes off before it even gets good – leaving me fairly dissapointed at the outcome of the Season. On the other hand, I did like the new folds it brought to Bruce’s relationships with the people who surround him – as Bruce or Batman. Those relationships aren’t the key to this Season Finale unfortunately, but Telltale did do a pretty good job at making what you do get out of it entertaining. I hope Telltale gets a Season Two of Batman – The Telltale Series, because I’d sure like to see more.

Batman – The Telltale Series – Episode 5: City of Lights is available now on Mac, PC for $24.99, or iOS, Android, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One for $4.99 for Episode 1 and $19.99 for the Season Pass. A copy of the Season Pass was generously sent to use from our friends over at Telltale Games.