Lego Batman is one of my favorite modern games. The hook of the game is excellent, with my favorite superhero in the driver's seat, along with tons of cleverly designed levels, hidden secrets around every corner, an absolutely delightful soundtrack derived from the films, and an excellent opportunity for cooperative play across all ages. It was an absolute throwaway game I was given by my brother in law, and my son and I spent hours and hours exploring the levels in Gotham City.
Lego Batman 2 came along and upped the ante, although it doesn't have quite the same place in my heart. It did away with the unspeakably charming nonsensical voice acting, diluting the cleverness of the humor in the game significantly. It added layer upon layer of depth to the game, however, introducing a giant Gotham City to explore, vehicles to use, countless new characters, and, most importantly, the ability to split your screen during cooperative play-fixing the single biggest weakness with Lego Batman.
After completing the first two games in the series, my son and I purchased the third in the series to play, but got mired down. A big part of this is that my son became enamored with Minecraft, and rarely wants to play any other video game. The other part is that after the delightful experiences spent with Lego Batman, Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, Lego Harry Potter, and our personal favorite Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham just doesn't feel quite as special.
But we finally finished it while home taking care of the new baby (spend time with your older kids when you have a baby, it's really important!), and I'm here to review it for all of you.
The biggest problem with this game is that it just doesn't feel like a Batman game in the way the other two did. While the plot loosely revolves around Batman, it's actually a Justice League game in every sense. You're fighting the bad Lanterns/Braniac (find a solo Batman movie/comic arc where he does this), there's no Gotham City to explore, and the aesthetic is far brighter than a Batman story. The other two games had a marked Batman feel to them, and this one just doesn't. It plays much more similarly to the ensemble Lego Marvel Super Heroes, but lacks a lot of the charm and polish that that brilliant title had.
The controls are again kind of slippery and interacting with the environment can be really challenging. You'll find yourself falling off cliffs, getting stuck in weird locations, being unable to determine which things can be broken and which can't, and going to wrong direction while attempting to fight enemies.
The music is good, again, although if I never hear that Wonder Woman theme song (which plays when she flies) again, I'll be very grateful.
There are tons of collectibles to be had here, but it's greatly missing out on the big hub world to explore. Trolling New York City, Gotham City, and Hogwarts for secrets is one of the absolute best things about my preferred Lego games, and this Lego game has the least amount of that experience of all of them, which is really strange.
The biggest problem I have with the Lego games is how buggy they are, and this one is no exception. I had to restart several levels because I got stuck due to bugs, and this was incredibly annoying. Someone at Traveller's Tales really needs to fix the bugs in these games, and this is particularly onerous as they now have the ability to patch them!
In some ways, as the games have grown more and more complex, they've also gotten worse. The levels in particular are just so packed with pre-rendered environments that it kind of misses out on the charm of the original Lego games, and I wish they'd go back to a more simple presentation. It doesn't really fill like you're occupying a world built out of Legos, and that's kind of sad. The levels are also far more complex than before, which makes them much more challenging to play cooperatively with younger children. Now that there's 20 different powers spread across hundreds of characters (a conservative estimate), it's really difficult to consider who all you need to use to clear out different obstacles, particularly when Batman and Robin now have many power suits each, with full access to those suits.
The free play change was also irritating to me. In the Lego games, once you complete a level with the given characters, you're free to revisit the level with any characters you choose. In previous games, however, you had access to a selected slate of characters that you could quickly cycle through, in addition to being able to pull up the full character select screen and get the specific one you want. In this one, however, you no long have that limited slate, making switching characters a truly lengthy affair, every time.
To be clear, this isn't a bad game. I have high expectations for my Lego games, and this one just fell short pretty much across the board. I definitely can't recommend it, though, as there are literally over 5 better Lego games to choose from. If you clear out some of the older classics and need some more Lego action, this will scratch some of the itch for you. But I really do want a new, high quality, Lego game. Maybe Lego Avengers and Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2, both sitting on my shelf at home, will do it? I guess we'll see at some point! I'll give this game a 7.5/10.
Up next on What I'm Playing is a another well anticipated experience for me, see teaser below:
-TRO
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