LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight Review – Review
Three things you should know first when considering this review. One, while I have dabbled with LEGO games in the past, in truth I don’t think I ever got past the height of playing the original LEGO Star Wars Trilogy back in 2003. Two, I am not a parent, nor do I tend to play my games in co-op multiplayer, which is something that I have tried to not take into consideration here. And three, I am a huge fan of Batman as a character beyond his appearances in movies and games. I think this context is really important, because as excited as I was for LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, I soured on the experience really quickly. Paired with technical issues, an excruciating structure and empty references, this is a legacy that is perhaps better omitted from the book of both LEGO games and Batman as a whole.
To be clear, Legacy of the Dark Knight is pretty ambitious. It tells its own original story by tying together elements from nearly every incarnation of Batman, though primarily the movies and the Arkham Games. Now, this can work given the many, many iterations there have been of this character and his supporting cast. But the end result is a Frankenstein’s monster from a narrative perspective. Take the Joker, for example. The character starts out as Jack Napier’s version of the Joker from Batman 1989 but slowly transforms into this amalgamation of Heath Ledger, The Killing Joke and even the LEGO Batman Movie. It makes the characters feel hollow and lacking a distinct goal on their own. A reference does not make a story.
The same goes for Batman and his allies. All these elements get stitched together but it does not allow the game to give their own take on the character. This version of Batman tries to be both the serious version of Robert Patterson in The Batman but occasionally does out-of-character jokes and references that miss the tone of the game. By having it both ways, I almost got whiplash each time the character went through a mission. And I’m not saying I need a dark and serious version of the character. Batman can be genuinely funny, look at Batman: The Brave and the Bold, or the LEGO Batman Movie, which strike this great balance of him being overconfident and having a bit of an ego but using that to make jokes about the absurdity, too.
Look, you can say that LEGO Batman is primarily aimed at younger audiences, but I think that the writing is very much for the adult playing alongside their child. Because on a structural level this is also where Legacy trips up. Gotham is segmented into several main districts, and the story missions take you through these somewhat chronologically. There are side-activities, such as Riddler challenges and finding specific objects from villains in the overworld. Yet the rewards for these tend to be pretty much focused on studs and WayneTech crates that can be used for both cosmetics and gadget-upgrades. It doesn’t help that this game has one of the worst skill trees I’ve ever seen in a game. With barely any relevant upgrades that are obtainable and making little improvements to either combat or stealth. Each time I found a skill brick, I was reminded how little reason there was to even use it. Not really the reward you’re hoping for when missions are excruciatingly long and repetitive. In one mission early on I was tasked with tracking a shipment of teddy bears that had been modified by The Red Hood. Sounds simple enough, but finding each bear required going through a combat or stealth encounter. When approaching the bear, I had to do yet another mind-numbing minigame to identify the compounds used by the Joker for his toxin. Legacy of the Dark Knight has seen what The Batman Arkham games did, but instead of using that as a springboard to build on, it has simply copied its homework. And not even well at that.
When I spoke to people who went hands-on early with the game, they exclaimed: “It uses the Arkham Combat system”. That alone cemented my interest because in my opinion, the Arkham games are some of the finest action games ever made, in part because the combat is so versatile. Zipping back and forth between opponents and swapping out gadgets to build up combos and takedowns is still such an amazing feeling. But here, LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight wears only the mask of the Arkham Games. Its combat is stiff, janky and does not encourage any variety in your playstyle. One button punches, one button dodges, one button does the counter and one button uses a gadget. By getting an absurdly high combo, I’m taking over 30 or more, you can do exactly one instant takedown on an enemy. This would be fine enough if I could use stealth most of the time, you know like Batman would, but even here the system is janky as hell, with unclear indicators when enemies spot you and simply taking down any enemy instantly. It’s at odds with how stealth gameplay is rewarded with more studs, yet the game has so few tools to make stealth engaging. Even here the secondary character gets in the way more often than not, communicating that I really should only play this game with another player. It would explain why combat goes on for what feels like forever.
Jank is the key word here. Whether it is attempting to drive the Batmobile, or trying to glide over Gotham or even simply having a major glitch upon my first boot of the game where I quite literally fell through the floor of the very first level, the game seems to want to do more than it can deliver. Framerate stutters and unintuitive UI make it a slog of an experience. This is a game that uses too many words to tell its story, too many mechanics for its simplistic combat and too many references to feel like something entirely its own.
And that sucks because you can tell how much the team loved to work on this. There are so many costumes for both Batman, his allies and vehicles. There are little jokes and easter eggs that will have Batman-fans smiling. But after that joy wears off, it is back to mindless missions, the overly expansive Gotham and a Batcave that is cumbersome to navigate. I think that LEGO games have always had scope creep. But at least with LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga you could see how the individual films and chapters made sure that the game was always moving along at a brisk pace. Here, Legacy of Dark Knight’s world and story slam into (LEGO) brick walls over and over again.
So no, I did not like LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. A game that uses the Batman license to upsell you DLC, costumes and references the second you boot up the game. Did you know you get special costumes if you link your HBO Max account to the game? Like a rube I did of course, and sure my Black Lantern batman looks very cool. For five seconds. Each night I went back in and hoped that this time the game would click for me. But it never did. In fact its aspirations kept running into the flimsy ground it was built upon. If anything I kept lamenting what we lost in Rocksteady and Batman games from the last decade. Save your 60 dollars and buy yourself a cool LEGO set. I can guarantee you’ll get more fun from that.
