When comparing Batman: Arkham Asylum vs Batman: Arkham Knight, the Slant community recommends Batman: Arkham Knight for most people. In the question“What are the best PS4 (PlayStation 4) games?” Batman: Arkham Knight is ranked 50th while Batman: Arkham Asylum is ranked 117th. The most important reason people chose Batman: Arkham Knight is:
Batman: Arkham Knight still uses the combat system pioneered in the very first Arkham game, but with various improvements. It is intuitive, highly responsive and supplemented with power-ups, combos and ability to use gadgets to add variety and depth.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Freeflow combat pioneer
Arkham Asylum is the first game to bring us freeflow brawler melee combat in its full glory. It invented the combat genre where you fight a multitude of enemies who take turns attacking you, while the player has a basic attack, a parry+counter and a combat roll. Getting multiple hits in on enemies builds up a combo streak that makes batman stronger. This streak is reset by getting hit by an enemy. Other games, like Assassin's Creed, had superficially similar combat systems, but not as optimized as this and they did not feature hit/combo streaks. Arkham Asylum's freeflow combat system is very suitable to be played with controllers.
Pro Fun stealth & gadgets
Remaining stealthy and getting stealth takedowns is important in Arkham Asylum's gameplay. Arkham Asylum gives the player a relatively large number of different gadgets to use for different combat purposes, such as ranged takedowns, cutting ropes, diverting enemies' attention, blasting through doors, traversing longer distances and hacking.
Pro Excellent free-flow combat system
Batman: Arkham Knight still uses the combat system pioneered in the very first Arkham game, but with various improvements. It is intuitive, highly responsive and supplemented with power-ups, combos and ability to use gadgets to add variety and depth.
Pro A pretty great story
Takes inspiration from so many areas of past Batman lore and creates a more interesting interpretation of a classic story. There's some pacing issues occasionally and it goes on a little too long at points, but is more than redeemed by a compelling overall plot, excellent voice acting, and interesting characters.
Pro Large city to explore
A large city comprised of three separate islands makes up the area playable in game. It's filled with side missions and collectibles, giving you a reason to explore outside the story missions while also making the city of Gotham feel alive.
Pro Ability to drive around the Batmobile
Arkham Knight has the open world aspect of the previous game but has now introduced the Batmobile for use on the street with a full weapon loadout. It's fast, beautiful, controls well, and converts into a tank for some combat missions that are almost as fun as the standard hand-to-hand combat. The moment when you rocket off a ramp and shoot a hundred feet into the air out of the driver's seat into a glide over skyscrapers... it's great.
Pro Incredible sound design
From gigantic booms and explosions to the quiet, more nuanced details of rain or the wind flying past you, this game sounds amazing.
Cons
Con Dark atmosphere
You won't realize how many shades of black exist until you've played an Arkham game. It's always dark outside, so to people who like daylight and colors in their games, this might get a bit dull after a while.
Con Lackluster, short DLC story missions
Don't buy the season pass unless you can find it on sale. It's not bad, but not worth an extra $20, and certainly not the $40 it cost before price drop. (FYI, you get a complete experience without the DLC - it truly is extra content, not main game content cut out and repackaged.)
Con You need to collect every single Riddler trophy/challenge to get the "true" ending
Some people don't mind the Riddler missions, but it can definitely become annoying for others.
Con Still occasionally a little buggy on PC
The game can crash occasionally, but it was only ever after a failed combat segment, and the game autosaves often enough that you shouldn't lose any progress. It's certainly not nearly as bad as it was at launch.
Con Had been withdrawn from sale
Possibly the first release (certainly the first AAA release) to be digitally withdrawn from sale. Buyers were refunded.
It was reinstated months later, but the port was not much better and still had terrible performance issues.
Con Detective Mode investigation segments and the like are still boring and not good
Sometimes to push the plot forward the game will force you to do some "investigating," which basically comes down to a stupidly easy 'Where's Waldo?' minigame. It's not bad, but it doesn't really add much to the experience and feels kinda like a waste of time.