When comparing Ryse: Son of Rome vs Batman: Arkham Knight, the Slant community recommends Batman: Arkham Knight for most people. In the question“What are the best games with freeflow brawler combat on Steam?” Batman: Arkham Knight is ranked 1st while Ryse: Son of Rome is ranked 4th. 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 Superb graphics
Ryse: Son of Rome has fantastic, realistic looking graphics. It was ahead of the curve in 2013 and still is up there with the best today.
Pro Freeflow brawler combat
The combat system in Ryse: Son of Rome is very familiar to people who have played Arkham games, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor or Mad Max. Usually, the player is outnumbered by enemies who take turns attacking. So the player has a basic attack, a parry/block move, a defense/shield breaking move and a combat roll that serves as a universal evade. Successful hits are counted in a hit chain, that after a certain number allows the player to reach an enraged buff state called "burning eagle". This freeflow brawler combat system, also often referred to as Arkham combat, makes it very suitable to play with a controller.
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 Repetitive
Make sure you love the combat system, because that's pretty much all you'll be doing throughout the game. It's a linear game with nice cinematic sequences, but in the end, you just move from place to place slashing up a bunch of copy paste mobs. The variety in this game consists of things like throwing pilums at archers, operating a ballista, advancing in formation with troops (including quick time button presses for blocking arrows and throwing pilums) or trying not to walk on traps etcetera.
Con PC port is not well optimized
Even people who have a powerful gaming PC to today's standards experience some stuttering in the framerate at some points.
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.