Everyone is talking about how different the combat is, and yes, the previous Arkham games were about as simple as a rhythm game. That’s because the yielded risk and reward.

It’s simple to perform a counter and take down, in fact you are invulnerable by performing a simple counter. Anything more complex like performing a counter from three enemies could ruin your meter, and with that meter you can perform any variety of special moves. The simplest example would be, use the cape stun and then perform quick series of attack to build that meter quick. Or my own personal favorite after 3 hits you could easily knock down 3 guys and then quickly perform the Special Combo Multi-Ground Take down and then a large group of thugs is out of the way. The art of the combat of the Arkham game’s combat is just leaping over enemies and finding the thug you need to take out in order to make your combo go on longer.

The easiest complaint everyone has said about Origins, is how that simple rhythm is dramatically changed. The window of opportunity to counter. Now this element has been something one has to relearn in Asylum and City, so there might be a whole new learning curve and time might tell if this will change.

There’s no variety in the skill tree, There isn’t a lot of new moves, and every move comes from the previous game. Lets say you had a Devil May Cry 3 style where you designed batman around gadgets, damage or counters. It’s not even there, instead you have you finish all the side quests which aren’t incentivized. You can skip Deadshot all together and he provides “grapple disarm.” And the most important one “Special Combo Disarm and Destroy” is just completely out until the whole game is finished. Instead the skill tree is just arbitrary gated with poorly considered simple upgrade paths of 2 lines. I’m not exactly asking for Diablo style skill system, but even something as simple as Infamous or Ratchet and Clank series gets it right in where you feel like you're designing your characters. Here WB Monteral developers are not, in fact they just blocking them.

Instead we are given the shock gloves, really the big surprise power up. Early on the game storyline I was using explosives and cape stun to spread enemies who swarm in. The Shock Gloves are the solution to get all the enemies out of the way. The effect is just dumb fun, but never really challenges your combo meter. In fact it barely even drains. The new Pre Order DLC challenge room 1 vs 100 is effortless without really thinking too hard as to what to do or how to react. Actually in the main storyline it has to be REMINDED in cinematics you have this power up.

There are lots of games that just reward you but also challenge you. In fact those are more the anarchy based games, where causing as much wide spread chaos as possible with what you have left. Like a lot of Saints Row’s side quests which is the exact opposite direction with a Batman game unless it’s Adam West Batman we are talking about. Especially when you see the Green Hornet episode where you see Bruce Lee beside Adam West…. and the way West throws a punch looks like he’s throwing out his back. But I digress, the Shock gloves really are time based, not like a counter move or a special combo move. You are not locked into an animation where you are invulnerable for that one scene. Your free to run around and all your moves are enhanced with electric powers. Maybe next game we can get ice powers?

It’s a change, maybe the rhythm of the combat might change up, or just the rhythm of something new will change your own reaction. Without the sense of risk its devoid of any real challenge and becomes endurance on how much you can tolerate this. Arkham series had something special within the whole character based/action-adventure/beat em up genre (I hate these labels), that never really considered itself as technical as DMC or Ninja Gaiden but was comfortable enough for any God of War fan to enjoy.

To be honest, there’s a lot of problems and just reacting to the combat can only go so far. The game is plagued with some crippling bugs that make it frustrating to just play. There’s serious path finding errors, that even the whole simple counter system of the combat never really works majority of the time. If this is a Rhythm game, this would be Guitar Hero 3 change, maybe the next game will drop all of those mechanics in favor of something even more dumb fun