Batman: The Telltale Series Episode 4 Guardian of Gotham Xbox One Review

Telltale has a notorious reputation with the fourth episode of every franchise they’ve released. Each one simply acts as an edifice for the grand finale, delivering mediocre choices and nothing monumental. Batman: Episode 4 Guardian of Gotham attempts to break away from this system by giving the player a major consequence choice at the very end and the debut of one of the most popular villains ever created. The fourth episode of Batman: The Telltale Series isn’t the best the season has to offer but it’s certainly a break from Telltale’s “Fourth Episode Curse”.

Batman: Episode 4 takes place right after the events of episode 3. Bruce now dealing with a polarized Harvey Dent, the Children of Arkham’s grip on Gotham, and the instability of his family’s name. In a stunning turn of events the Joker, and many other villains, make an appearance in this episode fleshing out Telltale’s versions of these established characters. Telltale does an outstanding job of remaining loyal to the source material of the characters shown while giving their own outlook on them. Victor Zsasz is the same compulsive killer but unlike Rocksteady’s version, which was shown violently unstable at all times, this version is much more calm and methodical until he’s trigger.

This episode centrally focuses on attempting to build anticipation for the finale and succeeds. Up until the final moments of the episode past decisions started to come up, such as Harvey’s relationship with Batman and Bruce Wayne. What made the episode intense was the final act. Here a difficult choice is presented that easily overshadowed any other the critical decisions I had. Both had major consequences and seeing how they play out in the final episode makes me yearn for it.

Choices between dialogue are frequent here, allowing you to choose which type of Batman and Bruce Wayne the player would like to be. Replaying and mixing choices deliver different feedback from the supporting cast, with The Joker’s performance easily stealing the episode despite only be a part of it for a short time.

Detective mode returns for another short puzzle and is just as simply as past episodes. It still serves as a short bump to deliver important information and by the end of it I felt less like Batman. It was too simple, almost insulting for someone called “The World’s Greatest Detective”.

This episode has the most technical issues. During my first playthrough, I experienced massive frame-rate issues, sound tearing, and graphical hiccups throughout the episode. The last three episodes had similar issues but these are far too frequent. From the first episode onward these technical issues have become more of a frequent norm than a rarity.

Batman: Episode 4 Guardian of Gotham sets up for the finale by providing the player with a lot of options and choices. Seeing how they will play out in the final episode is the major draw for episode 4 instead of answering questions. Despite this, it’s an entertaining penultimate conclusion to season 1. After critical choice and fight at the end I cannot wait to play the final episode .

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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