I made a conscious effort to play "humanely" and not succumb to Telltale's usual tacit encouragement to beat and bloodlet. Notwithstanding convincing a henchman to talk without using any violence, Alfred still yelled at me for beating the henchman "half to death", and there was a huge chunk of dialogue where I was chastised for acting like a monster. This is even though Commissioner Gordon "noted my non-violent approach" to dealing with said henchman. It really took me right out of the game and made the whole "choices" aspect entirely pointless. I would have thought Telltale would get better at this after so many games. Sloppy stuff.

It would be a mistake to buy and play this game in 2023.

The whole hook here is, choices matter. You decide how you want to play. Your choices carry over from one episode to the next, so that when you get to the end, you're seeing the repercussions of your choices throughout the game.

Except your choices don't matter anymore, literally, because Telltale's servers are down, and apparently without those servers, there's no way to retain choices from episode to episode. Even playing locally, without an account. I just finished Episode 1, clicked to go to Episode 2, and I'm being told there's no save data from the first episode. Nothing to carry over into Episode 2. "Your choices will be auto-generated," it says.

So if you play it today, what you're getting is 5 short stories, 4 of which you get to start with someone else's automatically-generated choices substituted for your choices, because somehow Telltale managed to botch the save system and server integration so badly that it literally cannot remember anything you've done from one episode to the next any longer.

Don't buy it.

--------

edit: After further investigation, a couple of updates here:
- Telltale's servers are "up", in the sense that apparently servers exist. As of right now (March 2023) there does not appear to be any way to create an account, to log into an existing account, or to recover the password for an existing account.
- Apart from the server problems, the local issue is that the game's behavior has not aged well and Windows 10/11 does not like it. Specifically the game attempts to write to the user's Documents folder in ways that Windows Defender will block by default. This can be resolved by adding an exclusion in Windows Defender. (I learned this through trial and error. As far as I can tell, Telltale "support" has not yet figured it out.)
- The game itself has aged poorly in many other ways. Some of Telltale's titles are classics -- the original Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, in particular -- and others are not so much. Batman is... not so much.

In 2023, one of the things we expect from games is that they respect our time. This game does not respect the player's time. For one, it's filled with unskippable cutscenes. The opening of the first episode is essentially a 10+ minute unskippable cutscene with a handful of QTEs sprinkled through it, most of which are inconsequential. Doesn't matter if you've seen any of it before -- space bar just pauses it and ESC just suspends to a menu. Even tabbing out of it pauses it so you don't miss a second of that unskippable cutscene goodness.

And re those QTEs: you can literally do nothing for many of them and the game is completely unaffected. In one of the first, you're supposed to hit Q to smash through a window. Guess what happens if you don't hit Q? Spoiler: you smash through the window anyway. Other QTEs are there mostly just to make sure you have not fallen asleep. You have to hit E to drag some thugs up and hang them from the rafters, for example. If you don't hit E, nothing happens. The game just sits there until you're ready to comply with the arbitrary QTE. (For these I guess quickness or time doesn't matter, they're just Es, which I guess is why you have to hit E for them.)

In the first episode, seven minutes and forty seconds go by before your first choice that "matters". And that choice doesn't even really matter, it just appears to, but for everything else up to that point, it literally does not matter what you do. In many cases even whether you participate or not is irrelevant. It's not a promising start.

Finally, even when everything in the game is running exactly as intended and you're being presented with choices that appear to matter, even then the game drops the ball frequently. You're given a "choice" whether to rough up a thug at one point, but even if you treat him with kid gloves, Alfred will berate you at length in the next scene about your brutality. Later you have the option to beat up a crime boss or not, but whether you do or not, you're going to be told that you did.

An unavoidable part of games like these is that there's an underlying story that does not change, so it's a kind of magician's trick to keep the player engaged and thinking that their choices are contributing to the outcome of the story. Some of Telltale's titles do that well. Batman, even at its best, is not among them.

In conclusion, to amend my earlier review: some of the technical issues can be worked around. Others can't. But issues or not, I'm still unconvinced that the game is worth your time. Not recommended.

------

edit 2: oh also they want you to pay for "Shadows Edition", which is literally just a filter applied to the game so everything is gray except for a handful of things they want to highlight. Old Telltale would not have paused for a second in making this update free for anyone and everyone. New Telltale thinks you should pay $5 for the privilege.

UPDATE: I have updated my review because Telltale has patched the game a few times to improve performance. When I first received the game, I was playing on a GTX 760, and the game ran but only barely. Now, after upgrading my GPU, I am running the game on a GTX 1070. The framerate is acceptable now, but it should have ran fine from the beginning per the game's recommended system requirements.

For one, the game doesn't run that well, and there's no excuse for that in a simple game like this. It's an interactive movie, basically, it shouldn't struggle when I'm running it on one of the best GPUs available. The frame rate has had constant issues prior to its many patches and then some afterwards, the game crashes randomly, the audio cuts out at times, the controls sometimes don't work -- the game is was a mess, technically, and it's very disappointing.

For two, the story is so...bizarre. Forget everything you know about Batman, because this game goes out of its way to subvert your expectations. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but the issue lies in the fact that the way it's written, the game feels like it's punishing you for doing what seems "right" or natural. But instead of the twists being clever and thoughtful, it's more like choosing to let your character kick a can on the ground and then the can explodes and you lose a foot. Not to mention some of the dialogue choices do NOT reflect what Bruce Wayne actually says, leading to some "restart to main menu" moments. Lots of them. Just keep in mind that if you intend on having what may seem like a good ending to you, this game is going to fight you tooth and nail to wrestle it away from you. This is not good writing, it's annoying and stressful. Maybe a little ironically so, the action is really cool in this game and does feel very Batman-esque, albeit like I mentioned before the frame rate issues and unreliable controls will frustrate you so. There's also the small matter that some of Batman's "detective moments" are absurdly dumb, to the point where I was both laughing and shouting at my monitor because they make Batman look like he misses the most obvious of the obvious; thankfully, not all of the "detective moments" were dumb, but some of them were, and that was enough.

All of that being said, I did enjoy myself. Obviously, because I finished it. If you love Batman, you will find a lot to like about this game. When all was said and done, I can't say it wasn't worth playing, but my feelings were very mixed. I am looking forward to the next Batman story, but hopefully the writers will step up their game, because the choices and end results in this particular story left me feeling unsatisfied. But, maybe that's the point. You decide.

I feel like I hate to love this game, and I want to play the next one even though my experience with this one was such a roller coaster. The performance issues were bad, and they didn't totally go away even after the 2016 holiday and I made a major upgrade to my rig. Your mileage may vary. My opinion on the story is that it misses the mark in many areas; if you felt like Batman v. Superman was void of happiness or optimism and that was a negative point for you: brace yourself, Telltale is coming, they're coming to take away all your Batman fantasies and replace them with a strange Batman story that makes you feel like you failed even though you tried to Batman the best Batman you could possibly Batman.

I love telltale games, I love batman, my hype for this game was off the chart. However there are lot of running issues. I have a high end laptop and I have never had trouble running a game, this game was however running at about 10fps with a lot of sound issues and a lot of crashes. Do not buy until the issues have been worked out.

Dialogue is out of sync, lagging like hell, not more that 10 FPS, Resolution problems.

Fix did came for all the problems and more settings option but it was too late, so no, I will not recommend the game. Also with the delay in last 2 episodes for only PC version. It's a no go for me, buy it when it's every cheap. Like very very.

For Review of the Episode 1 and 2 See EDIT 5.
For Review of the Episode 3, 4 and 5 See EDIT 6.

EDIT: Was able to fix the low FPS, but still having resolution problems (Can't go to full-screen whenever I select it, it also fezzes with Alt+Enter).

EDIT 2: Was able to fix full-screen error too, need to make your game run with integrated graphic card then select the resolution you want (while in full-screen) and then switch back to your Nvidia card.

EDIT 3: Game stopped working in full-screen again (with Nvidia Card).

EDIT 4: So, I was finally able to play the game

EDIT 5: Episode 1 and 2 proved to be a very exciting adventure. You’ll be able to experience a fairly unique Batman story with surprising twists and turns, all while feeling rather familiar, thus never kicking diehard fans against the shins. Simple game play, many story options and a high replay factor make this game fun to create your own Batman experience, or to have friends over and decide together.

EDIT 6: So, Episode 3 is a fun continuation of the story, but it’s also clear that this fragment plays itself out in the middle of the story, as there is slightly less evolution. Nonetheless, you’ll be making many interesting choices, while certain questions are slowly being answered, and new characters are being born. Certainly worth continuing your journey as the Dark Knight.

Episode 4 - This is the worst episode in a great season, but it doesn’t seem as though it’ll tarnish the entire package too much. Because the final minutes are so important it’s hard to recommend skipping it to those who have been enjoying the series so far, and it’s far from being a bad enough episode to turn people away from the series as a whole. Still, it’s a disappointing development after increasingly interesting chapters, so we’ll have to wait and see how the finale wraps everything up.

Episode 5 - It wraps up the series nicely while leaving enough dangling threads to make the possibility of a follow-up a very real, enticing possibility. This isn’t the strongest Batman episode to date (for me), but it’s nonetheless an entertaining, fitting end… for now.

(NO SPOILERS ARE IN THIS REVIEW)
As much as it pains me to not recommend a batman game, I have full faith my reasons will make sense as to why I dont recommend it.

Let me start off by saying, this is one of those games that sound fantastic on paper, but the end result is eh.

Telltale series as we all know make story rich games, example like the walking dead games.

but the difference here, is the fact that this game feels very rushed. When I played the walking dead, it was great. the animations were perfect, and the story was told very well and had no bugs.

But this one... was different.

To start off, I am a avid Batman fan, i've logged a thousand hours into all the batman games combined (780 alone in arkham knight). But I simply cannot recommend this game and here are my reasons why

The story is a good 6/10 AT BEST. and i say at best because the story felt like a drag. too much was happening at once for it to make any sense.

Not to mention the game was rushed, you can tell when a developer takes time on a game and on another they dont. the walking and facial animations are very wonky. Eyes are completely whited out, body posistions off in certain scenes, and the occasional black streak accross the screen. ( and many other bugs) With that being said, if you're a Batman fan you'll find it difficult to get through this game.

Everything from this point on is a personal opinion on the game itself and how it represents batman as a whole.

In my OPINION, yes OPINION.

they did not represent Batman well at all.

The writers should have done more research into the character that is VERY well known, and not something you can just pull off on a whim.

what i mean by this is, there is scenes in the episodes where Bruce would simply just never say or do that.

I say this because I've watched, played, and read a TON of stories about the batman character, and this game as i was playing it just felt off about everything. the story, the dialogue choices i was given. it all just felt... off.

Telltale, i love your games, your idea is unique. but (And this is a HUGE but) stick to story rich ideas, like the walking dead, etc...

those are the games you can thrive in, not batman. leave it to the professionals for that.

But this concludes my review/ rant of this game. I hope it made sense because i dont feel like reading through what i just typed lol.

In terms of story, it's a Telltale game, the story is fantastic.

However I can't recommend you buy this game until they fix the awful performance issues. Constant lag and freezes since episode 1 and no sign of any fix.

I'll start by saying that this game very much follows the standard Telltale formula. If you like Telltale games, you'll probably enjoy it.

That said, following the standard Telltale formula makes this fail as a Batman game. There are several reasons for this. One is the practice of putting the main character constantly in situations that couldn't have been anticipated. This normally works fine, but for Batman it doesn't make very much sense. Part of what makes Batman/Bruce Wayne so formidable is his strategic mind and overall intellect. Here, he's blindsided so frequently that it's just hard to believe this version of Batman. On top of that, Batman's overall behavior while wearing the cowl doesn't fit the character. He'll charge headlong into a group of three or four armed guys and beat them up with QTEs, where he should be sneaking around and taking them down one or two at a time.

Also in the narrative department, Telltale have taken several creative liberties with established characters. This is partly done to mess with people who know the Batman ethos very well, tempting them to trust characters who are well established as good people, while in this game they may be much more sinister than their comic book counterparts. Some of this works, but I find it disloyal to the source content, and it would've been better if Telltale could've created more original characters to flesh out their plot rather than shoehorning established characters into places they don't fit.

There are also a few technical issues here that detract from the experience. I played almost a year after the release, and throughout one playthrough I experienced four or five crashes. There's also some frame hitching here and there, and sometimes characters' lips don't move when they speak. Finally, the entire game is played in weird letterboxed aspect ratio. For people on 16:9 monitors, this means the entire game is letterboxed. For people on 21:9 monitors, this means that the entire game is letterboxed AND pillarboxed, instead of just taking up more of the screen. It's a small issue, but it's really damn annoying especially on 21:9 monitors where it seems like half your screen is black.

Made a choice to not hurt a criminal, the game tells me I beat him into the hospital. Gave statement to the press, the game tells me I did not. If your choices are not reflected correctly within 1 episode the rest of the series is a joke.

In its current state, it is unplayable... Buggy as hell and you cannot change the graphic settings.

For the time being better off playing Tales From the Borderlands or any other Telltale Games games.

This is actually the first time these guys disappoint me, though I hope that there is an update to resolve these problems.

Edit as of 19:31 3/August/2016 South Korean Time :

There had been an update and I can play it properly now. And Telltale Games had regained my trust.
I finished the first episode as a bipolar Bruce Wayne with anger issues.
The story is well written, and the retelling of the Batman story is not THAT predictable if you're a Batman fan.

Though I suggest you only buy this game when episode 2 come out just to be safe.
P.S. Telltale, please don't play with my emotions and trust. You know I love you.

Edit as of 22:32 15/August/2016 West Indonesian Time :

I've decided to play the first episode again, frame rate constantly stays in 15 fps. Keep in mind that my computer, despite being outdated, manage to play every other TTG titles in 60 fps in max settings, yes ALL OF THEM except for this one.

Batman's weakness are apparently PCs. Though I believe Telltale will hopefully soon fix this problem, I mean they blew my mind with Tales From the Borderlands Wolf Among Us, and don't get me started with the Walking Deads. But for the love of Batman, guys... WB GET YOUR ♥♥♥♥ TOGETHER

Edit as of 12:06 21/September/2016 West Indonesian Time :

Episode 2 came out just recently but it all went to ♥♥♥♥. I used to be able to play the game despite of the horrendous performance issues, this time I can't even get into the main menu. Just a black screen in the corner and a white background with the intro music.

Dear lord, what did Batman do to you to give him such a curse with PCs?