Batman Episode 1 Realm of Shadows Review

Telltale games over the last couple of years have bought us some amazing stories from Borderlands to The Walking Dead, and even though they have ventured into the DC universe before with The Wolf Among Us, their latest takes on the Caped Crusader Batman.

As with all the Telltale series it is a mixture of active time events and interactive choices which determines the outcome, with a bit of free motion to explore at certain points along the way. The game style provides a hand drawn graphic style, which resembles the dark undertones of the comic series of Batman which is great as any superhero fan that has followed Batman whether it’s been through the comics or the movies can relate to this within the game.

The first episode of five in the series is entitled Realm of Shadows takes place in the earlier years of Batman with characters like Oswald Cobblepot who later becomes the Penguin and Harvey Dent a district attorney who wants to clean up Gotham from Organised crime boss Falcone.

There are other familiar characters such as Vicki Vale and Selena Kyle(aka Catwoman) that appear in this first episode, but the emphasis of the first episode is surrounding the Wayne family with allegations of corruption and links to criminal organisations.

Batman Realm of Shadows provides a dark take on the superhero with some graphic scenes, but one of the best features I found in the game was the linking of clues to solve a crime scene was something  different. Even though it wasn’t as simple as link one clue to another you had to connect the correct clue to another clue to solve a part of the crime scene.

SUMMARY

For me this has been one of the best Telltale game series I have played, I have loved the story from start right up to the conclusion of Episode 1 which unsurprisingly leaves it on a cliffhanger.

The game reflects a darker universe associated with the Comics which was great, and it was hard to find any major faults within the game. However it seems there was the issue with the decision making process, whereby whatever your choice you picked it inevitably seems to arrive at the same outcome which in turn might tarnish the game a little, but overall Batman Realm of Shadows is still a well scripted story.

Telltale games have made a great decision to jump on the Superhero bandwagon as this series has great potential, all we can hope for is the continuous dark style and more villains.