A little while ago I ranked the Batman Arkham games and I had a great time doing so as I enjoy all of the games in this series. I actually own all the games in their original form, I then picked up Return to Arkham and because I am lazy I bought the Arkham Trilogy digitally on PS4 so I do not have to get up off my fat butt to put in a disc….. so why the heck did I buy the Batman Arkham Trilogy for Nintendo Switch! I tell you, I have a problem buying games I already own, why do I have three copies of Enter the Matrix in the attic, why do I even have one??? Anyway, I really wanted to talk about Batman Arkham Trilogy on the Nintendo Switch as it is shocking just how bad this thing is!
On the surface getting three of the greatest superhero games of all time is awesome! As you can see in my review of Spider-Man 2 I loved that game, but I have always felt that the Arkham series was still one of the best series of comic book video games. The story, the setting, and the gameplay all came together so perfectly and it still holds up to this day…. Well on other platforms at least. To be fair, Arkham Asylum and Arkham City are not bad, they are based on the original PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game though, not the remasters.
Going into this I thought for sure it would be Arkham Asylum that worked best, but surprisingly, Arkham City is the crown jewel here. That is my favorite game in the series so I may be a bit more lenient with that one. However, I was impressed with how it ran and looked on the Nintendo Switch. I think there is a bit of a graphical leap from Asylum to City and in these older versions of the games I do feel it is quite noticeable. I had no problems playing either of these games, the odd pop-in during Arkham City, but it was never anything bad.
So far Batman Arkham Trilogy for Nintendo Switch is 2 for 2 as both Arkham Asylum and Arkham City play fine on the console. Batman Arkham Knight on Nintendo Switch is one of the worst ports that I have ever played and I paid full price for this thing! I like Arkham Knight although each time I have gone back and replayed it, I like the Batmobile sections less and less. In the Switch version, the Batmobile sections are 100 percent unplayable. We are talking freezes, single digit frame rate and you have to anticipate a turn like five seconds before it happens as the controls are so unresponsive.
It is not just the Batmobile! The iconic Batman Arkham fighting is a mess too, a stuttering frame rate makes it so much harder. Not just in chaining combos, but in the evading and reversing of attacks! It makes even fighting the most basic of enemies an absolute chore. For a game as massive as Arkham Knight is, the insane amount of issues that it has makes it unplayable, I would probably go as far as to say it is broken! I do not see how anyone can get any enjoyment out of this. I have not made it all the way to the end, but I in no way want to take part in that final Batmobile fight with the Arkham Knight when the game plays like this.
Also, in typical Nintendo Switch fashion, not all of the games are on the cartridge. I thought that it would be Arkham Knight on the cartridge and you download the other two as Arkham Knight is the largest game. That is not the case, only Arkham Asylum is on the actual cartridge which makes buying this thing a huge waste of time and money. Also, all three of the games are their own individual tile on the Switch. To be fair, this is the case on the PlayStation as well.
Now, I have heard that you can just buy all three games separately if you want and that is 100 percent the way I would recommend you do this, get Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, despite not being as good as the remastered versions on the PlayStation and Xbox, they are still solid ports and fantastic games. However, I went on to see the pricing and I do not know if this is a temporary thing, but the games are listed as “unavailable” individually! I never saw them available separately so I cannot say for sure if they were, but this sucks big time, forcing people to have that terrible port of Arkham Knight!
If you can get this for at least half the RRP, Batman Arkham Trilogy is worth it for Arkham Asylum and City. However, Arkham Knight is an absolute disgrace and I do not know how they do not feel guilty charging people for this! I would love to hear your thoughts on this game in the comments section down below.
