Batman: Arkham Asylum/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • And the Fandom Rejoiced:
  • Anticlimax Boss: Depending on the player, can include Killer Croc (if it works for you, Croc's lair is a tense slog through a Nightmare Fuel factory; if it doesn't, it's just tedious), Harley Quinn (when Batman confronts her, it's either cutscene time, miniboss time with a gang of henchmen, or you taking her down from above via glass ceiling), Bane (he's basically the same as any other Titan Henchman -- though it should be noted he's the first true fight with one) and Titan-powered Joker. ESPECIALLY Titan Joker, as his battle is essentially a glorified henchman fight.
  • Awesome Music: The whole soundtrack composed by Nick Arundel is fantastic, and sounds like a blend of Hans Zimmer's Dark Knight Saga music as well as Danny Elfman's pieces from Tim Burton's flicks.
    • An easily missed but nice song is "Irresistible You", a nice jazzy Frank Sinatra-esque tune that plays outside of the asylum before you go to the Joker's "Party". It's almost like a love song between the Joker and Batman (at least, from the Joker's perspective, though you can make a case for Batman) and is perfect at portraying their odd relationship.
  • Badass Decay: Poor Aaron Cash. In Living Hell, the man was the hero of the comic and a total badass. He could take down anyone in the asylum, including (at the very end) Killer Croc, and with the help of Etrigan, he saved the prison staff from a demonic sacrificial ritual. In the game? Well, he's still got his attitude, that counts for something.
    • To be fair, his attitude alone still makes him quite badass; he's the only one not afraid of any of the thugs and the Joker, and one gets the feeling they're only so cocky around him because they outnumber him and have managed to get the drop on him. As for why Cash isn't saving the day, it's still a Batman game, not a Warden Cash game.
    • Bane seems to have fallen to this, thanks to being a screaming brute who pretty much serves as a proper introduction to Titan thugs. It's justified however due to him being suddenly filled with a ton of Titan before his boss fight, which explains why he's pretty much a brute.
  • Best Level Ever: Scarecrow's fear gas segments are considered to be the best parts of the game by many due to how terrifying and just damn memorable they are.
  • Big Lipped Alligator Moment: In the same room as Clayface is a prisoner who doesn't seem to be any recognizable Batman villain. and his model is too detailed to just be a random NPC. Not many people will recognize them as the winner of the "Appear in the game!" contest, making it feel like this trope.
  • Breather Boss: Combined with Anticlimax Boss. The very first boss encounter (with a random mook who was exposed to a prototype version of Titan) seems like it'll be a fair challenge... but he suddenly dies from heart failure after a fairly brief amount of time, no defeat necessary.
  • Complete Monster: The Joker, who actually has the doctors believing that he's not crazy at all, "just Evil".
    • The Spirit of Arkham, or as he's really known, Quincy Sharp... or at least it seems. The true monster is Hugo Strange who caused Sharp to think he was being possessed by the spirit of Amadeus Arkham. While he doesn't make an appearance in the game except for a cameo, Arkham City reveals that Strange was working in the Asylum and had Sharp secretly subjected to mind-control drugs. Thanks to Strange's machinations as well as Sharp's suppressed schizophrenia, Sharp snapped and got absolutely brutal with Arkham's inmates and would often torture them to death for the hell of it. While Sharp is an evil person, he's still ultimately a pathetic figure who is being manipulated by another Knight Templar and does end up showing regret for his actions in Arkham City. Meanwhile, Strange was also free to be as cruel as he wanted with the Asylum's patients: a good example being the absolutely stark-raving mad, animalistic Arkham Inmates, who ended up the way they are due to Strange torturing and lobotomizing them. As this person shows, a particularly brutal Knight Templar can be much more terrifying than any card-carrying bad guy.
    • While a lot more minor compared to Joker and Strange, Victor Zsasz still qualifies among the game's other super-villains, what with his obsession with gruesomely murdering innocent people to rack up tallies on his skin.
  • Crazy Awesome: Joker in a nutshell, when playing as him. The guy can leapfrog over attackers, he uses a joy-buzzer and a comical eye-poke in combat and can use chattering teeth bombs in his predator challenges, yet he can still be as badass as Batman.
  • Creepy Awesome: Scarecrow full-stop. This guy has some of the most genuinely scariest moments in the game, is a rather challenging boss, and has an intriguing amount of character that hides much more sinister evil within him.
  • Demonic Spiders: Henchmen who are armed with guns are easily among the toughest enemies in the game as they can tear off chunks of your health with their bullets from a distance, and fighting two or more at once is pretty much suicide. That's pretty much the point as they're mainly encountered in stealth sections and you're meant to slowly and stealthily pick them off one at a time, but they sometimes appear among packs of normal melee thugs, which makes their presence a lot worse.
    • The stun baton wielding henchmen also deserve a mention. Any physical attack you inflict on them will result in you getting hurt by their electric weapons, and unlike the knife wielding thugs, stunning them doesn't help a bit. There's also the fact that you have to deal with them along with other henchmen, and thus run the very real risk of accidentally combo-ing right into their batons.
    • Poison Ivy's hostile plants are also this to a degree. They react when you get close by firing off nearly undodgeable spores that do a decent amount of damage. While they're meant to be taken out while doing a stealthy crouch-walk, you have to do it at a fast pace, not a slow one which is not very intuitive at all.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: The Scarecrow has got himself a few fangirls. Might have something to do with him being shirtless for this game.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Scarecrow is easily the most popular villain in the game outside of the gloriously hammy Joker due to his terrifying and memorable Fear Gas segments.
    • Killer Croc as well for being genuinely intimidating, and having what a lot of people consider to be a very memorable chase section.
  • Evil Is Cool: Being a Batman game, it's only natural that his amazing cast of villains would become some of the most memorable moments and encounters in the story.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Harley and Ivy flaunt their hotness fairly openly. The few non-villainous female characters in the game (most notably Dr. Young) are far more button-down and conservative.
  • Game Breaker: The Batclaw in Predator rooms. A single use of the Batclaw on a mook next to a railing will result in an automatic takedown, as the mook is pulled over the railing and falls to the ground. This removes the risk of Batman being spotted and getting shot at due to the range of the Batclaw's rope. All of the Predator rooms from the point where you acquire the Batclaw have such railings. The Ultra Batclaw will allow you to pull up to 3 mooks for an instant takedown, but there's only one predator room left in the story when you get it so it doesn't get to be as useful outside the Challenge Mode.
  • Goddamned Bats: You're playing as the Goddamn Bats, but he's not the only one around:
    • The knife-wielding mooks are this, due to having attacks that can't be countered unlike most other enemies, and will shred off tons of health if you ignore them in favor of fighting other mooks.
    • The mooks in general, when you're fighting any of the bosses. Contrary to what the developers have said, combat with mooks is generally a static affair, and usually the easiest way to die against a boss is to stay still.
    • Arkham Inmates in the DLC map Totally Insane. Remember those crazies who you dispatched with one counter and a ground takedown? Yeah, they show up here alongside lots of thugs. Except now you barely have time to do a ground takedown on any of them. Which means that they keep coming. And coming. And coming. And COMING. And that's not the worst part. Said crazies cannot be dispatched by any of the special takedown maneuvers and will simply leap over Batman. The worst part is that doing so will break your combo and leave you open to thugs, or even worse, more crazies.
    • While they can't hurt you, the gag teeth do show some elements of this, considering how numerous, omnipresent and annoying they are.
      • And that they don't show up on either the main map or the ones Riddler leaves lying around, yet are required to finish off Riddler's challenges.
    • Ivy's plants which shoot homing spores at you. They are sometimes unavoidable, and dodging the spores is difficult.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Just before the final boss fight, Joker turns his TITAN gun on himself while talking like he'd been Driven to Suicide "I have nothing to live for." Fast-forward to Batman: Arkham City, and his death by TITAN poisoning.
  • Hell Is That Noise: Batman causes this in the thugs sent to stop him, especially as their numbers dwindle lower and lower by a seemingly invisible assailant.
    • Killer Croc's breathing is this whenever you're in his lair. It's absolutely perfect for setting the intense air for his sort-of boss fight.
    • During the Scarecrow sequences, the creepy voice who responds when Batman tries to call Barbara and the voices demanding you to get out of the morgue in the first hallucination as well as the monotone woman on the intercom saying "Did anyone catch the game last night?" before the third one are incredibly creepy.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: During the beginning sequence of the game, Frank Boles insults the Joker, who tells him to keep his mouth shut or it'll get him into trouble. Later on in the game, Boles is revealed to be a double agent working with the Joker, and Batman is able to trace him via a bourbon trail he'd been drinking. The Joker finds out and has Boles killed.
  • Les Yay: Harley and Ivy get their usual dose of this despite only having one (very short) scene together. Harley lets Ivy out even though she isn't on the Joker's list, and Ivy blows her a kiss as she leaves.

Joker: "I could watch those two all day. What a riot!"

  • Magnificent Bastard: The Joker is this as well as a Complete Monster. He counted on Batman being able to figure out that something was up with his behavior when being taken into the asylum, causing Batman to follow him to his cell. This ended up causing him to trap Batman on the island after all the prisoners broke free which meant that he had no choice but to fall right into the Joker's trap. He basically turned Batman's Genre Savvy nature against himself!
  • Memetic Mutation: "It's the BAT!"
    • "You heard the boss!"
    • Use the middle stick to dodge Joker's gunfire.
  • Most Annoying Sound:
    • "Heya, B-Man!" Harley Quinn's voice. This may very well be her superpower.
    • Mooks and bosses jeering as you're hit are incredibly annoying, which makes turning the tables on them even sweeter.
    • The Joker teeth chattering. Also in-universe, since the Riddler challenges you to destroy as many of the annoying things as possible.
    • As awesome as Mark Hamill as the Joker is... hearing the same two or three lines repeated over and over and over again as you try to Gold the challenges can get very annoying.
      • Same with the P.A. Joker lines. If you spend ANY amount of time outside, the Joker will call over the P.A. and say the same couple lines over and over and over. It gets to the point that you start to dread hearing the P.A.'s jingle.
    • The raspy screams the Lunatics give off before charging you. It's a simple matter of a counter and takedown, but after the fourth or fifth one (especially outside), you begin to find it rather tiresome that they don't just run away from you and hide quietly.
    • Some of the henchmen's lines get old quick. It can get annoying when you hear "Don't let him hit you, you idiots!" or "Get him on the ground and step on his face!" for the umpteenth time.
    • Game Over screens tend to become this as the game progresses, mostly due to the fact that the amount of lines the villains will throw at you is very limited (the Joker himself only seems to have six or seven of those despite being the Game Over man throughout a vast majority of the game). It doesn't help that you need to manually confirm being willing to try again rather than quit the game (despite being able to do the latter anytime you like) each time before being allowed to continue.
  • Moral Event Horizon: The Joker has been committing atrocity after atrocity years before the series started, but in this game his entire plan puts him even further beyond redemption as he gets thousands of innocent people killed for the sake of trying to mentally break Batman, and is ready to kill more with his army of Titan-powered monsters.
    • While he didn't succeed thanks to Killer Croc's intervention, Scarecrow attempting to dump all of his fear toxin into the Gotham River counts, especially since it seems to be out of pettiness towards Batman for resisting his fear toxin every time he exposed him to it.
  • Narm:
    • After Harley tries to kill Batman by dropping an elevator on him, he explains the situation to Harley and says he'll have to climb the elevator shaft "the old-fashioned way". Yes, because there's nothing more old-fashioned than a state-of-the-art mechanized grappling gun.
    • The interview tapes have a proclivity towards Narm. The dialogue seems to be less tight than the rest of the game's, and the voice inflections border on Chewing the Scenery, for example, The Riddler's, Mr. Zsasz's and Killer Croc's tapes.
  • Narm Charm: Some of the cheesier lines come off as more than a little amusing when spoken by the always-stoic Kevin Conroy. You have to wonder how in the world Batman can keep a straight face spouting lines like "I eat punks like these for breakfast." On the other hand, it makes for a great Badass Boast.
  • Nightmare Retardant: Killer Croc's lair can be this for some players. While it sounds scary on paper (You have to slowly make your way around Croc's lair while he can suddenly pop up without warning and try to murder you with a Scare Chord playing), once you realize that Killer Croc almost always announces when he's about to get you giving you plenty of time to wait for him as well as the fact that one Batarang is all it takes to send him back into the water makes him more of an amusing inconvenience for some players.
  • Older Than They Think: The Predator gameplay has its roots in the Batman Begins video-game adaptation; in turn, that gameplay was based on Metal Gear Solid's stealth aspects. The heart monitor, grapple-point gargoyles, enemies becoming gradually more frantic as they're hunted, and some special attacks, all made it into Arkham Asylum.
  • One-Scene Wonder:
    • Robin appears in one single cutscene of the game's story, in which he takes down two of the League of Assassin's members confronting Batman, before being given a sample of Bruce's blood to analyze and being told he's needed in Gotham while Batman deals with Arkham City. Gets more screentime in the "Harley Quinn's Revenge" DLC. While you do play as Batman for a good amount of time, a lot of the focus is on him due to Batman's Badass in Distress status.
    • Well, two scenes, but it may be hard to find Mad Hatter in the scene where you save Vicki Vale.
  • Paranoia Fuel: You, to the various mooks in the game. Listen to their chatter after you encounter them and then hide in the rafters. "Oh my god! I've lost him! He... he could come from anywhere!"
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: This is the treatment the Riddler got in this game. While he had his fans before, there were still a ton of people who found him to be an obnoxious and embarrassingly campy villain. In this game however, his intelligent side is showcased by him hiding all sorts of trophies and making riddles for you to solve around the island, which is very fun to do. The fact that he's a lot creepier as his patient interview tapes shows helps a lot as well.
  • Scrappy Mechanic: Players and critics complained that Detective Mode is just so damn handy, you'll never not want to use it - the downside is that you have to play the entire game in a blueish hue, seeing every character as a translucent skeleton. The loudest complaints came from Rocksteady's own art directors, who were upset that players weren't seeing the game as they intended it to be seen, so they're altering the mechanic for the sequel. No, don't think about why Batman would make one of his best crimefighting tools less effective.
  • Special Effects Failure: The Sanatorium is apparently the only place on the island experiencing a thunderstorm. This is fixed in the remastered version, which has it raining throughout the entire game, although it adds another mistake; it's not raining when the Batwing delivers the Line Launcher.
    • The fight against Poison Ivy mostly has a fixed camera angle. But for a short time at the beginning of the fight, you can look around freely like you normally can. Looking to the sides reveals that the wall that was supposed to be behind you wasn't textured, allowing you to see right through to the skybox.
  • Squick: During the parts with Scarecrow, Joker asks Batman what his fears are, this would have been fine, but then he just had to say "Me? In a thong!?!". Ugh...
    • Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Funny, as the "Blaaaahahahaha!" that the Joker gives right after indicates that he knows that it'd be more Squick than scary, and that laugh he gives is absolutely hilarious.
  • That One Boss: Poison Ivy. During her battle she constantly assaults you with thorny vines that will do tons of damage even if you break free, and will alternate by blasting you with pollen while she taunts you. While this leaves her open for you to nail her with a Batarang, you need to have almost perfect timing to hit her both before she retreats back into her plant barrier as well as dodge her homing spores. And if that wasn't bad enough, her second phase has her bring in brainwashed asylum guards to hinder you with. While they're no tougher than your average mooks, the fact that you have to fight them while being bombarded with her aforementioned spiky vines makes taking them down a much more tedious and frustrating process. Thankfully, the developers made it to where if you die (Which you probably will) on her second phase, you don't have to start all the way back at the beginning of the fight.
  • That One Level:
    • Saving Gordon from Harley near the end of the Medical Ward. There's virtually no room for error; misalign your position even slightly, you'll immediately get spotted, which results in Gordon getting shot up and you having to start all over. Oh, and if a guard just happens to see a knocked out baddie, that also triggers the game over, so not only do you have to carefully maneuver your way through the guards, you have to make sure you take them out in very specific areas where the other guards can't find them, or you fail instantly. And after you finally manage to escape the guards, you're immediately thrown into a fight with Bane.
    • The Aviary in your first visit to the Botanical Gardens, for much of the same reasons as above. You can't knock out any of the guards, you can't be seen at all by any of them, and trying to get past them all with what little cover you have is pretty irritating. It thankfully gets easier once you take out the guard in the control room, but after that, there are two Titan Henchmen you have to take on at the same time.
    • Your return later on to Intensive Treatment, where the gargoyles (the key to your superiority over gun-wielding Mooks) have been set to explode when you climb onto them. It's much harder than it sounds since all seven mooks in the area are armed, and without the escape route of the gargoyles, being spotted by multiple foes will mean a quick death. Even after you've completed the main game, if you return to this area to find the remaining collectibles, you still have to be careful as the explosives on the gargoyles are still active, and if you accidentally grapple onto one, it's an instant death.
    • Killer Croc's lair primarily because you have to spend a couple of precious seconds to look for where you need to go next (and in that timeframe, Croc could have already started to pop up and charge your way), Croc having to be manually aimed at whenever he pops up instead of using a Quick Batarang (not helped that you might not know where he's coming from until it's almost too late) and the fact that the mission is a very lengthy sequence to complete.
  • That One Sidequest: On your way into the Visitor Center to the final boss, there's a short hallway with 20 mooks in it who won't attack you unless you attack them. Though they are unarmed, so many of them in such a tight space is extremely difficult, even with all the upgrades you have at this point.
    • Joker Teeth are the most loathed of the Riddler's challenges. It might have something to do with them not being an actual riddle, tape or Arkham chronicle. Also, while about 90% of the teeth show up more or less naturally as a result of the story progression, there's that set that hide above the hallway to the warden's office, which happens after the player has basically realized this, and then notice they missed them after the sequence is over.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • According to some interviews, the Mad Hatter was originally going to appear in the game, but was edited out for time. He wouldn't be used until Arkham City.
    • All the super criminals listed on Harley Quinn's party list were A-list Batman villains apparently held within the asylum during the campaign, but escaped before Batman could even interact with them.
  • The Unexpected: Clayface. We go from Joker's machinations, Gambit Pileups, and somewhat humanoid enemies into feeding ice grenades into a full-on massive mud-slinging monster, and then whacking him with a sword.
  • Unintentionally Sympathetic:
    • Killer Croc earns a little sympathy from some Batman fans due to his primary motivation being his search for a cure to his hideous physical condition.
    • According to the All There in the Manual, Amadeus Arkham as well. After his wife and daughter were murdered by an Ax Crazy criminal, Amadeus — remembering his mother's own mental illness — chose to forgive and treat him instead of seeking vengeance... and was "rewarded" with said criminal feigning rehabilitation, killing Amadeus's secretary as well, and constantly taunting Amadeus about said murders. After all that, you really can't blame Amadeus for finally just frying the guy to death in an electroshock-therapy "accident".
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: The entire game as a whole is full of amazing graphics that are very appealing to one's eyes.
    • The remaster looks absolutely amazing (especially outdoors, the rain definitely helps). The level of detail in Batman's suit is so high it's just awesome.
  • What an Idiot!: Both Poison Ivy And the Joker would be unbeatable if they didn't stop to taunt you and show off to the circling helicopters respectively which leaves them open to be hurt. Guess what they do during their boss fights the entire time?
  1. ↑ Ok, it's only a loose adaptation. But still...
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