Review – LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight

Of all the open world experiences available on Nintendo Switch 2, WB and Travelers Tales’ Lego Batman: Legacy of The Dark Knight was perhaps my most anticipated. How can you deny the pure gothic awesomeness of exploring Gotham City? As it turns out, you can’t, even on Switch 2. While I have my gripes with some of the sacrifices made to get the game running on Nintendo’s hybrid console, as a whole this is quite an impressive port. 

It’s actually been awhile since we had seen our Lego Caped Crusader. 2014’s Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham coincidentally also featured an open world to explore but was, as its name implies, about venturing outside of Gotham City. And while it was a nice change of pace to explore the Lantern Planets, there’s just something irreplaceable about Gotham. So 12 years later, the stage is set for the return to Lego Gotham and…

It’s better than ever. 

Yes, it’s even better than Lego Batman 2’s sprawling Gotham City. The idea here was to take Batman Arkham Asylum’s and especially Batman Arkham City’s exploration, as well as combat, and fit that into a Lego game. Legacy of The Dark Knight succeeds on these fronts. What’s even cooler is that this game is drawing from all eras of Batman. So this version of Gotham City ends up resembling Tim Burton’s iconic depiction thanks to its combination of looming shadows and wild neon colors. The rainy streets also remind me of Matt Reeves’ Gotham City in The Batman. 

 

 

Having so much Batman backlog (Batlog?) to pull from was no doubt daunting. How would a narrative for this sort of project take shape? Would the movies all be played through in sequence? That might make for a predictable playthrough similar to the Lego Star Wars games. Instead, Legacy of The Dark Knight spreads collectibles and objectives through a timeline of events specific to this game. That means you’ll start out with Batman Begins, move subtly into Batman 1989, then into a combination of Batman Returns and The Dark Knight, continuing on from there. The order of things actually makes a lot of sense and the game does a good job of portraying iconic moments with just enough of a humorous spin that it’s slapstick-approved. Along the way, The Animated Series, various comic books, the 60s TV series and more are woven in. Truly, this plays like a shrine to all things VENGEANCE. 

A big bonus to this release of Legacy of The Dark Knight is the Absolute difficulty mode. Previously, the highest difficulty was Dark Knight which allowed only three lives per mission and maximum enemy spawns. Absolute is designed to be a test of strength, only allowing one life per mission, lowers Batman’s attack damage, hides onscreen action prompts and shortens reaction windows for countering enemy attacks. So if you have been writing off this game as Arkham-lite, this update for all versions of the game is just daring you to keep calling it that. Arkham’s combat model has been quite influential and this is as good of an iteration of it as any. 

 

 

If you’re a fan of collectathons, this is a great one when it comes to incentivizing all of the snooping around. Various Batmobiles and Batsuits are able to be earned from collecting studs, red bricks and Wayne Enterprises boxes. While certain suits are locked behind a Deluxe Edition or Twitch drops with some having been pre-order exclusive, it is satisfying to be able to see the Arkham Asylum batsuit in the same game as Batman Beyond’s. Interestingly, you start out with The Batman’s muscle car Batmobile by default and unlock more from there. I had no qualms with this, especially when getting to the engine roaring scene with The Penguin. 

So, how is exploring Gotham City? Well, I was thoroughly impressed with all of the grapple points found on most in-game assets. You can grapple on just about anything. You also gain the ability to spread your Batwings and soar through the night sky with the help of various updrafts and wind tunnels. Of course, being Batman means you can perch as high up as you want on any skyscraper, brood for a few minutes, and take a dive down to the streets. It’s all very satisfying and even in Lego form, you feel like Batman. While there are various playable characters aside from Batman such as Robin and Commissioner Gordon, the focus is on primarily on Batman this time. 

I’ve been less impressed with Mayhem Mode, Legacy of The Dark Knight’s DLC mode. It’s really just a vehicle to bring The Joker and Harley Quinn into their own spotlights as playable characters. I was under the impression that the destruction-based gameplay in this mode would be on an open map but instead it’s on a timer and run-based. That’s just a fancy way of saying this is a roguelite. Like in any roguelites, you begin in a hub then make your way to the map, in this case Gotham City. You’re tasked with gaining as many studs as possible by robbing banks, trashing streetlights, and causing as much chaos as possible. All the while Batman and Robin are chasing you as you make your way back to your amusement park lair. You even sometimes face off against the Suicide Squad or “Task Force X” as they’re referred to as here. The idea is sound but the value I got out of this mode was pretty paper thin. Five hours is all it takes to finish this mode’s story and even with unlockable power-ups, outfits, and lair decor, I would have preferred the main game’s format for this mode. 

 

 

You may remember that Lego Batman: Legacy of The Dark Knight was supposed to release day and date with its Steam and console counterparts back in May but was delayed. How has this delay benefitted the Switch 2 version? Well, the resolution is a dynamic 1080p in both handheld and docked modes which is fantastic. However, the frame rate is only a locked 30 FPS in both modes and this is especially unfortunate for docked mode. There’s a slight bit of input delay when moving a character in any one direction, but this could also just be the heaviness of the characters. While lighting and reflections are above average, they’re not as good as on other versions. However, none of this is truly a hindrance to being able to experience the full game in handheld mode with a great resolution and decent performance. I only experienced a stutter or two in the transition from gameplay to cutscenes or when in a vehicle segment. Loading times tended to be about ten to 15 seconds and, impressively, no part of the open world had to be loaded in while exploring. 

I walked away from Lego Batman: Legacy of The Dark Knight impressed by how great and complete of a package its main game is. For Switch 2, even with a few performance sacrifices, I still felt like what I experienced was just as quality as it would have been on any other system. One thing about me is that I love Batman Begins and find it to be the most important movie of its trilogy. The Dark Knight gets all of the attention where Begins deserves more love for how strong of a start it was. I feel like Legacy of The Dark Knight not only recognizes this, but it builds its foundation on it. And building your core on top of such a great piece of media has to make for a great product. It did. This game became more than a man, it’s a symbol for one of the best Batman games ever made. 

 

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