Review: LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight - A Love Letter

If you scroll down, and not just to see what score I gave the game, you'll see that the game that defined my childhood is the first LEGO Batman. I remember playing it on the PlayStation 2, addicted to Batman's world and the amazing levels they built into the game. When LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight was announced last year, I hoped it would accomplish two main things: first, to succeed in being a good game beyond nostalgia for everyone who grew up on LEGO Batman, and second, to be a product that the next generations could look at exactly the way we looked at the first LEGO Batman. I can answer both right now, everything else comes later in the review. If you grew up on LEGO Batman and you're looking for nostalgia and addictive fun beyond it, the game absolutely delivers that - after its problematic first few hours. If you have an hour and a half to push through the beginning to get to about 20 hours of madness, stop reading the review now and run to buy it. And about the second thing: when I played the game, it was important to me to check what my 10-year-old cousin would say about it, so I invited him for a two-hour session with the game. After those two hours I asked him what he thought, he said he thinks the game is a 10, went to his parents and asked them to buy it for him. I think that sums up the situation nicely.

A Nostalgic Journey

From here begins the standard review of the game, which is anything but standard. LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight aims to unite all Batman products ever - from movies to series to comics to video games - into one linear story in a game that strives to merge LEGO games with Arkham series gameplay. That probably sounds completely insane to you, and it absolutely is, but the game's secret is that even when it aims too far, it does so with so much heart that even where it fails, it won't lose you completely. And it absolutely fails - at the beginning. The game is super meticulous about Batman, to the level of obsessive fans, and it wants to tell Bruce's origin story before he gets all the basic abilities we expect from Batman games like gadgets and gliding with the cape. This is even clearer when it's a LEGO game where you can cut corners to make it more fun - but like I said, this isn't a standard game at all. Until about the third hour, even basic mechanics like gliding aren't available to you, just to serve the story. This repeats itself in the city as well, which starts completely empty and slowly fills with missions as villains are created.

For example, in many buildings there's a really cool side mission where you eliminate Poison Ivy's carnivorous plants - but until she appears in the story (about 10 hours in) those buildings stand empty of content. These are annoying decisions that definitely made me frustrated, but that's where the bad ends because the game's story is so good that you can somehow still justify even this nonsense. The game truly does the impossible in this area, uniting all Batman stories into six chronological chapters with logic that somehow works from beginning to the super explosive end. What works in the game's favor is its super sharp writing, which manages to make you laugh and feel emotional several times - something I really didn't expect to say about a LEGO game at age 20+. The way we grow up with Batman and Gotham, seeing characters enter Bruce's life and develop themselves, is done here in one of the best ways I've seen even though everything remains superficial as befitting a LEGO game. It works because the game does stop and get emotional when needed, but always knows how to return elegantly to excellent humor that will make people laugh far beyond kids. Some of the jokes are just insanely clever, and without spoiling them I'll just include an example of the game's writing level from how it presents the option to buy a rose decoration for the Batcave.

From Fans for Fans

The references to Batman's history don't stop there at all, and only go deeper and deeper to a level that won't be clear even to the average Batman fan. But, even if it's not exactly clear to me what that suit I unlocked references or why the hell there are two Riddlers in the city and one calls himself the Cluemaster, I enjoyed every moment and every joke the game threw at me. Most are of course completely familiar, and are thrown at us mainly in the excellent campaign and in the short videos that appear at the end of each chapter. They're actually a ticking nostalgia bomb, because the vast majority are done without dialogue exactly like LEGO games used to be. But that's the only thing that reminds you of past LEGO games. Everything else is different - from the levels, which despite being fantastically designed now don't contain puzzles for characters you haven't unlocked but rather let you get all the collectables on the first run, to the fact that there are only 7 characters with different suits instead of the 200+ characters LEGO games usually have.

But is different necessarily bad? No, but also not necessarily good. I think the levels lost a lot with the drastic change in how you collect secrets in them, and I have no excuse to replay most of them even though they're excellent and I'd be happy for such an excuse. The reduction in characters actually works amazingly, and it really didn't bother me once I understood how far they went with the differences for each character. On paper they fight the same way, but each character has two different gadgets that help her solve puzzles each in its own way - and also change combat dynamics. So for example Batgirl can neutralize enemies with guns using her hacking tool, but you might prefer Catwoman who can summon cats in the middle of battle and distract almost all enemies. The variety extends to the world, and beyond using characters to solve the Riddler's puzzles, each one also has a mission unique to her. Catwoman gets the coolest mission here, with 16 scattered apartments we need to break into and solve puzzles on the way to a large safe at their center. Each character can upgrade their abilities to super cool moves through WayneTech chips generously scattered throughout the world and levels. The upgrades sealed it for me that I loved the change in character count, because they truly made each one feel special and every battle feel different.

The Co-Op Experience

It's important to mention that the game's Co-Op works amazingly, and created some of the most fun moments I've had in gaming recently. To test the experience I also played with my friends, and we laughed a lot during the Poison Ivy level. The game runs well even when the screen is split, and nothing in its performance suffered from the decision, even in driving where the field of view gets a bit shorter. Driving isn't wow anyway (like all LEGO games) but it's not terrible either. Of course I recommend playing single player to appreciate how beautiful this game is, but even in two players it works great.

The Bottom Line

LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight is like an obsessive fan who wants to convince you that Batman is the best thing in the world. It's clunky sometimes and takes a long time to get to the point, but it's filled with so much passion that it can't help but turn out excellent in most parts and finish the story with you in love with Batman's world just like it is. With an almost masterful campaign led by sharp and emotional storytelling, fantastic level design and fun combat system, there's no way you won't fall in love with LEGO Batman - after its boring first few hours.