DEVELOPER: Rocksteady Studios (originals)/Turn me Up Games (porting duties)
PUBLISHER: WB Games
REVIEWED ON: Nintendo Switch from a copy purchased by the author.
The Arkham series of Batman video games developed by Rocksteady Studios needs little introduction. Marrying a blend of stealth, easy to pick up combat and exploration with some of the talent behind Batman: The Animated Series – including the gone but never forgotten Kevin Conroy and Arleen Sorkin – the Arkham franchise effectively changed the way superheroes were treated in the interactive medium. Where once they were names a company could rely on to turn a quick buck, Rocksteady’s take on the Dark Knight and his world showed that comic book properties, when treated with the respect they deserved, could be just as valuable as major first-party stars like Mario and Uncharted‘s Nathan Drake.
Debuting in 2009 with the release of Batman: Arkham Asylum, the Arkham franchise has found many homes over the years and is now concluding 2023 with a new one: the Nintendo Switch. Nintendo’s console/hybrid device is no stranger to ports and compilations, and now thanks to Turn Me Up Games, it’s Batman’s turn with the release of Batman: Arkham Trilogy. Collecting Rocksteady’s core trilogy: Asylum, City and Knight into one package with all of their DLC, Batman: Arkham Trilogy is asking a lot of the Nintendo Switch and it mostly delivers on its big promises.
If you’re intimated by the Steam Deck portable PC, or simply can’t fit one in your budget, and want to play the likes of Batman: Arkham Asylum and City on the go, this compilation is a worthwhile purchase, even at its current full price of $79.99 in Canada. But while it’s a small miracle that Turn Me Up got Batman: Arkham Knight running in a functional state on the Switch, this is not the way anyone should experience that title, especially if you’re a Nintendo die-hard who has never played it before.
If you’re picking up a physical copy of Batman: Arkham Trilogy, 2009’s Batman: Arkham Asylum is the only title housed on the cart. When you slot it into your system, it automatically downloads the other 2 games to your device if you have the space. Should you go the digital route, you similarly have to buy everything as there’s no a la carte option to just pick up one title or all three.
This is the first time the debut chapter of the series has graced a Nintendo console, and it’s a respectable port that’s enjoyable whether you play it docked or in handheld mode. The minor problems with the port of Asylum, which are true for City also, are a few hiccups in the framerate and textures not loading in as fast as they could. The Arkham series is dark, both from its tone and visuals at point, but when played on a non-OLED Nintendo Switch in handheld mode, I experienced no trouble reading the environments. It was impossible really not to be genuinely excited to play these 2 games while waiting to start my day at work or simply testing them out at home.
Upon death, load times are not as fast as the likes of the PlayStation 5 and the Series consoles, but you do respawn back into the action at a fast pace. Whether you’re exploring the cramped halls of Arkham Asylum or glide boosting around the enclosed prison that is Arkham City, Batman: Arkham Trilogy feels as just as good as anywhere else. Anyone who tells you that Turn Me Up’s port of Asylum and City are unplayable are grossly exaggerating. For the purposes of this evaluation, I rolled credits on the first 2 chapters on the collection and did a run through of the Harley Quinn’s Revenge DLC. Neither truly felt any different than when they were completed on many different iterations of Sony and Microsoft hardware.
Batman: Arkham Knight on the other hand is indefensible. About 1% was put into the concluding chapter before the towel was thrown in because it was just hard to look at. The Nintendo Switch is home to some impossible ports, including 2016’s DOOM which holds a respectable 79 on Metacritic, and Alien Isolation, but those hoping for a pleasant surprise when loading up Batman: Arkham Knight like those 2 examples should brace themselves for disappointment.
Whether it was time, budget, or just a case of how the original was built, Batman: Arkham Knight is simply too much of an ask for the Nintendo Switch. In the opening cut-scenes, characters models can best be described of having that early virtual reality fuzziness about them and Poison Ivy is sorely lacking the detail they should from the neck down when you encounter her in the opening moments.
A downgrade in visuals was to be expected, and quite frankly an acceptable compromise if it meant Batman: Arkham Knight could be enjoyed on the Switch, but that’s just not the case. Even when gliding around the first area you’re given freedom in, the game is clearly struggling to run and things only get worse once you enter the Batmobile. Constant stuttering makes it impossible to even steer back to the Gotham City Police department and will assuredly cause motion sickness in those suspectable to it. Love or hate the use of the Batmobile in Batman: Arkham Knight, it’s baked into the game’s design and needed for everything from battles, to road chases and puzzle solving. If that doesn’t work, than Batman: Arkham Knight doesn’t work.
Batman: Arkham Trilogy can only be evaluated on what it is and not what it should be, but the question has to be asked why Batman: Arkham Knight was chosen for this project in the first place. Turn Me Up added a dedication to Kevin Conroy in the credits, so it could be their way of celebrating the late actor’s life, or maybe they wanted to challenge themselves in the same way that say, a company like Digital Eclipse did once upon a time when porting Dragon’s Lair to the Game Boy Color.
Perhaps because it isn’t as prestigious as Batman: Arkham Knight, or maybe because its code was not as stable, but Batman: Arkham Origins would’ve been a better fit for a trilogy package. As a bonus it would’ve been nice to even have its companion title Blackgate on something other than defunct handhelds and hardware. As Comics on Consoles‘ Chris Clow pointed out recently, Batman: Arkham Origins DLC Cold, Cold Heart is also no longer available to purchase on Xbox hardware. As the Xbox One and the Series X are the most modern consoles you can easily enjoy Batman: Arkham Origins on, and even then you have to own the disk, Arkham Origins is sadly heading towards being erased completely and it’s deserving of preservation.
Whether or not you should purchase Batman: Arkham Trilogy comes down to a few caveats. If you don’t own a Steam Deck and would like to play Batman: Arkham Asylum and City on the go, it’s easily worth the asking price as both are still among the best comic book video game adaptations ever produced. With but a few minor problems that only the truly detail oriented will be turned off by, each of these run respectably on the Nintendo Switch.
This is a trilogy, however, and it’s also a tough ask to pay full price when a whole third of it should be ignored. What Turn Me Up Games has accomplished has been commended, but WB Games should’ve either considered slotting in the much more reasonable Batman: Arkham Origins, or even trimming down the price and having just Asylum and City like the Return to Arkham upgrade from the last generation of consoles.
It’s great to have the Arkham series on the Switch, it’s just a shame that the shadow of one game looms over the great work done on the other chapters.
Batman: Arkham Trilogy is available now on Nintendo Switch.
Comic Book Video Games 
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I kind of recommend this type of games to the pros because it was a very hard game that I have played besides Undertale.
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