#the cowl lenses really did influence the eye design

[ghost-bxrd]

Seeing Bat with spooky white eyes like the Cowl lenses…

Is Bat blind? Or have some kind of special vision?

Or…if he isn’t blind, did they first think he is, because of the white eyes? Is that why he got named Bat?

Nobody really knows how Bat’s eyes work exactly, but he seems to be capable of tracking prey and other living creatures just as well as any other dragon. At night, even better than others.

Some of the dragon keepers have theorized that Bat was indeed born blind, with the ability to use some form of echolocation to pinpoint where everything is.

Others just think it’s dark magic, the same kind that supposedly called the dragons into existence in the first place.

And yes you’re right! When Bat hatched they did assume he was blind. But the shape/color of his body and wings also contributed to the name.

[batmanvillainswithcircularheads]

Hey do you wanna know what I thought of Batman: The Telltale Series? No? Well here it is.

Season 1

Not a huge fan of this Bat symbol. It’s not awful though. And Batman’s ears are a liiiiiiiiiiittle too short.

I’ve heard some people say they don’t like Troy Baker as Batman, but I think he does a perfectly fine job.

It’s neat that the game lets you choose the color of Batman’s equipment, though I think blue is really the only color that works for it. Also it seems a little weird that everything Batman owns glows. There’s a moment where he grapples up a stairwell and the levels of the building light up as he passes through them. Doesn’t seem very stealthy for what’s supposed to be a method of escape.

The visuals in this game are good. The animation can be a little stiff at times, but nothing too bad. The cell shading’s cool.

Batman calling Alfred “Al” is weird. Why does he do this? I do not like this.

Catwoman is really good in this. I like her involvement in the story. I like her and Batman. I like her voice. I like her costume, though the material seems kinda bland; I like it when Catwoman’s costume is a bit shinier. That gadget she has that lets her slide up walls is cool, I’ll be damned if I know how it works though.

Not a huge fan of Batman scrambling his voice. It’s not huge, and I get why it makes sense for him to do it, but I just don’t like it. There are a lot of times Batman has more personal conversations with people and having him talk through a machine in situations like that makes it feel kind of distant, like he’s hiding behind it. I prefer it when Batman just speaks in two different voices as Bruce and as Batman. Hell, Troy Baker’s surely got the vocal range for that; He’s Troy Baker.

It took me forever to realize what it was I didn’t like about Gordon’s design, and that’s that his mustache is too thin.

Harvey Dent is good in this. Would have preferred his hair be black though. And why is he so tall? Bruce looks like a dwarf standing next to him. I do really like how they build up Harvey and Bruce’s friendship in this. Seeing him try to fight his own transformation, and regret what he does as “Two-Face” immediately after he does it, is genuinely saddening.

Vicki Vale could have been a good character if they hadn’t wasted her on a twist. Having to choose between giving the evidence on Falcone to her or to Gordon was interesting. It would have been nice to see that carry out through the whole game. Also when are we gonna get redhead Vicki Vale?

The design for Oswald Cobblepot is... different. I guess it’s fine since he’s supposed to be him when he’s younger. Still, he’s pretty much gonna have to change every single thing about his appearance in order to actually end up looking like his old self. The bird-beak gas mask is clever. I kind of like that the “Penguin” persona starting off as a way for Oswald to commit crimes while keeping his own name clean. Personality-wise he’s good. By the end of the game he’s an absolute bastard and all you want to do is beat the shit out of him, which is about what the Penguin should be. Him being childhood friends with Bruce Wayne seemed a little weird and didn’t really add much to his character or the story. It’s a little Roman Sionis-y.

Actually hold on a second here the Penguin in this game is actually just Black Mask  - childhood friend of Bruce Wayne’s  - hates the Waynes because of what they stand for  - “legitimate businessman” who creates a masked alter-ego to commit crimes I’m not even complaining about that it’s just kind of weird.

Batman having white lenses in his cowl is interesting and it makes sense. I don’t really like it or dislike it.

The Waynes murder twist is what really kills this thing. It’s such a huge change to Batman’s origin just for the sake of a twist. The whole time through I was hoping they’d reveal that all of the evidence was fabricated, and when they introduced Falcone’s drugs I was holding out on the hope that they were somehow influencing Bruce’s memory, as contrived as that would be. Bruce revisiting his parents’ murder seems forced. I get that people block out memories sometimes, but apparently all Bruce had to do to remember the entire conversation that happened while his parents were being repeatedly shot was to think real hard about it. Has he never thought real hard about it before? Didn’t Bruce try to investigate his parents’ murder after it happened?

Bruce’s car turning into the Batmobile is dope. Wouldn’t work for most versions of the Batmobile, but since this is early in Batman’s career and the Batmobile is pretty close to a regular car, it works. The color-changing is great too. 10/10 Batmobile would like to see again.

I’m not really fond of Batman using such advanced technology like drones, a forensic scanner built into his glove, and lenses that let him plan out his moves in advance, so early on in his career. Like I get that Bruce is gonna have a lot of technology at his disposal, and it’d be stupid of him not to use it, but when it’s early in his career I prefer seeing him not have everything built up so much and having to rely more on what he can make on his own. Like it’d be one thing if he were just occasionally re-purposing some Waynetech inventions but these things look like they’ve been specifically made for Batman. The damned things are even shaped like bats.

I like the idea of Martha Wayne organizing special screenings of The Mark of Zorro whenever Bruce wanted to see it. That’s sweet.

The choice of whether or not to save Harvey is a pretty obvious one to include, but having it be a choice brings up some weird questions. If you save Harvey, he still ends up becoming “Two-Face,” so it’s not like you’re actually saving him from a life of crime. It seems like he was doomed from the start. Does Harvey’s face ever become disfigured in that timeline then? Does he just go on to have a lengthy criminal career as Two-Face, without actually having two faces?

Hey Blockbuster sure is a character who is in this and sure does look the way he does in this and that’s just about all that can be said about him

So if you save Selina, she’ll show up to the hospital with flowers, then change her mind, give you the flowers, and you walk into the hospital with flowers for Harvey. If you save Harvey, Selina doesn’t show up at the hospital at all, and you visit Harvey... with the flowers. Where did you get the flowers from, if not Selina? If Bruce bought the flowers himself, then why didn’t he also buy them in the timeline where he saved Selina? He didn’t know Selina was going to be there to give him flowers, so why did he show up without flowers? I feel like this would have been a good opportunity for the game to go, “hey look at that, your choices really do change things!” by having him not have the flowers if you save Harvey.

Where did Selina get that tank top from? She wasn’t wearing it when she took off her suit. It’s not like they’re opposed to showing partial nudity in this game; we saw Selina without a shirt earlier on, and we got a whole walking simulator of a half-naked Bruce. If they really wanted to have Selina be more covered up they could have had her put on the tank top after she woke up. Did she have sex with Bruce, put the tank top on when they were done, then fall asleep?

Meeting Joker in Arkham and seeing a glimpse of who he would become was cool.

I don’t really like Zsasz’s voice.

Batman comforting the Vale kid was a good moment.

Penguin’s monocle looks kind of silly. It’s a nice nod to his regular monocle, I guess.

Harvey’s arm catching on fire when you jam his gun is kind of overkill. The flames really burned through that much clothing and did that much damage to his arm and leg in that short an amount of time? Like give it a rest he already has two faces.

Why do grapple guns need to be connected to a computer?

The flashback to Bruce and Oz as kids is kind of weird. Didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know. Didn’t make me feel anything for Bruce and Oz’s friendship since I didn’t really care in the first place.

Oh no Commissioner Grogan doesn’t like me I wonder if this is gonna cause any tension going forward oh wait he’s dead now and we made up how sad

Y’know, Harvey’s “Two-Face” voice sounds real silly when his face isn’t disfigured.

“Cobblepot” slapped over the ”Wayne” in Wayne Enterprises in Comic Sans is golden.

heheh, Fal-Coney Island

I had forgotten Selina was in the game until that last part with her. It was a good sendoff though.

Using the reflection in Alfred’s glasses to find clues about the room he’s being kept in is clever. I like it.

The armored Batsuit is dope. The classic Batsuit is also dope.

“Blue... the same color as my tech. It can’t be a coincidence.” Yes Bruce it absolutely goddamn could.

Vicki already had a perfectly sound motivation for doing what she did, did we really have to learn her adoptive parents were abusive too?

I keep forgetting Vicki can levitate. Probably because she only does it twice in the whole game. You’d think she’d do it a little bit more given how useful it is. It’s kind of over-powered honestly. How does it work? Is it the same technology as her staff? Where did she get that from? What does it have to do with her character? Why doesn’t Batman start using stuff like this?

So if you choose the option that gets Alfred’s eye blown out of his head, he has an eyepatch. So throughout the rest of Batman’s career Alfred’s gonna be a guy with an eyepatch. Having an eyepatch is now Alfred’s thing in this world. Either that or Bruce gets a little bit of his ear blown off, which is less egregious but still kind of weird... still that shit’s gonna heal up the second he meets Ra’s al Ghul.

So if you go as Bruce Wayne, Bruce makes a speech, and if you go as Batman, Batman talks to Jim for a hot minute before the speech happens... so Bruce could have still made his speech. You didn’t have to choose between going as Bruce and going as Batman. Sure, Batman swoops in to save Jim once Random Attacker with No Motivation #389 drives a truck into Jim, but Batman had no idea that was going to happen, and he would have saved the day even if he went as Bruce.

“Oh boy, it’s gonna be tough to top that!” John he pushed someone out of the way of a truck it’s the least impressive thing that’s happened in this entire game.

The real shame about this game is that it didn’t need to have all of these twists to be “new” and “different.” There have been plenty of stories that focus on Batman’s early days, but this one was different in that it was a video game that had you go through his early days step-by-step, instead of just having it be the backdrop for a regular Batman adventure. Splitting things up pretty much 50/50 between your life as Batman and your life as Bruce Wayne is also pretty rare for a video game. Hell, the simple fact that this is a Batman game done in the Telltale style sets it apart from other Batman games in and of itself. They didn’t need to make Thomas Wayne a criminal, make Vicki Vale a terrorist who’s actually an Arkham, or even make Penguin Bruce’s childhood friend. This game was good enough without those, and would have been better off if they weren’t there.

Season 2 Episode 1

Haha what the fuck they made a sequel?

The Riddler in this looks baaaad. The hood just doesn’t work. I feel like it’s an attempt to make him look more “realistic,” but isn’t it more realistic for someone to wear a bowler hat with a suit than to have a suit where the jacket has a hood? When he first shows up at the casino he looks so out of place with his hood up. Bowler hats may be kind of flashy, but real people do wear them. It’s not like it’s to hide his identity, since he doesn’t seem concerned with hiding who he is, and the game goes out of its way to have his hood get knocked off in every encounter anyway. The hook on his cane is clever, but hacking and slashing at people doesn’t seem very Riddler. Him being a villain from back in Thomas Wayne’s days bothers me too. It means his career reached its peak before Batman was even around. He’s hardly a Batman villain then, just a Gotham City villain whose last fight happened to be against Batman. And then he dies.

New Batsuit looks good. I didn’t dislike the old one but I like this one a lot more.

Riddler tells Batman “you’re supposed to be the world’s greatest detective.” Would Batman really have already gained that reputation at this point?

Gordon’s mustache is bigger. I like it.

Seeing Bruce doing Batman work at rich people events is fun, though the “I’m looking for new thrills” excuse can only work so many times.

Hey, Amanda Waller’s in this.

Interested to see where Alfred’s condition is gonna go. I hope he’s okay. I hope they don’t kill him for shock value like everyone else in this series

Tiffany is annoying. She’s every “young genius” character.

Killing Lucius was stupid and needless.

“Please tell me you didn’t put him in danger.” “We didn’t know there was any danger.” “How dare you!” Well fine then Tiffany I’ll choose the Lie option then. The fact that you can do everything else right but telling Tiffany the truth will cause her to hate you is dumb.

So does no one else notices that Joke- John Doe’s skin is white and hair is green?

All of Riddler’s puzzles and the way Batman solves them are pretty clever.

Seems weird that the game gives you the option to let the other three agents die to save Avesta. Even if Avesta were to die, ti’d still be one death as opposed to three, and if you want to save Avesta it’d still be objectively better to let her take the first two sonic blasts, then choose her over the other agent for the third riddle since either way one person would die (not that the third riddle matters in the end, since Batman ends up breaking out before that). Yeah that causes Avesta to go deaf, but going deaf is still better than dying. It seems like an obvious choice given Batman’s morals.

So we get to fuck Agent Avesta, right?

Season 2 Episode 2

Bane’s tattoos look bad. And when his veins turn green they overlap with the tattoos, so it looks even worse. His goatee sticking out of his mask looks stupid too. The rest of him’s fine. I like his voice.

i’m getting tired of every introduction to Bane having him do the back-break pose, then not breaking Batman’s back. I get that you can’t do the whole Knightfall arc when you’ve got your own story to tell, but if Bane’s not gonna break Batman’s back then don’t bother teasing it.

That one purple button on John Doe’s vest is annoying and out of place. i hate it.

They’re kind of pushing this whole “John is obsessed with Bruce” thing a little too hard. It was fine having them interact in Arkham but now it seems like they’re using John’s fixation on Bruce as a stand-in for Joker’s fixation on Batman, instead of just having him be fixated on Batman in the first place. Really Bruce’s involvement with the villains in general is getting to be a little too much. Bruce interacting with white collar criminals in a sort of shady-business setting is one thing, but now he’s hanging around with full-on supervillains.

The “LOL WOULDN’T IT BE CRAZY IF BRUCE AND JOHN WERE GAAAAY” jokes are cringey please stop forever.

It seems like in this Joker is the one trying to impress Harley and Harley is the one who’s pushing Joker around. And instead of Joker turning Harley into what she is, she just decided to dress up like the biker version of a court jester and commit crimes using a sledgehammer because her dad died... as you do. So why then am I supposed to feel bad for Harley? Normally it’s because she was in an abusive relationship, but now she’s the abuser. If anything I should feel bad for Joker... who apparently is becoming the Joker... because of Harley? God this is like a fanfiction. And if Joker ever does end up being the one who manipulates Harley, why the hell should I care? If anything she deserves it since she was the one who started manipulating him. There are plenty of stories where Harley manages to pull one over on Joker, and they work because Harley’s getting payback for what Joker did to her. In this, she’s the one who started this whole thing. All of this is her fault. Honestly, fuck her.

Outside of that, Harley’s kind of annoying but she’s not awful. She’s got a few “Wouldn’t it be just QUIRKY if I did something really inconveniencing right now?” moments.

Bruce letting John and Harley into Wayne Enterprises is just reckless. It’s bad enough on its own, but when Harley starts physically threatening and putting her hands on his employees then good god he shouldn’t be letting this happen anymore. The whole thing is just irritating to watch.

Y’know, Bruce really oughta change up all of the secrets in his office if Penguin knows about them and is telling other criminals.

At this point Tiffany is just here to be an inconvenience.

I feel like they could have worked Matches Malone into this story, instead of having Bruce pretty much become a criminal.

Fries’ suit is pretty good. It’s missing the dome though, you can’t have Fries without his dome. His glove that can freeze things by touching them is neat, but I still prefer the gun. I also don’t really like his voice. His characterization’s good though.

Fries sounds like he’s voiced by the guy who voices Skullface. He isn’t.

I like Harley a lot more when she’s being more sincere instead of trying to be the most annoying person in the room.

Do... do we get to fuck Harley? I don’t know if I wanna fuck Harley. Or rather, I don’t know if I want Bruce to fuck Harley.

I don’t really like all the villains already being in full-on “villain mode” already. It seems like they just popped up out of nowhere, already established and organized. I wanna see how these people become supervillains, not just have them pop onto the scene in full costume, ready to start their life of crime. The only one who seems like he’s still in a sort of early stage is Joker, the one who would make the most sense to already be a full-on villain.

What’s the point in Bruce hiding his face during the heist if they’re going to call him by his name anyway?

Seeing Bruce try to reduce the deaths by beating up agents himself was cool.

Bruce seeing the Batsignal go up as he drives away with the villains, not able to do anything about it, is a good scene.

Interested to see what they do with Riddler’s dead body.

Hey look, Catwoman’s back.

Might add more when future episodes come out