Batman: The Telltale Series - Episode 5: City of Light (PC) Review

It's no secret any more - your actions so far don't mean a thing. Whether you were rough with Falcone, saved Dent instead of Catwoman, made a mess of Penguin's face, or sent Lucius Fox to your humble Batcave, it doesn't really matter. There's only one thing to do here, and that's having the final showdown with the arch-villain of this story, Lady Arkham herself. Before doing so, however, expect doing the same boring stuff that the previous episodes included: a little bit of simplistic, connect-the-dots detective work, a little bit of unchallenging QTE battles that generally look cool, although far from spectacular, and a bunch of decent dialogue sequences.

The good thing? This is one of the darkest episodes yet, with all confrontations being quite intense, whether that's trying to help Dent "kill" the Mr. Hyde inside him, saying farewell to Celina, or having one of the most touching conversations that Bruce has had with Alfred throughout this quest. Even better? The thing that drives our dear Dark Knight in here is not some vague crusade against Gotham's crime rate, or the loss of his assets, but something far more personal.

Simply put, instead of a nameless character, Bruce will have to try and save the one that really matters here, and more than anybody else, which, undoubtedly, is his butler. Besides being his friend and "true" father, Alfred is just an old man, so, knowing that he has been captured, and then examining the area that he has been tortured in, manages to make strong connection with the player. In other words, this episode will make you actually fear about its outcome.

In conclusion, this is a very good episode. Not as balanced in terms of structure/direction like Realm of Shadows, or with any decent twists like Children of Arkham, but also not as disappointing as New World Order and Guardian of Gotham. It's quite tense, has lots of Batman in it, and although as a finale it lacks the required "punch," since it feels more like "any other day in the life of Batman," it's surely one of the better ones, with the only flaw being that there's no reason to replay the whole full game again, as choices don't really matter in the end.