Batman: The Enemy Within (PS4)
Batman: The Telltale Series combined Telltale Games’s modern take on the adventure game genre with the characters and concepts of the Batman franchise to make an excellent game that explored both sides of its central character, the dual life of Bruce Wayne as Batman having many moments to dig deeper into the role and personal impact of each side of him. With Batman: The Enemy Within, Telltale continues to provide its unique perspective on both halves of the man while still cranking up its inclusion of other series elements and giving those the time they need to develop as well.
In Batman: The Enemy Within, Bruce Wayne has comfortably settled into his role as the masked protector of Gotham City, but a supervillain has emerged in the city known as The Riddler who begins to put a new level of pressure on the caped crusader with his clever and deadly death traps. The Riddler is just the tip of an even bigger iceberg though, as he is just one of many capable and powerful members of a new group in the city known as The Pact. While Batman can certainly go toe-to-toe with a single villain in combat, the combined strength of this new group requires a different approach, Bruce Wayne infiltrating their ranks to beat them from the inside, trying to pass himself off as a villain while still keeping himself from sinking to their lows. The situation makes for many moments of tension as most anything Bruce says could lead to the group turning against him or sussing him out, many already suspicious of what seems like a billionaire playboy suddenly turning rogue for little reason. As in many Telltale adventure games, the exact things Bruce or Batman can say or do during a conversation or scene are often left to the player to decide, meaning that the undercover operation is left to the player to pull off successfully. At times, up to four dialogue choices will appear on the screen, the player pressing a button to pick between the three as well as there usually being an option to remain silent, sometimes keeping your mouth closed having just as much an impact as saying or doing something in the moment. The story does have multiple paths it can go down based on your choices when these options pop up, and while not every option is so important it can impact the story’s course, you can still have an influence on people’s opinions gradually, with even your choices outside of your work with the villain group potentially leading to changes in how your allies and others perceive you and interact with you. The scope of the villain group forces Bruce to consider expanding his net of trust as well, his current support network overtaxed by the demands placed on it, serving almost as the counterpoint to the game of deception he’s playing as a spy within The Pact’s ranks. The game does give you extra time for its big meaningful choices to allow you to better consider them, but in the moment, you have to chose what to say fairly quickly to avoid suspicious or awkward breaks in speaking.
While the story is definitely the main focus of the game, there are some moments that require more than just picking how the plot will progress. Action scenes will crop up throughout the game, playing into Batman’s more combat-focused approach to solving problems but not always handled while in the bat suit. These action scenes are not controlled directly though, the scene beginning to play and the player needing to press certain buttons on screen as they appear in what are called quick-time events. The game does sometimes give you options for how you approach a certain action during the battle though, such as what exact move to execute or what foe to go for, and these can even have a story impact as well. Failing these can lead to deaths which, admittedly, are often rather bland visually in a game that doesn’t shy away from somewhat graphic depictions of violence at crime scenes and other moments, but they are easy to recover from and retry the battle. The fights are flashy and have the proper level of frequency to be fresh when they occur, but the game supplements the gameplay side even more with detective work. As you might expect in a game where a villain named The Riddler exists, there are some puzzles to be solved along the way, Batman often having to try and figure out a crime scene after the fact to better understand the way his enemy operates and find some clue to help his quest to take them down. Some of these have failure states, especially when the investigation is framed as a death trap, but for the most part it is a more relaxed segment of the game meant to connect things so you aren’t always waiting to be ready with a dialogue response or button presses for a battle.
The strength of the game really does hang on its plot and characters though, and while some familiar faces for Batman fans are best left as surprises, I feel it important to highlight two of the incredibly excellent portrayals of classic Batman foes featured here. As it is its own telling of Batman’s events not held by the rules of comic canon, Batman: The Enemy Within freely interprets characters how it feels best for the purposes of the plot and will kill off characters some might consider crucial, all of it leading to a more cohesive narrative and one that has proper impact and stakes. The first character interpretation worthy of mention has to be Harley Quinn, a former psychologist turned murderous clown girl who is usually depicted in Batman stories as hopelessly in love with the Joker, serving as his assistant for many years until she broke away to develop more of a personality as a ridiculous antihero. Here though, Harley Quinn is still very much a villain, but she’s not fawning over the Joker the whole time. Instead, her past as a psychiatrist has been emphasized, the girl in clown makeup putting on an act and deliberately behaving in a way to make her seem less crafty and capable. She wants people to underestimate her on one hand but still respect and fear her supposedly unhinged nature, but underneath the facade she knows how to manipulate people and will openly do so to get her way. Despite this more conniving take on Harley, she’s still a creature of emotion at times, clearly harboring some actual issues and not always as in control as she’d like to believe, but she is still perhaps the character Bruce has to most carefully navigate around in The Pact to avoid blowing his cover.
By far the highlight of the game character wise though has to be the character of John Doe, who any Batman fan even somewhat familiar with the comic book hero’s history will immediately recognize as his archnemesis The Joker. However, John Doe is actually The Joker before he became The Joker, meaning that he’s not quite the unhinged agent of chaos he more often is across the franchise. In fact, here, John Doe is actually a character you can empathize with. John Doe knows he has problems with his mental health but is trying to avoid feeding into his impulses and general enjoyment of violence, but he’s fallen in with The Pact while doing so, actually being the guy who vouches for Bruce most in the group as in this game, the relationship between Bruce and John is perhaps one of its most important elements. Bruce Wayne is well aware that John Doe could end up being the kind of criminal the other Pact members are, but John is incredibly eager to please Bruce and hang out with him, giving our hero the opportunity to potentially guide John down a better path. John Doe is actually a genuinely likeable character in many regards, his one-way infatuation with Harley an inverse of the usual approach and easy to sympathize with, but even just the way he talks and behaves is quite charming. He’s eager to please those he likes and usually quite cheerful, but perhaps the most surprising thing is this version of The Joker is actually pretty funny. While The Joker often plays into his clown theme with his actions, John Doe actually has plenty of humor that truly made me laugh, partly because the game made me invested in his fate and developed the personalities of him and others enough that character-based humor landed well.
In fact, I may even dare to say that John Doe may be my favorite portrayal of the Joker in any Batman work, and that’s not something I say lightly as I know full well there are many discussions of Joker portrayals and I do have other favorites I never thought would be dethroned like The Animated Series and The Dark Knight versions. The Joker is usually viewed after his transformation into an irredeemable psychotic murderer, but John Doe’s history is inextricably tied with Bruce Wayne here, the player’s decisions allowing them to become close friends if they so wish, although they can also distance themselves from John or even exploit his friendship solely for gain. Depending on how you approach him depends on how he’ll develop over the course of the game, there being an actual large impact on how the events play out for him as your work with The Pact begins to reach its climax. This Joker isn’t likeable here because he represents some idea of chaos or cartoony violence, he’s actually got a full personality and range of emotions that would make him an excellent character even if he wasn’t tied to the Batman villain with the biggest legacy.
The other characters in the plot aren’t slouches either, with even Batman’s allies having interesting angles in a plot that manages to keep most of its interaction and moments pretty focused on the core story of trying to infiltrate and take down The Pact. Amanda Waller is actually a bit of an adversarial ally, her “ends justify the means” mindset clashing with the idealistic Batman but the two needing to work together despite how they might butt heads. More clear-cut heroic types like Police Commissioner Gordon also have their own character moments in their relationships with Batman, Gordon trying to help despite Waller’s Agency being in charge of the case and Bruce’s butler Alfred beginning to feel the stress of helping a man so involved in a dangerous line of work. Not every character is given the screen time they need to really have their segment of the story shine, a character named Tiffany sort of fading in and out of relevance as she can’t demand the amount of time she’d need on screen to really have her arc be solid, but this also plays somewhat into how your actions can influence the prominence of certain characters and is generally the better option over the plot getting sidetracked to work on parts that are already good, but not quite on the level of excellence that things like John Doe’s character arc are. There are plenty of moments of high emotion even with the secondary members of the cast and difficult choices to make when it comes to your relationship with them, so they still justify their presence and enhance the overall shape the game takes. Naturally, Bruce Wayne’s own part in the story is explored just as much, the concept of trust perhaps being the biggest one as he must both exploit manipulating it in his infiltration, consider who he should legitimately extend it to, and consider how Batman is impacting those he has already brought into his circle of trust. A lie can have huge consequences as can the truth, something the player and Batman will feel as certain decisions crop up during the course of the game’s five episode structure.
THE VERDICT: Batman: The Enemy Within is another amazing Batman story from Telltale, but this go around is much more focused and benefits immensely from it. While the action scenes provide the proper spectacle and investigative moments serve as more mentally stimulating breaks in the game’s pace, the story is what really makes the game excel, particularly with its incredible version of the Joker, John Doe. John is such a fascinating character whose fate you have a heavy impact on, the character having a fleshed out personality that is enjoyable to watch and endearing to boot while still tense due to his unpredictable nature. Along with the themes of trust, a cast of characters who routinely challenge you to make difficult decisions, and the tension of Batman trying to infiltrate the enemy group as the vulnerable Bruce Wayne, the story of Batman: The Enemy Within keeps things thrilling throughout, plenty of memorable moments and likeable, interesting characters supporting its narrative.
And so, I give Batman: The Enemy Within for PlayStation 4…
A FANTASTIC rating. Carrying over much of what made the previous game great, the character of John Doe cinched this game’s placement as a fantastic story-based experience. Not only is the character just a really compelling take on a character who is usually locked out of sympathetic qualities, but the fact you have such an intimate level of control over his life path as his closest and most trusted friend in the plot means that you are, in essence, raising him like a son. You don’t have full control over him, he won’t always listen, but you can chose to guide him as best you can or even spurn him to avoid the damage it might do to you for investing in an individual whose potential fate hangs over you due to the dramatic irony of The Joker’s fame to Batman fans. Even with the incredible amount of focus on John Doe though, the game doesn’t forget to give you important moments with the rest of the supporting cast and of course Batman himself, feeding you the action scenes you’d want from the vigilante, personal moments with those he trusts, and some tense moments with the villains as they repeatedly put him in compromising positions where you need to find the best way out. You don’t have full control over the narrative of course, some things being inevitable, but you still do have a heavy level of impact on it with your interaction, keeping it engaging both on its own merits as a plot with well-developed characters and well-constructed situations as well as its structure as a story where your choices matter.
Batman: The Enemy Within has the depth, drama, and action one would hope to find in the best Batman stories, but while these are partly able to work so well due to being divorced from the canon and typical character interpretations, it is a bit of a shame to see some of these characters like John Doe and this version of Harley Quinn go. Still, in the game and plot they do call home, they help it be an excellent superhero story, one that can go many ways depending on whether the player finds Bruce Wayne’s friendships and trust more valuable or Batman’s quest for justice and goal of protecting the innocent the better motivation, a decision that will be tested many times over the course of this focused and fantastic adventure.