BOSSES: Arkham Origins

Jumping off the pages of the comics straight into your face!

    I've decided to dedicate an entire post to the bosses in Batman: Arkham Origins. This is the first game I've played besides Dark Souls II since I started this blog that actually has good boss battles. All the games for my B-LOG SLAYINGS posts (so far) have had small numbers of mediocre-to-forgettable battles, so they don't need their own posts. But, this game has a lot of battles, and most of them are quite good. I'll do a little rundown here, posting pictures and writing about each one. Let's do it, guys! (note: They'll basically be organized by order I fought them in) (hey, second note: some of the pictures (mainly Killer Croc) are not good. Sometimes it's tough to get good pictures while these assholes constantly move. Also, I don't have pics for Mad Hatter or Anarky, but you aren't missing much)

Killer Croc:

He does not have four arms

      This is the first battle of the game, and it happens roughly thirty minutes into the story mode. Before the fight, Croc and Bats exchange words about who smells worse (it's probably not who you'd expect, I'd say), and then the fight is on. I had a bit of difficulty with this guy too. It was probably me being rusty at Arkham games (although, we'll come to find out over on the B-LOG SLAYING post for this game, I think I just kinda suck at these games), since I hadn't played one in a couple years. At any rate, he's not very complex. He's a big goon, essentially, so you gotta give him the ol' cape-stun him followed with a nice beatdown. After this happens a few times (or once, I don't remember. I'm a very bad note taker. That's part of my charm though), he'll grab a gas canister and huck it at you. If it hits you, it explodes! Who woulda thunk it? Obviously, this is bad, and it hurts tremendously. After a bit more fighting, this happens: 

It's a helicopter. Note the flaming gas can

    You fight Croc on a rooftop, and as such, a helicopter comes by to drop off some thugs. Why the hell not, right? The battle is still the same, really. Beat up the thugs, keep an eye on Croc, and make sure you dodge the damn flaming gas cans he throws at you. Eventually, you'll beat him enough, and the battle ends. Then he gets arrested, and that's that.

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ELECTROCUTIONER:

How could this NOT have been a great fight?

    This guy is the first of a few "non-battles", and this one is the most disappointing. This had, "amazingly diverse, interesting battle" written all over it. They missed a great opportunity here. Anyway, Electrocutioner (fucking awesome name, too) looks menacing (with his shock-gloves and his humorous shit-talking), but this "battle" is one punch, and that's that. He even has a health bar and everything. But all he does is talk, and all you have to do is walk up to him and punch. He is knocked out, and you are told later you can trace him from the electricity his gloves give off. At this point, I figured I'd get an actual fight against this guy. Nope, he gets killed later on in the game. That's it. Oh well, you get his shock-gloves, and they rock the damn house 

See? Rocking the house

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Deathstroke:

This guy, and battle, are both badass

    This is easily the best battle in the game. I can safely say that. I love the way he looks, with that awesome black/orange mask and the one eye-hole. About halfway through the battle, you literally beat the mask off his face. He doesn't look nearly as awesome with his mask off because then he's basically just a dude with an eye patch.
    Deathstroke (Strokey?) uses some kind of martial arts pole, and boy, is he proficient with it! In fact, he's Batman's equal as far as fighting goes. This is a battle with two expert martial artists going at it with the full intention of beating the other into bloody submission. Because of this, the battle flows beautifully, and it is a great joy to just sit back and watch it unfold. If only you didn't have to hold the controller and dictate half of the battle.

He's a monster with that pole

    This battle features LOTS of countering, so you certainly have to be on your toes. Truly, all of the countering (of both you AND Deathstroke) looks magnificent, and it's almost like a ballet. This battle epitomizes what the Arkham games can do so well. As far as strategy, all you have to do is attack, dodge, and counter, and you can beat him down occasionally as well. Towards the end of the battle, Batman will break the pole, and Deathstroke takes out a Katana (I believe, anyway). It's more of the same though. Just pay attention, and victory will be yours!

Deathstroke DOESN'T like when you DON'T hit him

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ANARKY:

    This battle is super lame. Once you track down Anarky, all you do is fight him in a giant group of thugs. He looks cool, at least, with us baggy clothes, backpack, and his strange human face mask (not a mask made of an actual human face, unfortunately, but a mask that looks like a nondescript face). He also wields an electric stick, to fairly substandard results. Once you take out all the other thugs, you deliver a punch to his masked face, and BAM! fight over. I feel just a little cheated to not have a more proper one-on-one fight with Anarky. Maybe they thought that Anarky would be too under matched to face off against Bats. Whatever the reason, I was disappointed with this one. And, as stated above, I don't have any pics for this one (I think they were accidentally deleted actually).

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MAD HATTER:

    Okay, now THIS isn't even a boss battle. I'm still going to include it, because it's one of the Most Wanted side missions, and it features a prominent Batman villain. After you make it through the trippy Hatter area (reminiscent of the Scarecrow segments from Arkham Asylum a bit), you find him, holding a young woman, "Alice", hostage. All you have to do is throw a single reverse batarang so that it hits him in the back of the head. Easy as pie. I don't have a picture for this "battle" either (hell, it's barely even an, "encounter"), but you aren't missing anything. On a final note, as if to cement this as a "non-boss battle", it's the fact that Hatter doesn't even have a health bar. At least Anarky had his own health bar!

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COPPERHEAD:

Oh, should be easy!

  

    Before the battle, she injects you with some sort of mind-altering poison. Because of this, you're a bit sluggish for the battle. Also, you fight Copperhead and at least ten Copperhead copies. I assume this is a result of the poison she gave you. Only the real Copperhead will take damage to her health bar, but all of them can be attacked and beaten. Some of the copies (but not all) carry knives, so you have to juggle normal counters, knife counters, and you need to keep your head about you. My strategy was to just beat all of their asses, because I couldn't tell the real one from all the fakes. Not that it mattered much, because beating on them all was enough to deplete the real one's health bar. They all flip and slither around impressively, too. Overall, this battle isn't too hard. Don't get ganged up on, keep your head on a swivel, and time those counters well!

Eh...still easy...

Jeez, that's a lot of Copperheads!

BONUS PIC!

The accidental blurriness of this pic actually makes it cooler

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BANE (1ST BATTLE): 

I thought this was a perfect pic to sum up Bats and Bane's relationship

This one too

    This is a pretty good fight. It showcases (both in the fight itself, and in the cutscenes) just how brutally strong Bane is. This fight starts in an old, dusty library. I must say, great atmosphere in this place, and it looks great to fight in. Bane starts out in a trench coat, and you have to use your super cape-stun to apply a proper beat down on him. After a bit of back-and-forth fighting, he takes off the trench coat and showcases his trademark Venom tubes.

Bane...MAD! (that's how he talks, right?)

    

    He presses a button, and much like today's popular MLB athletes, gets himself juiced up to really fight. After some more fighting, you both go tumbling out of one of the large windows and land on a rooftop below. For whatever reason, I didn't get any pictures of the fight on the rooftop. Just know it's more of the same, except some thugs join in on the fun. Of course they do. When DON'T they? All you have to do is beat on the thugs, and dodge his running attack. When he's in his Venom state however, he is invulnerable. You can beat him down, and you then get a prompt for another combo that rips out one of his Venom-providing tubes from his body, thusly turning him back into normal ol' crazy Bane. Once his health gets low, a helicopter will fly in, a scene will play, and he'll hitch a ride with said 'copter. Until we meet again, dear Bane...

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DEADSHOT:

He looks like a snowy park ranger

    This battle is underwhelming, I'd say. It's essentially a predator encounter with Deadshot thrown in. You have to use all manner of stealth (lurking high up in the shadows, slinking through vents, stuff like that) to take out the armored thugs in the room with Deadshot. What makes Deadshot unique is his ability to shoot you from anywhere in the room. If he sees you, he can aim his gun and bounce his bullets off of walls and floors and. It's an interesting mechanic, and he uses it to intimidate the thugs around him as well. Once you take out all the thugs, you can jump down and beat the hell out of Deadshot. He barely puts up a fight in close range. See:

Pathetic

    You gotta be quick once you are toe-to-toe with him though, because he'll call in more goons shortly after you dispatch all the original ones. After Deadshot's health gets low, he'll take a hostage (a man that was tied up to a chair in the middle of the room) and threaten to kill him if Batman gets close. You have to sneak up to Deadshot and perform a takedown without being seen to finish the battle. Generally I thought the battle was boring (like I said, just a slightly beefed up predator encounter), but having to sneak up on Deadshot to take him out was pretty cool. It reminded me of the amazing Mr. Freeze fight from Arkham City. At any rate, I preferred Deadshot from that game too.

He stands!

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BLACK MASK:

Cell-shaded Batman?

    Maybe I shouldn't have said that the boss battles were a highlight of this game. While they are a few that are masterfully executed, I feel like so many I want to start with the phrase, "this fight was lame..." This fight with the "antagonist" of the main game is basically just a big group fight. Sionis (Black Mask) fights alongside a big group of thugs, including two martial arts guys and an armored thug, so at least there is some variety, and that makes the battle a little less boring. You need some crowd control but ultimately Sionis here is no different than any other run-of-the-mill chump you fight throughout the game. He isn't even wearing that awesome mask, which I consider to be the ONLY thing that makes him awesome. 

There he is, ready to box

Shouldn't he at least have a gun? At least he's got guts

    The strategy is to just whale on everyone, and eventually you'll take them all, Sionis included, down. For some odd reason, he does not have a health bar. Even Anarky has a health bar. Very strange.

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SHIVA:

"What're you lookin' at?" - framed portrait in the background

    Shiva, while fairly bland to look at, is an interesting character in the game.You have to do a few things to find and fight her, and her fight is a bit tricky. You first fight Shiva along with some female Shiva-esque ninjas with swords. Later on, you fight her with those martial artist guys. The first part of this battle has Shiva fighting like one of those martial artists (wherein you have to perform several counters in a row). When Shiva gets down to about half health, she pulls out a katana (I wanna say) and now you have to blade dodge her while still paying attention to those aggressive martial artists.

My trademark blurry pic

SWORDS!

    The battle can be a bit tricky because there are varying fighting styles used, and Shiva herself changes styles through the battle. Even so, not terribly difficult. I have no idea who Shiva is, though. I'm guessing from dialogue she might have a connection to Ra's Al Ghul. I made a note to research it, but really, I don't care enough. If you're here, reading this, you aren't reading it to gain an understanding and background info on semi-obscure Batman villain.

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BIRD:

Nice tat, bro

  

    This is Bane's lieutenantt. He's a normal looking thug-sort of guy, but he has some sort of...bird tattoo, I guess. On his face. His mouth/chin area specifically. He was the guy flying the helicopter that picked up Bane at the end of that first battle. Anyway, this battle is super easy. I can't even say I think there was a missed opportunity here, like I've said of a few others. This guy is just boring and generic, and as such, so is his battle. This is another, "fight a barely-recognizable-amidst-a-group-of-normal-thugs-boss" kind of battle. There are two Venom-raging guys as well, but they are barely a problem. This whole battle plays out very similarly to most of the other Most Wanted battles. If you pay attention, and stay on top of crowd control, you'll all be fine. The Venom guys add a slightly new wrinkle, but just barely. They are like toned down, tamer versions of Bane.

Oh yeah, some guys have knives too

The Venom thugs give off a lovely green glow

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FIREFLY:

 

He's just fireflying all over the place!

    Now this is what I'm talking about! I'll give the game credit here, because they left some of the best battles for the end. This is the penultimate boss battle for the storyline, and it's a damn good one. It's probably tied with Deathstroke as being the best in the game. After going through a burning, destroyed, dilapidated Pioneers Bridge, you find the culprit, Firefly. He looks AWESOME, with his pilot's helmet and those sweet jet-pack-wing things. Most of the battle, Firefly is flying around, far away from you, shooting huge amounts of fire down at you, courtesy of his flamethrower. You need to dodge these, and when you get a chance, quickfire the glue grenades. These will cause him to stop flying, and this gives you an opportunity to quickfire a bunch of batarangs at him. These only take off small slices of his health, though. Once you do glue grenade/batarang thing a few times he'll become disoriented, and you can quickfire the batclaw at him. You then have to reel him close to you, basically like a fish. Once he is close enough, you can give him a good pounding!

He really does look great

     After you beat him a few times after reeling him in, he'll fly off to a different part of the bridge. There's a very short section where you follow him, then it's back to the action. Now he'll throw several grenades which have to be dodged, and he'll shoot more direct fire at you. The battle is still the same though: dodge all the fiery bullshit (which can actually be kind of tough), glue grenade him, batarang him, batclaw him, and pound him! This is a great, nuanced battle. There's lots involved in it, and it takes place on a great-looking set-piece. There is a real sense of urgency to not only this battle, but the entire section. It's probably my favorite part of the whole main story. I said this battle is tied with Deathstroke, and it is. It's almost the exact opposite of that one: where Deathstroke is a calm, honorable opponent who matches your martial arts chops, Firefly is a crazy psychopath that cares for nothing other than fiery destruction. If only a couple more of the lesser battles had been as good as this (read: not just throw the boss in a group of thugs), this game could have had some of the better boss battles in any game I've played in years.

"Quick! Get the baking soda!"

I only saved this one 'cause it looks like he's ascending to heaven

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BANE (2ND BATTLE):

Such a BANE in the neck!

He's seeing green!

    After making your way through Blackgate Prison, and through several large rooms that are nothing more than gauntlets of dozens of enemies, we get to the end of the game, and a final showdown with Bane. This battle comes in two parts, and part one is pretty easy, yet a bit annoying. He'll charge at you, and you have to dodge out of the way. For whatever reason, I had a tough go of it trying to time my dodges perfectly. Once he charges around a bit, you'll be able to use the ultra cape stun, then administer a beatdown. A brief cut-scene of Bane picking up Batman and "breaking his back" occurs. After this, Batman powers up the shock gloves, and they can be used permanently. After this, surprise surprise, thugs join in on the fun. There's very few one-on-one battles in this game. That's pretty disappointing really. But, that's also besides the point. After the thugs came in, I still just focused on jumping all around the arena, trying to dodge Bane's charges. After a few beatdowns, Bane will be defeated, and, seemingly dead. You then have to restart Bane's heart with the shock gloves, in order for Batsy here to not break his one, sacred rule. You see, Joker rigged an electric chair that he sat himself on. It was rigged to Bane's heart rate: if it got too high, the chair would turn on, and fry Joker to death. To save Joker's life, Batman would have to kill Bane and stop his heart.

He's in a lot of BANE!

[add bad Bane pun here]

    So, Batman, being the swell guy he is, gets Bane's heart going again! Hoorah! Does Bats get a "thank you"? Maybe a handshake? Even a simple nod to indicate recognition of a life saved? Nope! Bane is (surprisingly) pissed, and he wants blood. He injects himself with, I assume, some stronger variant of the normal Venom he has flowing through him. Now, looking like a late 90's era Mark McGwire (author's note: I know I also made a steroidal Sammy Sosa reference in the B-LOG SLAYING post about this game, but come on! It's too easy not too) (second author's note: I just reread my first Bane post up there, and I made another steroid/MLB reference. I'm a bad man!), Bane's ready to rip Batman limb-from-limb. And so the second part of the battle starts!

MUTATED BANE (TN-1):

 
    This is the final fight. It's part-two of the above encounter, but it's so different, I decided I'd split this post up just a bit. After Bane injects himself with the TN-1, he mutates into a grotesque, cartoonishly large, version of himself. Batman smartly uses his explosive gel to blow a hole in the floor, and you both fall in. From here on out, it's a fairly standard predator encounter. You are in a narrow cell block replete with grates, vents, and electrified parts of the walls. You certainly can't take Ultra-Bane here mano-e-mano, so it's time for some sneaking!

Grrrr!

Fine, Frank Thomas maybe?

    Bane will stalk the hallways, and if he catches up to you, he'll smash you around good, doing pretty decent damage to your health bar. You have to hide in the vents or grates, or use smoke pellets, and sneak up on him, to get a, "silent takedown" prompt. Once you get this prompt, Batman jumps on Bane's back and essentially drives him like a huge truck. You can slam him into a normal wall, which does minimal damage to his own health bar, or you can steer him into those electrified areas. If you can drive him into these, he'll take initial damage from it, and you can also do a mini-beat down on him for more damage. After a few hits, he'll get up, and you gotta be on the run again.

Bane, stalking

    I appreciate the fact that this part of the battle is much different than the first two encounter, but it's still pretty easy. Just hide (detective vision helps tremendously), wait for him to have his back turned, sneak up, and press the prompt. About two-thirds of the way through the battle, someone wearing a jammer will appear, and you won't be able to use your detective vision until you take the jammer out. I'm not actually sure where the jammer is, because I was able to finish the battle without bothering trying to find it. After you deplete Bane's health, that's it. You string him up, and that's that. A pretty good final battle. It's no Deathstroke or Firefly, and it's not like the excellent Clayface battle at the end of Arkham City, but this is serviceable. In fact, this battle can be seen as a microcosm of the whole game: it's good, but not as good as the previous. It's serviceable.

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BONUS: THE JOKER:

    Real quick here. This isn't really a battle, but it's not a battle in the same way that Mad Hatter wasn't a battle. If that makes any sense. I was torn if I should take a few pictures, or if I should include this here at all. I decided to just briefly write about it. After beating Bane, you find Joker in the chapel. He wants you to kill him. He tries to force Batman to do it. He doesn't, of course. The, "battle", as it were, is just you performing a few beatdowns on the Joker. It's nothing special, but at least you get to beat the ever-loving hell out of him, and leave him as close to death's door as Batman will allow. 

   Welp, that's all folks! The bosses in this game are, for the most part, good. Some are lame, lazy, or downright just boring, but I think the ones that are good more than make up for it. It's nice to be able to fight all these different colorful characters, even if most of the battles boil down to, "fight X BOSS in this group of enemies". Oh well, at least we got Deathstroke and Firefly. It's just nice, personally, for me to play a game (other than Dark Souls II) currently that has some worthwhile boss battles. I hope you all have enjoyed reading, and if you think anything is wrong, worded incorrectly, or sounds like crap, hey, let me know! It's the only way I'll learn.