Season Two: Enemy Within picks up not long after Season One left off and the only obvious difference for players who saved their choices from the last game will be if Bruce is missing part of his ear (he’s a billionaire, Telltale, he can afford to fix that) or Alfred is missing an eye. But then you have changes like having Thomas Wayne be the greatest criminal Gotham has ever seen, and THAT combined with the not-so-smart, not-brooding, gadget-dependent Bruce makes for something that really had me wondering “Is this really Batman anymore? And if so, is it a version of Batman that I’m actually interested in?” After all, Batman is one of the most versatile figures in fiction, capable of excelling in comedic and gritty narratives alike. Many make the story feel fresh and wildly intriguing. Most of the changes are made just to be different and set the Telltale world apart from the other 75+ years of Batman world-building and not all of them are bad.

He operates in a Gotham populated by Mayor Harvey Dent, an anarchist Penguin, a Joker who goes by “John Doe” and wants to be Bruce’s best friend, and there’s even an evil Vicki Vale with unexplained sonic weaponry. Here we have a Bruce Wayne who isn’t all that smart, never broods, (he’s also not strong enough to knock out Riddler in one punch, go figure) and is more reliant on his tech than Terry McGinnis. “Is this really Batman anymore?” Other than some formulaic gameplay, that was a frequent beef I had with season one of Telltale Batman.

Batman enemy within episode 1 riddles