A long while ago I played the PSP version of this game by myself. Now my spouse and I played it together, the way these games are arguably meant to be experienced.
Her take is that for a Lego game it’s basic, but satisfying as all the essential ingredients are there. Understandable since it’s such an early entry, which makes it feel almost quaint and nostalgic now that these games have become more bloated over time. At the same time it’s missing many quality of life features such as split screen, selecting level phases in replays, or even stuff as simple as remembering which extras you have turned on between play sessions.
This game sets up the whole Lego Batman sub-brand, arguably the most prolific Lego franchise for video games. It seems to take a lot of inspiration from the Animated Series for character designs, as well as the ever-present Danny Elfman score which carried over from the 1989 film; this game makes you hate it though by repeating it ad nauseum in short loops. The plot is original but low-key and typical: bunch of baddies break out of Arkham, and do some crimes. Bats and Dick stop them. This being an early Lego game, it’s told with gestures, visual aids, and grunts—as well as text on the loading screens—so it’s better to keep it simple anyway.
The unique thing this game does is presenting a hero story, followed by a parallel villain story. This lets you play as the villains in main levels, which is fun due to their outlandish characters and innate abilities, and splits the game into this big duality with separate hubs (small though they be). The villains’ side takes the form of prequels to the three chapters, with them setting up their nasty plots before the goodies take them down. So it’s odd that you can only play them after the corresponding hero chapter.
Either way, the other big gimmick (and another reason why the villains are more fun) is the suit-swapping. B and R both have a series of high-tech suits that you find in levels to solve puzzles. It’s a way to expand the ability set of the limited cast, but having a large varied cast is a strength of these games for me, so the selection ends up bland here. Plus finding the suits, including potentially backtracking adds tedium, not to mention they fill out any Free Play run with all these suit instances (at least you can use Batgirl and Nightwing once they’re unlocked for a tad more variety, as they get all the suits too).
To quickly compare to the PSP release I’d played before, obviously this looks better, and the controller is more comfortable. Portability is not a huge deal for me, so whatever. The load times are certainly much more palatable here. And of course, co-op is the main draw for me which is not an option on PSP. Otherwise the content is the same, although I wasn’t motivated to get everything back then; this time we did. The bonus level that’s a customary reward for getting everything in this series (up to a certain point when they stopped doing it) is also split, with the villain one being a traditional “get lots of studs in a big playground level”, while the hero one is a baffling pair of unfun minigames, essentially.
Anyway. We had a good time, and the game only crashed three or four times! Getting separated in vehicle levels seemed to be a trigger for this. Frustrating but not unexpected. Otherwise it’s a decent, silly family game with all your favourite Batman characters, and also Killer Moth.