10 Best Villains In Batman Arkham Origins
10 Best Villains In Batman: Arkham Origins
Contents
Rocksteady’s Batman trilogy of games takes up most of the spotlight, but WB’s Arkham Origins still has a good variety of villains.
You Are Reading :[thien_display_title]
Though Rocksteady’s Arkham trilogy understandably takes the lion’s share of the spotlight, WB Montréal’s Batman: Arkham Origins has gotten a warmer reception in the gaming community since its initial launch. It couldn’t measure up to the massive standards set by Arkham City, but Origins at least managed to receive a mildly positive critical reception.
Something that aged well for the game over the years was its Batman “rogues gallery” selection, and the accompanying boss fights against some of them. Even aside from the Joker “twist” partway through the game, some of these other supervillains proved memorable in their own right.
10 Mr. Freeze
While Mr. Freeze isn’t in the base game for Batman: Arkham Origins, he features in the Cold, Cold Heart story DLC expansion. It was a great bonus story for the game because it takes heavy inspiration from the Heart of Ice episode from the ’90s Batman: The Animated Series.
That episode had one of the most emotional scenes from Batman’s time in the DCAU, and incorporating that origin story into the Arkhamverse for fans to play it out was satisfying to see. Since Mr. Freeze’s miraculous reinvention as a character from the show, he’s always made for an emotionally sympathetic and compelling villain, and Arkham Origins is no exception.
9 Copperhead
During the main story of Arkham Origins, Copperhead has an admittedly brief, but concise tenure as an assassin after Batman’s bounty. She’s certainly a more obscure villain in the comics’ mythos, but her boss fight was a memorable — and trippy — sequence. Copperhead is an expert contortionist and is also skilled in judo, which is made even more deadly with her knack for weaponizing lethal poisons.
The boss fight Batman has with her sees him afflicted with her poison, forcing him to “fight” multiple hallucinated Copperheads in addition to the real one. It’s only a shame that her role wasn’t expanded on more, but it at least made for a noteworthy detour.
8 Firefly
This game was Firefly’s introduction into the Arkhamverse and was arguably better than his small role in Arkham Knight. He’s also one of the hired assassins of the main story and therefore has a more notable impact. Though he’s one of the more over-the-top bombastic and maniacal supervillains of Arkham Origins, the scale of the hazards he incited felt more significant in this prequel.
Firefly sets Pioneer Bridge rigged to explode, only allowing Batman anywhere near it. His boss fight was fairly straightforward but was noticeably more engaging and hands-on than in Knight where he was reduced to a few brief car chases. His particular brand of colorful villainy made him an entertaining and satisfying rogue to put back in his place.
7 Black Mask
Though he was unfortunately shortchanged at a point in the story when it’s revealed the Joker was behind it all, Roman Sionis/Black Mask was a refreshing change of pace for the time he was there if nothing else. An evolution of the age of organized crime in Gotham City after Batman arrived on the scene, Black Mask is a suitably intimidating and imposing villain, especially with his notoriously short temper.
The premise he sets up for the game’s plot is an interesting and exciting one, too. It’s thematically appropriate for such a young Batman to catch the ire of the city’s corrupt, making for a one-night shot at ordering a hit on the Dark Knight an entertaining catalyst for the game’s conflicts. He could even be argued as one of the most underrated villains that deserve to face Batman in a live-action movie.
6 Deathstroke
One of the biggest fan-favorite villains to come out of Arkham Origins was Deathstroke. Though he isn’t at the highest tier, Deathstroke’s one of the most competent martial artists in the DC Universe and one of the few that can fight the Dark Knight one-on-one, certainly at this stage in his career.
Quick-Time Events in games are mechanics that at times bring out collective groans from players, but the boss fight with Deathstroke in the Origins incorporated them in a way that made it genuinely engaging, entertaining, and even a bit tense. It’s another character and boss fight this game has over its Arkham Knight iteration, as the latter took him down to just being a tank battle.
5 Mad Hatter
Rocksteady’s sophomore entry Arkham City introduced Jervis Tetch/Mad Hatter in a fittingly ominous and twisted manner with his brief side mission. The prequel expanded on City’s short and psychedelic combat arena against Hatter’s thugs into a larger “level.”
It’s somewhat reminiscent of the Scarecrow Nightmare sequences in Asylum, as this side mission’s level had all the ethereal visuals of a warped “Wonderland” while implementing some light platforming gameplay. It’s probably the best way to mechanically work in Mad Hatter into a game and his role in the prequel was another tasteful way of accomplishing this.
4 Lady Shiva
Well above even Deathstroke canonically when it comes to martial arts prowess is the villain Lady Shiva, whose fighting ability equals Batman’s. In the comics, with both Shiva and Batman in their primes, the former has managed to best the Caped Crusader in hand-to-hand combat on different occasions. Possibly the only one to surpass either of them is Cassandra Cain — Shiva’s own daughter.
She’s one of Black Mask’s eight hired assassins, though, it’s later revealed she has ulterior motives for hunting down Batman. Gameplay-wise, it’s a bit of a shame that she’s mostly relevant in a simple combat arena-based side mission as opposed to the main story, but Shiva is an underrated villain and the small story she provides helps add even more context to Ra’s al Ghul’s roles in Arkham City, DLC side mission in Knight, and also in Bruce’s training abroad in the Initiation DLC for Origins.
3 Riddler
Fans have had a love-hate relationship with the Riddler in the Arkhamverse since the series’ inception. He’s a classic Batman rogues gallery member and the way he’s used in video game setting makes perfect sense in both a gaming and writing sense. Like with other characters including the titular superhero, Riddler gets an interesting origin story in the prequel.
At the time, he’s only known as Enigma and wanted to leak the most powerful people in Gotham’s secrets to incite mass chaos in the streets. Upon defeating the proto-Riddler in his game of wits, Batman can find research laid out trying to deduce the hero’s identity, as well as the very first “Riddler trophy.” It’s an enticing piece of foreshadowing that the egomaniac now recognizes he’ll have to take even more drastic measures to beat the Dark Knight.
2 Bane
One of the few faults that Rocksteady had in their trilogy was their characterization of Bane. In the comics, Bane is one of Batman’s coolest villains who is known as the man who “broke the bat,” but he also gets this title for being equal parts brain and brawn. Asylum and City opted to go for the cartoonish brute, but Origins’ incarnation of an early Bane was a truly imposing figure on both fronts.
He plays an important role throughout the game’s story and provides some exciting boss fights in the process. The final boss fight in the game with Bane also adds a proper sense of tension that emphasizes Batman is going up against someone who is truly out of his class physically. It brought in a “horror-lite” aspect to the boss encounter by forcing the player to hide around him.
1 Joker
While it was disappointing seeing a new “main” antagonist get the rug swept from under them by Joker, the Clown Prince of Crime’s part in the plot worked well thematically as the “origins” of his chaotic relationship with Batman. For many, the Joker is the best Batman supervillain and his role in the prequel fills in a perfect beginning and end going from Origins to Bruce’s closure in Knight.
And though Mark Hamill is the definitive voice of the Joker for most fans, Troy Baker puts on an incredible performance in a younger take on the character. It works particularly well in a parallel to Roger Craig Smith’s excellent, raw, and inexperienced Batman.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/batman-arkham-origins-best-villains/
Reviews -10 Of Adam Scott’s Best Roles Ever RELATED Jason Segels 10 Best Roles (Movies & TV)
10 Guest Stars You Forgot Were On ScoobyDoo
10 Reasons The Walking Dead Is A Soap Opera
5 Times Ryan And Marissa Were Our Favorite OC Couple (5 Times It Was Seth And Summer)
90 Day Fiancé Anny Shares Newborn Son Adriel’s Adorable Photoshoot
Arrowverse Can Finally Have A Green Lantern (Thanks To Smallville)
10 Movies That Couldnt Top Their Opening Scene
