Let's Play Batman: Return to Arkham City, Episode 2

It's a new year, which means we're going to be inundated with firsts - first baby born in 2019, first official workday of 2019, first presidential tweetstorm of 2019... and also my first video of 2019! Here's episode 2 of my Let's Play of Batman: Return to Arkham City, the PS4 remaster of the 2011 masterpiece:



I've already explained the idea behind this project in my previous post (also my last post of 2018), so I'll stick to a quick recap get into an explanation of my personal music cues fairly quickly. First of all, it should become clear in this episode that I'm taking a pretty slow-paced, meandering approach to this playthrough - I'll frequently stop to listen to various bits of henchmen banter, tackle side missions as they come, and generally take my time to enjoy the sights and sounds of Arkham City. So, pretty much the opposite of a speedrun. But with a game as deep and detailed as Arkham City, there's plenty of interesting stuff to pay attention to no matter what speed you play.

Now let's move on to the personal music cues I've added to this episode. Again, there aren't many, since most of this early part of the game is scored. And again, the first one in this episode happens during a trip to the pause menu. As we discover right after the "last time on" tease (a feature that I'm pretty proud of, by the way - they'll get more complex as the series goes on), we find out that the events of Episode 1 earned me enough experience points to level up. While selecting my first upgrade (the Critical Strikes, naturally), I use the same music that I previously used for the pause menu: "Enter the Asylum" from the Arkham Asylum official soundtrack. However, attentive listeners will notice that I start the track where I left off in the last episode! Because why should you be forced to listen to the same thing twice?

After leaving Two-Face strung up in the courthouse, there's a mysterious figure watching from the rooftop where I picked up the first Riddler trophy. Approaching this guy causes him to vanish in a puff of smoke, leaving a strange symbol behind. Scanning this symbol with Detective Mode's Environmental Analysis feature triggers the "Watcher in the Wings" side mission and automatically brings you to the map screen, which is where my personal music comes in. What you hear is actually the official theme song of this mission (which appears on the Arkham City extended soundtrack), although it doesn't play in the game until you meet this guy several times.

This episode marks the first appearances of Harley Quinn and the Joker, although the latter only shows up on a tiny TV monitor with his face obscured. This happens after scanning the sniper rifle situated at the top of the church, which Joker was remotely controlling, and it triggers a speech from the clown prince of crime. This cutscene usually occurs without music, so I piped in Joker's musical motif from the Batman: The Animated Series episode "The Last Laugh." I was somewhat conflicted about putting this track here, since Mark Hamill's voice acting is more than enough to carry a scene without any musical accompaniment, but I couldn't resist the chance to put in some unique TAS flair.

Stay tuned next week for the next exciting episode!