Batman: The Enemy Within - Episode 1: The Enigma

The action works when called upon, the story really tries to expand on Batman’s world, and the new relationship mechanics add another layer to interactions. If you played the first season, there’s absolutely nothing that should keep you from this one.

Batman Season 2 is off to an excellent start. The Enigma is a decent size for a Telltale game, clocking in at around 2 hours 30 minutes, and it honestly feels like an epic Batman movie. And it’s only the first episode of a five-episode season. It has more gameplay than most Telltale episodes too, with something to do every few seconds, meaning it feels like you’re in the movie rather than just watching it and doing a QTE occasionally. It looks good too, with excellent voice acting and very good (and unpredictable) writing throughout. Honestly, I can’t think of anything too bad to say about it. It’s one of the best first episodes Telltale has ever done, and if The Enemy Within stays this good we could be looking at Telltale’s best game. Let’s hope the usual Episode 2 quality drop-off doesn’t happen…

Batman: The Enemy Within opens with a fantastic episode, turning the world of Batman on its head once more with new foes and new allies that you’ll have to work with. It drags Bruce and Batman further down into the murky grey area that he inhabits, keeping players constantly guessing as to whether or not they’re doing the right thing and bringing relationships new and old into the foreground.

Batman: The Enemy Within hits the ground running with Episode 1 "The Enigma". The series looks extremely promising and this single episode is worth checking out all on its own. Players will be instantly hooked on the drama, and will be dying to see what happens next. Batman: The Enemy Within - Episode 2 can't come fast enough.

When I sat down to play Batman: The Enemy Within – Episode 1: The Enigma, I was glued to my seat until its thrilling conclusion. While lengthier than most Telltale episodes, the time still went by in a flash. In the end I was left on tenterhooks, shocked and eager to get stuck into the second part of the story.

There’s a great balance of puzzles, investigations, combat, and story progression. I wasn’t bored for a second playing Episode One of The Enemy Within, and I’m really happy about the direction they’ve gone in. Telltale Games make fantastic adventures, but it’s been a while since I’ve been blown away by them. This is just what the series needed if it’s to be successful, and after an exciting reveal at the end, I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Outside of Batman Arkham VR (also quite short, but awesome), this is the most fun you can have as Gotham’s caped crusader at the moment. I eagerly await the next installment, same Bat series, same Bat hard drive.

It's a strong start. [Oct 2017, p.81]

Batman: The Enemy Within - Episode 1 is brimming with action and it shouldn't be a surprise considering the Caped Crusader has to resort to his knuckles most of the time to teach the Gotham underbelly a lesson. The combat sequences are rather easy to get through, although it may just be me getting a hang of Telltale's games for once. I've played far too many of late. To pull off moves you just need to hit different combinations of keys on the keyboard, but the timings are perhaps just a little too lenient.

Season 2 of Telltale’s Batman saga is off to a grand start, nailing all of the traditional beats that you’d expect from a dark knight game while staying true to its vision. Epic and ready to set up the caped crusader against an even deadlier menace in the months to come, Bruce Wayne’s world is once again fraught with peril and tension.

I hope this series persists as long as Telltale’s Walking Dead series has. I’d love to see how their interpretation changes and grows as they have more time to work with the characters.

I wish I’d been given the chance to actually solve more of The Riddler’s puzzles on my own – adventure games are traditionally all about that, after all – but the tension and drama that permeate The Enemy Within’s first episode make it a winner. This strong start also leaves me very excited to see how John Doe’s inevitable transformation into The Joker plays out, and morbidly fascinated to see what scars this version of Gotham City will leave behind on its inhabitants.

Full disclosure, this started as a video review, but the program I used managed to mess up the recording. I’ll probably do the rest of the episodes as video reviews, if I can get things running correctly. I’m eagerly awaiting the next episode, titled The Pact, as several of the plots The Enigma began look promising, and incredibly interesting.

Batman: The Enemy Within makes incremental improvements on a successful formula — and the introduction of a new, relationship-focused choice mechanic was a big hit. It might drag here and there, but it sets up for big things to come in further installments. If Enemy Within is anything like its predecessor, a little patience will pay off.

The Enigma (both the episode and the villain) is a good addition for this promising second season in which Telltale should make Bruce Wayne's sections more enjoyable and less static.

The first episode of The Enemy Within has been a thrill ride for me, constantly testing me and forcing me to make split-second decisions. I’m anxious to see who’s coming next, with a tease to Dr. Harleen Quinzel, or our girl Harley, in the next episode possibly. I’m very ready to see how Batman navigates the oncoming storm that's going to unfold across the season.

If you enjoyed the first season of Batman: The Telltale Series, the first episode of The Enemy Within is a great start to this season. The inclusion of one character feels a bit forced, like widget just placed to take the spot of an outgoing character, but all in all, the relationships you have to contend with here feel believable.

The Enigma is a successful opening chapter to a Batman story that's shaping up to be more ambitious than anything Telltale attempted in the first season.

The Enigma is a good start for the second season of Batman - The Telltale Series. It is a demonstration, if anything, that the team has realized what the major problems of its historical formula are.

It’s a promising start to a new season. The beginning is a bit sluggish, but once the story speeds up, it’s hard to put the game down. If you’re not a fan of Telltale’s approach to games though, be aware that the studio’s hallmarks are over The Enemy Within. [10/2017, p.58]

"The Enigma" is a strong episode 1 for this new series, in which Telltale tried to add something new to its formula, with different kinds of QTEs and interesting bounds between the main characters. Now, we just need to see how much of this will actually make the difference in the next episodes.

A good but not perfect start to the new season.

Batman returns in a plotline that finally includes the traditional Joker and a few other fan favourites.

I’d like to see The Enemy Within challenge players’ minds a bit more.

Setting the table for a big adventure to come, Batman: The Enemy Within gives players a window into a larger world. Batman and Bruce Wayne must balance their responsibilities and decisions, giving the player a multitude of ways to explore each scenario. Already there are a ton of path divergences along the way, giving us an entry into a series that will test the limits of the Caped Crusader. For now, a ho-hum, plot-seeded opening episode centered around a disappointingly mundane villain is good enough if a better payoff down the road follows suit.

Telltale kicks off the second season of Batman with all the power and momentum it needs, meaning if everything goes right, this will be an outright success.

Telltale's Batman comes back with the same flaws and the same virtues of the first season. It's a good first episode and it stills works, but we'd like to see some evolution.

The Enemy Within starts off strong, even if it does stumble a little here and there. Thankfully, the new story arc seems a lot less bloated and self-involved than the one we got last season, and the new characters are rather well-written, too.

Anyone who isn't a fan of the "Telltale interactive story" style will find nothing at all here to change their mind on the genre, but fans of previous games will find themselves thrown into yet another adventure filled with questionable loyalties, tense confrontations, morally-grey decisions and that ever-nagging thought that maybe, just maybe, you should have turned left instead of right.

The Enigma lives up to its name of being difficult to understand from start to finish. Telltale is all over the place in this episode, but the desire to be gritty and different is exposed too much, and the story suffers from it, feeling more like an odd one shot than the first part of something larger. Mysteries abound, however, and enough engaging narrative threads are left dangling to potentially right this second season’s direction.

The Enemy Within has some great action sequences, but it leans too much on the wider Batman universe as a crutch. It doesn’t put in the effort to make you care about the characters or the situations, and because of that, none of the choices feel meaningful.

A mild improvement on the season one debut, but while the first episode offers some shock value it still lacks depth in both storytelling and gameplay.