Highlights

  • Marvel's Spider-Man 2's boss fight between Miles and Peter was a logical and exciting choice, showcasing their abilities and adding depth to their relationship.
  • The boss fight itself was a highlight of the game, following a boss fight against Kraven while playing as Peter.
  • Unfortunately, Arkham Knight missed the opportunity to have a similar boss fight with a Joker-infected Batman, which could have added rich suspense and excitement.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 hit a lot of the right notes in its story and gameplay, tugging on a lot of heartstrings that Insomniac knew fans would appreciate. Indeed, the sequel married a lot of original character interpretations with interpretations that were popular in other games, such as having symbiote tendrils envelop New York City like they do in Spider-Man: Web of Shadows or having Venom play similarly to how he does in Ultimate Spider-Man. That said, giving Miles a boss fight against Peter was a great original idea, even if it was entirely predictable.

Knowing that Miles and Peter were both playable, it only made sense that an enraged, symbiote-imbued Peter would need to be fought and assisted at some point. It supposedly wasn’t necessary to give him a boss fight, but it allowed Miles to go toe-to-toe with him and have players see how they might contend with the same abilities and attacks they’d been using for half the game beforehand. This was logical from that standpoint, and it further makes the choice not to have a similar boss fight in Batman: Arkham Knight a disappointing one when its own setup would’ve been rich and suspenseful.

RELATED: How Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s Counter Shot Iterates on Arkham’s Counter System

Arkham Knight Should’ve Had a Joker-Infected Batman Boss Fight

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s Peter Boss Fight was a No-Brainer

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is split between its dual protagonists and to turn one of them into a boss fight for the other was a terrific choice. It’s not believable that Peter was actually harboring all those awful sentiments about Miles and the symbiote simply let them slip, but the boss fight itself is a highlight of the game, especially since it directly follows a boss fight against Kraven while playing as Peter.

Of course, the next main mission of the game is put in a position to eclipse this boss fight wholly since Harry takes the symbiote and players are able to rampage through Oscorp and eat Kraven’s head as Venom .

Players also receive the Anti-Venom symbiote suit later on, meaning that this boss fight wasn’t the last they see of Peter’s symbiote abilities. Regardless, nobody went into the sequel believing that Miles wouldn’t be fighting Peter since the trailers also explicitly established their contentious relationship, as well as MJ possibly being hunted by Peter while in an evolved, monstrous form of the symbiote. This all turned out to be true and the boss fight was everything it needed to be. Unfortunately, no such boss fight was offered in Arkham Knight, which could have easily integrated its own.

Arkham Knight Denied Players the Perfect Chance to Fight Batman

Arkham Knight has a heavy enough emphasis on the titular villain and his militia that fans wouldn’t be immediately criticized for having forgotten all the details of its Joker dilemma. In Arkham Knight, Batman is still infected with Joker’s blood despite the inexplicable continuity error of him having drunk the cure in Arkham City.

Having detained several others who are already expressing symptoms of literally becoming their own Joker, Batman knows he may eventually need to lock himself away, too, if his symptoms worsen. Joker appears in hallucinations throughout almost all of the game and talks to Batman, but eventually begins to take over Bruce’s body when his symptoms are amplified by Scarecrow’s fear toxin. There were then multiple opportunities where a boss fight could have ensued with fans playing as Robin and having to battle a Joker-infected Batman, similar to how Miles fights Peter.

Robin himself notes that he wouldn’t be able to stop Batman if this was to occur and perhaps that’s correct, but it would’ve been exciting to see Batman as a boss in that compromised, green-eyed state regardless, at least until Robin is able to temporarily snap him out of it. Fortunately, players will finally get to experience something comparable in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League with Batman brainwashed, mind-controlled, or infected yet again, this time by Brainiac.