Gotham Knights Diaries Part Fifteen

This is my exploration of Gotham Knights where I will chronicle my playthrough like a text-based Let’s Play. I’ll point out all of the Easter Eggs that I can spot in the footnotes at the end of each part. Now let’s continue Gotham Knights…

After a night filled with drug-induced mental trauma, the team were on edge…

Still being patched up by Alfred Pennyworth, the four teammates began to bicker for some reason. Tim Drake was worried that the labyrinth, which he was not trapped in, had resulted in the Court of Owls getting in his head. He felt that, while Batman had a no-kill policy, where would he stand on “soldiers lining up to be reborn as these monsters”? Jason Todd, a resurrected person himself, took umbrage with that remark, and Barbara Gordon snapped at the teen because he was suggesting murder.

I would just like to point out that Batgirl had caused multiple Talons to die by drowning, being crushed, and getting frozen. So Babs needed to stop throwing those stones around in her glass house.

Dick Grayson chipped in, agreeing that perhaps murder might be wrong, and saying that the labyrinth was “more than a setback”, but was interrupted by Tim. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here. You’re not Bruce. None of you are.” Tim said, which confused me because it had nothing to do with what Dick said, and was Tim saying he liked Batman talking about him as if he wasn’t in the room?

Alfred slammed his hands on the table and shouted at the group, reminding them that no matter what Batman went through, he never stooped to the level of criminals. Everyone agreed, and Jason put a pin in things by saying that the founding families that made up the Court of Owls may be related, but they weren’t family like the Batfamily were. Barbara mentioned that the evidence uncovered at the Orchard Hotel was bulletproof, so Alfred suggested that we not go to war, but rely on the criminal justice system. I had assumed that we were doing that already, what with the chat with Detective Montoya the previous night. And, in fact, our next mission was to go and speak to her!

First, however, I went through the latest emails. Barbara had sent one about Doctor Langstrom’s files explaining about the Talon Gladiators, one from Dick telling Tim to check Batman’s audio logs for his Lazarus research, a promo from Holesome Dough, and an order for a book called Mask for Mask: A Heroic Romance by Kyah Blue. There was also an email from Wonder Woman, asking the team to lead a heroic assault into Gotham City’s underground, and fight as far down as possible to defeat anyone protecting Starro the Conqueror’s secrets… Like I didn’t have enough to do!

After changing my equipment, I noticed a marker on the crime scene recreation that Barbara had been working on. Tim noticed Barbara with Harley Quinn’s book in her hands, examining the recreation, so he stepped over to assure her that James Gordon was not covering for the Court of Owls. How he knew this with a certainty that Barbara lacked, I’m unsure. But Gordon had solved some of the cases involving the Court without knowing that the secret organisation was behind them. This realisation perked Barbara up, and she agreed to let Tim help with the murder dollhouse.

Since there were new story beats, I swapped to Jason and after changing his loadout, I went over to the workout area and activated a marker. He was testing ammo against a training dummy, while Tim monitored readings, and remarked that they were unusually hot. Jason brushed it off as being unimportant if it was “too hot” because he was shooting bad guys, and they’d live. Tim challenged him that if they were hot-but-safe, then it should be fine to shoot his fellow hero. Lowering the pistol, Jason acquiesced that the rounds might be too hot, and asked for help altering the gel mixture.

There was another marker over at the Batman memorial, which showed a scene between Jason and Alfred. They had been discussing Alfred’s work in the military, and turned to how badly Batman felt when Jason had died. But even after his resurrection, and some darkness that happened, he and Alfred never gave up on knowing that Jason was capable of great things. The pair shared an embrace; it was sweet. Then, Jason sent an email to Dick apologising for being standoffish when he took over as Robin, it was just because he was jealous that Dick was doing his own thing.

Tim had an event marker upstairs, so I went up to witness the end of a chess game between him and Alfred. He wanted to know the manoeuvre, but Alfred refused, saying that Robin needed to find his own way. Another event downstairs on a workbench, he explained that he had retrieved a chess set from Wayne Manor, because Belfry had lots of Batman, but very little of Bruce.

Dick’s one email was from Bryan Haly of Haly’s Circus, saying that they would be in Gotham the following month. However, his father was getting old, so wasn’t able to call Dick for a chat.

Heading out on patrol, I did the usual business of dealing with the premeditated crimes first, with some random criminal acts as I came across them. This included investigating a crime scene, clearing out an Owl’s Nest, stopping Organ Trafficking, preventing an attack on a prison convoy, stopping a Kidnapping in Progress, and finding a Criminal in Hiding. While stopping an Armored Truck Robbery, I found one of Gotham’s Most Wanted, someone named V1sc!ousV@l, though admittedly I didn’t realise who I was knocking out until afterwards. I also located a landmark and a hidden Batarang, as well as a monument to real life person Neal Adams.

Before going to see Detective Montoya, I headed over to the Iceberg Lounge to have a word with Penguin for selling me out. He said that he was sure I’d survive and that he only did it because he had been threatened with violence by Talons. I spoke to him again, as I had completed his objectives and wanted my resources, and he gave me a couple more tasks: defeat two Gladiator Talons, and clear a high-difficulty stronghold.

I then went uptown and spoke to Toshio, a member of The Watch, who gave me resources and two tasks: defeat 10 criminals and use stealth attacks to do it four times, both in the New Gotham area.

Reaching the gazebo that Detective Montoya was standing under, she explained that she hadn’t been able to get the arrest warrant for Jacob Kane signed, as no judge would do it. For some reason, Batgirl suggested Judge Moreno despite having written an email that talked about her disappearing… Montoya said that Moreno was in hiding, so I headed off to find some words on the street, starting with The Mob.

Finding a handful of Mob gang members pretty easily, they directed me towards the Regulators. Heading across town to find them, the one I interrogated told me that they had sold some security equipment to the Freaks, so off I went to the north of Gotham to find one of them. After accidentally knocking out five groups of Freaks, I finally managed to interrogate one of them, who sent me over to Bristol to find the Judge. Oh, and while looking for Freaks, I nipped over to the gates barring entry to Arkham Asylum and found a page of the Historia Strigidae halfway up a building.

Over at Judge Moreno’s safehouse, I found it about to be broken into by the Court of Owls. While it was only members, I knew that the moment I threw a punch the Talons would wade in — and they did… But they were shortly dealt with, and Moreno readily agreed to sign the warrant, and so I returned to Belfry. Well, first I went to see Doctor Thompkins to get my resource reward, and be given two more tasks: stop one very-high-difficulty bomb threat, and one very high difficulty Organ Trafficking.

Returning to Belfry, my patrol summary said that I had stopped eight crimes, completed five bonus objectives, and rescued two cops and nine citizens. That involved defeating 117 enemies, 19 of which were silent takedowns.

A cutscene began, with Detective Montoya being inducted into the inner circle of Batman Family, brought up the elevator into Belfry by Alfred, then meeting the maskless heroes themselves. She was aware of them all, and had met everyone except for Jason, who she knew by reputation as being dead. With her included into the circle of trust, the group started to go over the plan to serve Jacob Kane a warrant, inside of Kane Industries…

FOOTNOTES

Heroic Assault is the name of the mode released post-launch that allows four players to play co-op as they go through 30 floors of enemies. The main game still only allows two players.
Starro the Conqueror is a giant alien that looks like a starfish, and controls people by placing much smaller starfish over their faces, and was first introduced in 1960.
The darkness is likely this universe’s version of when Jason Todd was resurrected in the comics in 2005, and returned as a murderous wannabe crime lord before eventually turning anti-hero. Some of that for the game universe is covered in Batman audio logs.
Haly’s Circus is where Dick Grayson grew up, though Bryan Haly isn’t from the comics, movies or TV shows.
Neal Adams was a beloved artist and writer who did more work on comics starring Batman than it would be fair for me to detail. He passed away in 2022.