Batman: Arkham Knight - 8 Reasons The Joker Should Stay Dead
8. He Doesnt Make For A Good Boss Fight
The Joker has now been featured as Batman's primary antagonist in all three Arkham games, and not a single memorable boss fight has come from it. Any time the story demands for Batman to have a confrontation with the diabolical madman himself, it either ends with a fight that is more Batman against a gauntlet of enemies with The Joker as background noise, or a sequence where he has a much more formidable and powerful villain fight for him. This isn't going to work for Arkham Knight; it's simply a game that needs a definitive final boss fight against a definitive villain and history proves that Joker fights specifically feel unmemorable and unsatisfying. Arkham Asylum has one of the dullest final boss fights in gaming history simply because you're not really fighting The Joker; it's just you fighting goons while a gigantically large version stands around on a platform waiting to have a QTE executed on him. Even the ending to Arkham Origins is just one extended interactive sequence were Batman pummels The Joker. The only reason Arkham City was able to get away with having him as a villain is because Clayface's emergence as the true final boss was a fantastically-executed twist, and because The Joker's surprise death was handled with so much delicacy that it became one of gaming's most unforgettable moments. Killing him twice can't cover up the fact that he makes for a terrible boss fight.
