Mechanics

Three pages sit under this heading, and what separates them is how much of the asylum each one makes you cover. The Freeflow Perfection achievement is settled inside one room, in one combo. The Riddler's 51 riddles are handled one room at a time, because each is issued as you walk in and its answer is somewhere in that same space. The 240 Riddler Challenges are the entire island, every building included, and most of its trophy rooms stay shut until the story opens them. Taken in that order, each test is simply bigger than the one before it.

One room: the perfect combo

The achievement page calls this one of the hardest combat unlocks in the game, and the rule is simple to state: Batarang, Batclaw, Counter, Evade, Strike, Stun, Ground Takedown, Standing Takedown and Throw, all nine in one combo, in any order, without being hit. One hit and the chain starts again from nothing. It counts in any play mode. Before trying it you need the Batclaw itself and three upgrades, the Batarang Combo, the Takedown upgrade and the Throw upgrade, and the page recommends a fourth, the Combo Meter upgrade, because it lowers the combo meter requirement from x8 to x5. The suggested chain opens with a Batclaw pull, takes a counter and an evade off the second enemy, builds the meter with punches, spends it on a throw once it turns yellow, stuns the man behind you with the cape, lands a Standing Takedown, evades again, knocks someone down with a fully upgraded Batarang and finishes him on the ground. Evading does not cost you the meter, which is what makes the gaps survivable.

Two rooms are recommended for it. Rounds three and four of the first challenge map hold plain thugs with no knives or stun batons. The other is the group throwing a party right before the final Joker confrontation, who will not swing until you do; save there, and a failed attempt costs a reload rather than a level. Beating everyone at that party unlocks the missable Party Pooper achievement, and the same crowd is the page's pick for reaching a x40 combo for Freeflow Combo 40.

Every room: 51 riddles, two kinds

A riddle is handed to you the moment you enter a new area or room, and the answer is somewhere inside it, never outside. Forty-two are word clues pointing at a painting, a prop or a scene that you scan; the other nine are the second kind, a question mark painted across the environment with its dot somewhere else, solved by standing where the two line up. Arkham Island has nine, the Mansion nine, and there are eight each in the Botanical Gardens, in Intensive Treatment, in the Medical Facility and in the Penitentiary, with the Caves holding a single one. Forty need no gadget. Of the eleven that do, six are locked away behind Sequencer barriers, with one of them also wanting the Range Amplifier and another paired with Explosive Gel; four need the Batclaw, one of them alongside a Batarang; and one asks for the Ultra Batclaw. Two Penitentiary riddles are hidden in the Guard Room behind Joker's toxin, and both use the same vent-and-Batarang route to clear it, while one Intensive Treatment riddle cannot be finished until the story is roughly halfway done. The secrets maps in our collectibles guide mark riddle positions as well as everything else, and the riddles page, like most of our collectible pages, says to come back after the credits.

The whole island: the Riddler's 240

After his escape the Riddler leaves 240 challenges across the island and hacks Batman's communications to needle him about it. Our challenges page divides them into six kinds and hands each one to a dedicated page: the nine secrets maps that reveal the rest, the 101 trophies, the 51 riddles, the 24 Chronicles of Arkham, the 35 patient tapes and the Joker's teeth. Every area carries its own share. Most need gadget upgrades, and the majority of the trophy rooms need the campaign to open them, so the page's advice is to take what is in reach as you go and sweep for the rest later. The rewards along the way are character profiles, mini-games and XP.

The list has three finishing lines. The trophies page puts the first at 204 of 240, where the Riddle Resolver achievement unlocks. The second arrives about five challenges from the end, when Batman traces the Riddler's call and passes his hiding place to the GCPD; no boss fight is waiting at the end of that trace, and you do not have to clear every entry to reach that point. Finish the lot anyway and you get the third: one more radio call in which he accuses you of cheating, insists he has not been outsmarted, and is interrupted by sirens. The two encounters that do end in a fight, or a chase, are in our boss guide, and the rest of the island is mapped out on our Batman: Arkham Asylum guide.