Harley Quinn Injustice 2 Battle Simulator

Media type: Video Game
Title: Injustice 2 (Legendary Edition)
Released: May 11, 2017
Format: PS4
Played before?: Yes

Hey peeps and welcome to a written playthrough of Injustice 2, specifically the Battle Simulator. It’s something that artificial intelligence can’t do yet. They can’t, right?

This battle simulator focuses on Harley Quinn this time. She starts off at a level 5 and it was played on very easy difficulty.

Going into the simulator, I did not think I was going to be good at playing with Harley. She’s a much more ranged fighter than I’m capable of playing. But a little bit of a spoiler, I wasn’t absolutely terrible at playing with her. I was thinking she was going to play a little more like Enchantress but with guns.

Fight 1: Blue Beetle

Here we are, again, at the Brother Eye level of the Bat Cave. I will say, even though I’ve played this level multiple times, I have no clue where most of the interactables are. To be fair, the fight usually takes place on the bridge area where the only interactables are the weird lights. If I move off that, I don’t have a clue.

Anyways, back to the actual fight. As with every character, I was rusty trying to use Harley’s moves. Luckily, this wasn’t a hard fight, but I stupidly need to try a throw at inopportune times. And when I get it in my head that I need to throw my opponent, I don’t get deterred until I’ve been hit too many times in the attempt. It’s completely my own stupidity and I readily admit it.

There was a challenge attached to the fight to defeat my opponent in 70 seconds, which I very easily completed. Finished off with a super move and won the battle.

Fight 2: Starfire

This started in the Central Containment level of Red Sun Prison, but moved on to the Power Core level.

The fight was relatively painless. I shot her a bunch. She got one or two hits on me. I hit her with a super move and finished the fight.

I can’t make every fight exciting with my stupidity.

Fight 3: Black Canary

This fight took place in Gorilla City.

There was a challenge attached to use 6 special moves. I have no clue what that means. I don’t know if special moves are the combos or throws or meter burns. I didn’t get the challenge completed, mostly because I had no clue for what moves I was supposed to be using.

Since I was on a one track path to try and complete the challenge, Canary got quite a few hits on me. Once again, I figured throws were most likely special moves. Therefore, I kept trying to do a throw and Canary kept doing that over-the-back throw on me. Not great.

I managed to get my act together long enough to hit her with a super move and win the fight. Harley Quinn leveled up to level 6.

Fight 4: Poison Ivy

This fight took place in the Command Center in Atlantis.

I was a little disappointed in the beginning interaction between these two characters. It’s been a while since I’ve played the actual story of Injustice 2, but I’m pretty sure that Harley and Ivy were established as former lovers. If not that, at least, very close to each other. For how much of an impact a lot of these interactions can have, this one felt a little flat. Honestly, most of Harley’s intros fell flat. I’ll discuss later why I feel this way, but it didn’t completely work.

For the actual fight, Ivy was relatively easy. She barely got any hits on me. When she did, it was because I walked into the thorn pit she creates on the ground and I proceeded to stand there like an idiot. It was also around here that I learned to love Harley’s character power. There’s just something satisfying about having one of her hyenas knock down her opponent. I had accidentally been using it before but then I purposefully started using the power by this point.

I used her super move and won the fight.

Fight 5: Green Arrow

The fight started in the Rock of Eternity in Kahndaq and moved onto Black Adam’s palace.

The fight wasn’t hard, once again. I learned the AI can be just as stubborn using a move against me as I am with it. I swear, Green Arrow attempted to shoot me with an arrow five times before I punched him out of it.

I didn’t get to use a super move to finish the fight.

Fight 6: Bane

This took place in Slaughter Swamp.

I can’t understand what Bane is saying with his mask. I understand that’s part of the character, but I have headphones on. The other characters speak pretty clearly and, unfortunately, there’s no subtitle option during battle simulator.

Another issue I had, and had been having, was Harley’s taunt once she knocks her opponent down a bar. What she’s saying and what she’s doing don’t match up. The developers clearly wanted to use the bat, but it doesn’t really match. Especially because she mimes using it as a gun, which she also readily has. What she’s saying seems very generic to go along with a not so generic movement. It seemed weird to me that she couldn’t taunt better.

A super move finished the match.

Fight 7: Captain Cold

This fight took place in the Fortress of Solitude.

Again, a relatively easy fight. I was really surprised at how well I had been fighting with Harley. Sure, she did keep randomly throwing explosives near no one, but it wasn’t a huge hindrance. I do want to mention a good detail I like about the end of her super move. Once out of the cinematic, I usually go straight to writing notes. I don’t usually notice if my character is doing something after the super move cinematic and the winning pose cinematic. I did happen to catch this time that Harley was holding a broken bat that she quickly threw away. It’s a nice touch since smashing her opponent in the head with a bat is how her super move ends.

Obviously a super move finished the fight and Harley moved up to level 7.

Fight 8: Brainiac

It doesn’t matter how well I’m doing with a character up to this point. Brainiac is a league unto himself. The standard for fighting the character is punch, punch, crouch.

Somehow, I completely ignored that directive and just kept shooting him at all possible times. Harley’s pistols do a lot of damage and knock her opponents down quite well, so it was an actual advantage this time. He didn’t even knock me down to one health bar.

Super move was used to finish the fight.

The Ending

So, here’s where we get into the issue of Harley. It’s not just in this game, but how the media has turned in portraying her a bit. For this game, it makes a little more sense because the line between hero and villain gets blurred. Good guys go bad, bad guys go good. But Harley is a murderous, destructive villain at her core. She doesn’t fight on the side of good. She’s not an anti-villain like Catwoman. Harley’s story is fine in the game proper. But her ending here really isn’t. Batman isn’t going to bring her into the Justice League. He’s not going to ever trust her in that capacity, no matter how helpful she's been throughout both Injustice games. Especially because five seconds later, she states that she needs to go on a rampage every so often. It doesn’t fit. A lot of it does have to do with how Harley’s character has changed as she’s gotten more popular. She gets portrayed a lot as being an abused person who has no choice in the mayhem she creates. Some of that is true. She very clearly is in an abusive relationship with the Joker and he does force her to cause mayhem. But when she’s not in a relationship with the Joker, she still causes death and destruction. She still is on a villain path. It might not be as devastating as the Joker’s, but she’s still in the wrong. I’m not saying she can’t try for a path of redemption, but that they are taking too many big steps for the minimal redemption we see.

Overall Score: 1,021,397

Once again, no change in ranking. I’ll have to step up my game if I want to see any change here. So, this will probably be the ranking until the end of the series.

Top Five Ranking of Characters:

1. Catwoman (1,063,054)
2. Green Arrow (1,057,829)
3. Doctor Fate (1,040,263)
4. Cyborg (1,030,601)
5. Swamp Thing (1,027,787)

Until next time, where all fights are still up in the air.