The vast majority of games I enjoy have this level of control fidelity. With the increase in processing power, things were supposed to PROGRESS, from that point, not REGRESS. Having control doesnt mean something has to be super complicated, SotC was as simple as having a button, that controlled whether you grabbed. Where the sophistication came, was a world where you could grab anything that was sensibly grabbable, and everything that opened up, as opposed to only certain context sensitive things.
Irritatingly, for a surprising amount of these games I enjoy, Nintendo seems to go out of their way to remove said control fidelity from later releases of them.
All right, I'll humor you, if only because I ultimately agree.
The only reason Batman and SotC are being mentioned in the same breath is the contingent of titles this thread is about is very small. I mentioned SotC in this OP because it's one of the few games in existence to even allow for the player to land on a moving
anything while it keeps moving, let alone on a controllable mount.
That said, their approaches are too different to directly compare the two, or to deem one a lesser version of the other. SotC makes the player feel weak and at the mercy of the colossi, and at the mercy of physics themselves even the most skillful speed-runs still look like some haplessly flailing around because it's designed to be that way. You ask yourself "can I make it to that handhold up the colossus' back?" because that's the role the player is taking: a relatively average person facing daunting creatures.
But you never ask "can I properly time my jump, jump at the right angle, position Batman's body/limbs and slide in smoothly?" Instead, you ask "can I get to the Batmobile before being shot to pieces by tank fire?"
Batman is not about about whether you can do basic actions the character is known to be able to do. It's about deciding when and how to use those actions/tools, something that game gives plenty of freedom for.
Advancement in technology is what made it possible to call the Batmobile and transition from being on-foot to inside it while it's moving. You have a narrow view of what's an acceptable advancement to the point you ignore whether a given advancement is valid in the context of the game it's in, and whether it's practical, effective or fun. A game that doesn't have Receiver-level reloading isn't a failure if "automated" reloading serves a greater purpose or fits within the overall design. A game that doesn't have Grow Home-level 1:1 ratio climbing isn't bad if the climbing isn't meant to be the focus of gameplay at any given moment.
It's one thing to hope for developers to strive for augmenting player control and agency moving forward, and it's another to let that blind you to valid and good design. Hopping into the Batmobile in Arkham Knight is a poor example to use as a jumping off point for the argument that games have regressed when it comes to player agency, even if that argument itself is valid.
