A game that has left me feeling conflicted. There are aspects of the experience that I genuinely enjoyed, particularly with the card combat and general gameplay. I liked some character moments, however, overall I believe that the concept of the game is far better than its execution (The combat is an exception). Building relationships with the heroes feel unearned because they are written to be bland, and uninteresting, it feels more like a progression of a rank rather than a growing friendship. The story was bland and lacked the writing necessary to give me a reason to care about anything. The graphics are sub-par, character models are really mid, however, they make up for this with the costumes. Overall a disappointing experience that could possibly be rectified in a sequel, though I don't think it's very likely.

pretty good. the dialogue and story suck balls of course but in a funny way most of the time. i like how you can make the writer's oc look like the biggest douchebag on planet earth. the core gameplay loop is easily enough to fill the almost 100 hours of playtime, but it kind of feels unfinished. not in the way of being buggy or broken, but like missing content. hulk in particular has a single conversation, and no friendship path. it feels like they ran out of time to finish him, especially when he was revealed so close to release. the game is also has some minor but reoccurring glitches, wolverine will often fall through the ground, the game will stall at turns, subtitles will be wrong, the game will forget choices you made hours ago, etc. nothing big, but noticeable. still, the core combat is fun, and the dialogue is (unintentionally) hilarious a lot of the time. i enjoyed every one of the many hours it took to beat this game, which is impressive for a game that's this repetitive!

This game is fantastic. For those who are fans of xcom, you will love this game. For those who are fans of marvel, you'll be delighted.
- Amazing voice actors
- an interesting and cool story with which of the story missions with different objectives that increases the difference in gameplay between missions and things to focus on
- LOADS of sidecontent that is not a drag
- A very good and entertaining persona-like friendship and time spend system

The only reason I don't give 4 and 1/2 stars is because the visuals are trash. I love the game but all the graphics and overall visuals look super low effort. Some attack and in game animations are cool and satisfying but all the visuals are very trashy tbh. Also there are a lot of cool cosmetics but most of the heroes suits are lock behind a paywall

Llevaba años soñando con un juego así, algo que combinase Marvel con la profundidad táctica de juegos como XCOM. Ni en mis mayores sueños podría haberme imaginado ya no solo que fuera a ocurrir, sino que fuera a ocurrir por parte de Firaxis.

La parte táctica es, en resumidas cuentas, redonda. No puedo criticarle absolutamente nada. Cada uno de los personajes tiene su nicho propio, todos funcionan muy bien y son divertidísimos de utilizar. Cada una de las mecánicas se combina para ofrecer un sistema de combate GLORIOSO que no ha dejado de ser divertido en ningún momento de las casi 82 horas que he tardado en terminar el juego.

¡Pero es que encima hay una parte social! Y, si bien es algo más superficial que la parte táctica, está CUIDADÍSIMA. Hay una cantidad francamente abrumadora de texto, de conversaciones, de interacciones y de posibilidades con cada uno de los personajes y en TODAS ELLAS se nota el cariño que le tiene este equipo a estos personajes y a esta franquicia en general.

Quizá la única parte en la que flojea es la técnica. Sin ser un prodigio visual (aunque los combates lucen muy, muy bien), tiene problemas de rendimiento MUY severos en la Abadía, lo cual es un problema porque es donde pasas la mitad del tiempo del juego. Quizá con el tiempo se alivien, pero a 2 de febrero de 2023, esos problemas estaban aún muy presentes y afean un conjunto buenísimo.

He disfrutado como un enano de cada minuto de este juego, ha superado mis expectativas en todos los ámbitos y voy a seguir jugando de forma... prácticamente indefinida. Como mínimo hasta que salgan todos los DLC, pero probablemente más allá.

Uno de mis juegos favoritos de todos los tiempos. Así de claro.

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I spent years dreaming of a game like this, something that combined Marvel with the tactical depth of games like XCOM. Not even in my wildest dreams I could have imagined it was going to become true, and it was going to be made by Firaxis themselves.

The tactical layer is, in just one word, flawless. I can't criticize absolutely anything about it. Each character has their own niche, they all work really well and are so much fun to play as. Each of the gameplay mechanics combines with each other to provide a GLORIOUS combat system that has never stopped being fun in the almost 82 hours it took me to finish the game.

But there's a social layer on top of that! And, sure, it's a bit more shallow than the tactical layer, but it's REALLY WELL DONE. There's a frankly overwhelming amount of text, dialogue, interactions and possibilities with each of the characters and ALL OF THEM are bursting with the love this team has for these characters and this franchise as a whole.

Maybe the only part that's a bit lacking is the technical side. Without being a technical marvel (although battles look really, really good), it has SEVERE performance issues at the Abbey, which is a problem since you spend half of your playtime there. They may be fixed with time, but as of February 2nd 2023, these problems are still very present and they kind of spoil an outstanding whole.

I've enjoyed the hell out of every second of this game, it surpassed my expectations in every way and I'll keep playing for... maybe forever. At the very least until all the DLC is out, but most likely beyond that.

One of my favorite games of all time. Straight up.

Si te gusta Marvel este juego es obligatorio jugarlo. Pero voy a hacer un análisis mas profundo.
Empiezo por el apartado técnico.
Técnicamente el juego tiene problemas. Caídas de frames cuando hay mucha acción en pantalla, bugs de iluminación, bugs en personajes, tarda muchísimo en guardar partida... Son cosas que a priori no molestan pero que están ahí.
Gráficamente es precioso y el único fallo que le achaco son las caras inexpresivas de los personajes.
Ahora vamos al gameplay y lo voy a dividir en varias partes del mismo juego. La abadía, el combate y la estrategia.
La abadía: Es el lobby donde pasamos el rato entre misión y misión. Aquí podemos hablar con otros héroes, ir de copas, jugar a videojuegos, ir a un club de lectura y muchas actividades mas. Las relaciones entre héroes son fundamentales ya que nos desbloquean pasivas que nos ayudarán en combate. Dentro de la abadía también tenemos la exploración que nos ayudará a avanzar con nuestro personaje en la historia y desarrollar nuevas habilidades.
El 50% del tiempo lo pasaremos en esta localización.

Combate: El combate es genial y nos permite llevar hasta 3 héroes a la batalla. A medida que vamos haciendo misiones se van desbloqueando dificultades mas altas que suponen un reto enorme sino elegimos a los héroes correctos para cada misión.
[seguiré]

There are really two sides to Marvel Midnight Suns. The sunshine and rainbows side is that its XCOM with superheroes which, like... yeah... that's the greatest pitch of all time. It's the equivalent of someone saying to me: "Callum. I'm going wild and serving you Ice Cream and Jelly together. Hope that's okay". Of course you can serve god to me in a bowl, I don't mind.

Midnight Suns' tense combat and "make every move count" mantra is why Firaxis is unrivalled in the strategy space, and as usual, they absolutely deliver in that department. Every hero is so unique and fun to experiment with, and the way you quickly grasp how to seamlessly merge their talents is sublime. I maybe would've preferred the game let me create my own team of superheroes so I can give everyone funny haircuts, name them shit like "Snakey Bones Johnson" and turn their armour toxic sludge green, but I'm happy to compromise for more of that sweet, sweet XCOM combat.

But the flip side of the coin is that everything around the battles is just really, really weird. And not weird in a way where I'm like, ooooh, how quirky and fun. Weird in a way where I'm like, this was a... creative choice... you... uh... could've made... that's for sure. Like, why does this feel like a self-insert fan fic? Why am I taking Wolverine for evening tea and a picnic outside a picturesque cottage? Why is every character utterly in love with me and committed to spending their whole lives waiting on my beck and call? Why are there like 70 currencies and all of them revolve around me potentially buying Captain America a new pair of swimming trunks? It's just a bizarre game. So much of it is runtime is spent fleshing out the downtime between missions, but the downtime is spent with such cliche and uninspired takes on these characters. There's no creative liberty or attempt to add a spin to these heroes that's unique to Firaxis' universe. Instead, they all just say variations of "YoU Ain'T HALf bAd HUnTeR" and blurt out their backstories like walking Wikipedia articles. It doesn't help that the writing isn't great either, making most of the dialogue cringey, while the NPC animations are static and lifeless.

Everything outside the combat just makes this feel like half a peak Firaxis strategy experience and half one of those bargain-bin-destined licensed games that I'd want for Christmas as kid but quickly realise were actually shite the moment I sat down to play them (I see you Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer). Don't get me wrong, there are much worse things out there than a game that's half XCOM 2 and half X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse, but I couldn't help but dread everything between the moments where I'd kill 9 demons in one turn by making Ghost Rider surf on a Chevy Impala while screaming about vengeance at the top of his lungs.

Zt the end of the day it's not XCOM 3 but (if you max out the difficulty every chance you get) there's a lot of fun to be had here!
Firaxis have done a really bang-up job of making a tactics card game interesting. It feels like a really clean marriage of XCOM and Slay the Spire - if you like those two games you'll probably like the gameplay here.
While I think most people are going to like the tactics layer, many will probably find the social side of the game tiresome - even as someone who super digs friendship simmy stuff in games I found it servicable at best. The writing isn't anything special. Whether it works or not heavily depends on you being a comics person (MCU person isn't even enough here, honestly) and having a pre-existing relationship with these characters, which I didn't.
Ultimately I had a great time with it and I'll probably revisit it for a New Game + run when all the DLC is out.

Me esperaba que fuera un excelente juego de estrategia, y lo es. Pero lo que acaba de redondearlo es que también es un gran life sim en el que te haces colega de personajes de Marvel.

Es sorprendente hasta qué punto una caracterización cuídadisima de todos los personajes del equipo y una gigantesca dosis de costumbrismo superheroico bastan para hacer que te impliques mucho en su historia, por trilladísima que sea. (Si ya eres fan de Marvel, claro. Esto es café para los muy cafeteros.)

Me acordaré tanto de esa misión en la que conseguí alcanzar otro plano de existencia entendiendo la manera en la que las cartas de Doctor Extraño y de Iron Man se compenetraban que de la fiesta sorpresa que organizacé para Magik con el resto de los héroes. Allí reside la victoria de Firaxis con este juego: en lo bien que funcionan las dos caras tan dispares de su moneda y en la manera impecable en la que se compaginan a nivel de diseño.

Lo han bordado, y espero que puedan hacer otro, porque esta fórmula es demasiado buena para quedarse en un solo juego.

On paper, I should love this game. It's Marvel characters with Fire Emblem Three Houses interactions. In execution, I just kept feeling shorted. I kept forcing myself to play in hopes it would get better. I finished the first Act (or was it Chapter) and had to be done. I don't know why the elements just aren't gelling for me. It feels like you're a character interacting with the world instead of being a part of the world. You also cannot romance any of the superheroes. I cannot put my finger on what je ne sais quoi is not there. It's just like the Walmart brand of both Marvel and Fire Emblem: Three Houses, fine but not great. In roughly 20 hours of play, it crashed 10 times. It has a pretty good autosave system, but it got really annoying. People complained like crazy about Saints' Row (2022), which I had one crash in the whole game, but not about this.

Midnight Suns is an excellent game, which manages to stay in the Xcom tradition while still being innovative.
From a gameplay point of view, the game is turn-based, which is very different from Xcom in the way combat unfolds, since you use cards that you draw to launch attacks, and you're subject to RNG to prepare your turns, which can be frustrating at first but keeps the combat part fresh and less repetitive. The presence of a large number of heroes, each with their own gameplay style, provides strategic diversity and means that battles can be approached in different ways. In addition to combat, the game places a great deal of emphasis on the relationship with the other heroes. Improving your relationship with other heroes allows you to obtain bonuses in combat and learn more about them, but this part of the game can hold many back.
Visually, the game is quite beautiful without being breathtaking, and the effects of spells and attacks are quite nice.
The story is also pretty cool, but developing the relationship with the other heroes is a real plus for the story, allowing you to see the relationship between the different heroes and enjoy the game even more. You get a good feel for the atmosphere between the different heroes, and the moments of friction and humour are very well magnified to make for a very enjoyable experience.
From an audio point of view, the game is really good, both in terms of the music and the soundtrack.
The game is entirely dubbed by very good actors, and this really adds to the game in terms of emotion.
To conclude, Firaxis have really pulled off a great coup with this game, they've created a turn-based style that's quite different from Xcom but still very enjoyable to play. I'd recommend this game to anyone who's a fan of Marvel, Xcom or both, but also to people who enjoy turn-based games.