I found Marvel's Midnight Suns to be a frustrating game in a lot of ways. But it's also one of the most fun strategy RPGs I've ever played that I couldn't stop playing.
It feels like a game that is at war with itself. The pieces don't mesh together in support of the central gameplay concepts. Not well, in any case.
1. You have the strategy RPG game, where you play discrete missions with objectives and a tightly designed card system that is so much fun to interact with and take advantage of. It's really a pleasure to play, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. If anything I hope they support Midnight Suns with story DLC or a big sequel because this system needs to keep going.
2. When off mission, you strangely enough have this massive open Abbey area to explore the grounds of and solve puzzles. There's so much to explore here, and it feels disconnected from the rest of the experience despite having some hamfisted things in it (crafting materials, social havens) to force you to engage with it.
3. You have the social management sim element, where you must talk to and hang out with the superheroes on your team to upgrade their friendship level. Upgrading the friendship level for each hero provides hero-specific buffs that are actually extremely powerful. The writing here is also all over the place. It feels YA in tone but simultaneously weirdly cringey. It's full of whedonistic dialogue that doesn't mean anything, and conversations that go on a full two or three or four sentences too long. The voice acting doesn't feel as strongly directed in these social scenes either.
I also found the currencies for upgrading cards, creating cards, modifying cards to be annoying to keep track of/manage and earn. There could have been a better way around this. The inventory UI is also quite hard to use. Cards aren't alphabetised and as far as I could see there isn't a sorting tool so it can be really card to see what you actually have.
These pieces not quite fitting together ends up making the game feel disjointed and confusing at times. This sucks a lot! The writing and storytelling in the main cutscenes is pretty good! It's a fun story, silly comic book gothic horror. But everything around that feels... weaker? Which I think is sad.
I can't help but think that the Abbey and the Social Sim have potential, but either aren't utilised correctly or just haven't had as much effort put into them (or at least, not as much as the combat system). You're locked into a gameplay structure of "Wake up, do a mission, possibly (because they're random) have a hangout with a hero to up your friendship, then go to sleep". This feels almost too rigid.
Part of me almost wishes that the system was a little more open. Maybe make hangouts available before a mission! What if there are discrete times of day? Missions can happen in the morning, afternoon, or evening? Then whenever you don't do a mission, you can spend hanging out? I don't know.
It just feels like the gameplay loop could have been a lot stronger, and worked in support of itself more. As it stands, it makes the game feel like it has lots of separate parts.
Despite this, I hope the game does well! I want to play more of it! Story DLC, a sequel, something! I think it's a really interesting concept and I would like to see where this team might take these concepts if they had another go at it.
It feels like a game that is at war with itself. The pieces don't mesh together in support of the central gameplay concepts. Not well, in any case.
1. You have the strategy RPG game, where you play discrete missions with objectives and a tightly designed card system that is so much fun to interact with and take advantage of. It's really a pleasure to play, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. If anything I hope they support Midnight Suns with story DLC or a big sequel because this system needs to keep going.
2. When off mission, you strangely enough have this massive open Abbey area to explore the grounds of and solve puzzles. There's so much to explore here, and it feels disconnected from the rest of the experience despite having some hamfisted things in it (crafting materials, social havens) to force you to engage with it.
3. You have the social management sim element, where you must talk to and hang out with the superheroes on your team to upgrade their friendship level. Upgrading the friendship level for each hero provides hero-specific buffs that are actually extremely powerful. The writing here is also all over the place. It feels YA in tone but simultaneously weirdly cringey. It's full of whedonistic dialogue that doesn't mean anything, and conversations that go on a full two or three or four sentences too long. The voice acting doesn't feel as strongly directed in these social scenes either.
I also found the currencies for upgrading cards, creating cards, modifying cards to be annoying to keep track of/manage and earn. There could have been a better way around this. The inventory UI is also quite hard to use. Cards aren't alphabetised and as far as I could see there isn't a sorting tool so it can be really card to see what you actually have.
These pieces not quite fitting together ends up making the game feel disjointed and confusing at times. This sucks a lot! The writing and storytelling in the main cutscenes is pretty good! It's a fun story, silly comic book gothic horror. But everything around that feels... weaker? Which I think is sad.
I can't help but think that the Abbey and the Social Sim have potential, but either aren't utilised correctly or just haven't had as much effort put into them (or at least, not as much as the combat system). You're locked into a gameplay structure of "Wake up, do a mission, possibly (because they're random) have a hangout with a hero to up your friendship, then go to sleep". This feels almost too rigid.
Part of me almost wishes that the system was a little more open. Maybe make hangouts available before a mission! What if there are discrete times of day? Missions can happen in the morning, afternoon, or evening? Then whenever you don't do a mission, you can spend hanging out? I don't know.
It just feels like the gameplay loop could have been a lot stronger, and worked in support of itself more. As it stands, it makes the game feel like it has lots of separate parts.
Despite this, I hope the game does well! I want to play more of it! Story DLC, a sequel, something! I think it's a really interesting concept and I would like to see where this team might take these concepts if they had another go at it.