The second of the Playdate's first week of games, Casual Birder is a more traditional adventure game, set in a small town entirely comprised of incredibly passionate bird watchers. You travel around town with your camera phone, attempting to take pictures of all the available birds while going up against the local gang. The humor of this game is its high point, as it embraces slightly absurd situations in mundane environments, giving it strong EarthBound vibes. The writing is pretty witty, and there are a few legitimate laugh out loud moments. It did take a little bit before it gained my attention though, and I think the biggest fault with the game is the photography aspect itself. You use the D-pad to move the viewfinder across the screen and the crank to focus, but it always felt a bit clunky to me, and there are a number of birds that move quickly across the screen, which makes capturing their image an exercise in frustration. Unlike Whitewater Wipeout, there's an hour or two of content here, as well as an actual ending, although it's definitely a lot less exciting from moment to moment. Together though, these two pair well as the first two giveaway games, and I'm eager to try out more.

Despite recently writing in my Persona 5 Tactica review that games like this weren't my cup of tea, along comes Marvel's Midnight Suns, a tactical RPG that does just about everything it can to win me over - and succeeds. In fact, it's more akin to a trading card game than anything else, mixed with a healthy dose of social simulation - a fact I probably would have been way more enthused about sooner if this game was at all marketed properly. Instead, I'm coming to the party late, but nevertheless happy to be here.

While this game comes from the makers of Xcom, I would actually describe its closest comparable as Fire Emblem: Three Houses. However, a couple of key changes in design turned it from something was largely carried by its non-gameplay elements (as Three Houses was for me) to one that almost perfectly married combat and social sim in execution. The card-based nature of Midnight Suns was one part of it, although the lack of a grid for movement was a bigger deal (positively!) than I expected. While there is a limited number of moves in a turn, you have the freedom to move anywhere on the board, meaning strict positioning plays a much less prominent role. No worrying about being on the wrong tile and having the entire enemy team gang up on you, especially because (aside from bosses) all enemies telegraph which of your units they'll attack. There are no surprises, meaning you're free to concentrate on crafting your strategy from the cards in your hand.

These enemy encounters also have a lot of different win conditions present, resulting in no shortage of variety to combat, especially when you factor in that each Marvel character you control also has their own unique playstyle. Some characters, like Blade, are built around inflicting status effects like bleed on enemies, while others such as Wolverine and Spider-Man are about chaining together attacks on multiple enemies, either with your cards or by using environmental hazards on the battlefield. If I had one complaint with this part of the game, it's that there aren't a lot of unique enemy units - you'll be staring down hydra goons and green demons for most of your playtime. The DLC adds an entirely different set of units to fight (vampyres), but those DLC missions also bring in an additional problem I'll touch on later.

Then you have the social aspect of Marvel's Midnight Suns, the thing I had no idea was even present yet becomes the star of the show. A big part of this game's enjoyment comes from simply hanging out with your favorite Marvel guys. Want to go fishing with Blade? Play video games with Spider-Man? Join a book club with Captain Marvel? Go on friendship dates and give presents to Iron Man? If so, you'll be spending a lot of time doing that. Talking with all these various Marvel characters and learning their stories forms a core part of the gameplay loop, as doing so also helps you level them up and gain better cards/stats. This is ultimately an RPG, after all, but being able to see a different side to these iconic characters than most games allow is genuinely cool.

So who's doing all this, you ask? Your very own Marvel OC, of course. Also something I had no idea about, but when you start the game, you create your own character, dubbed "The Hunter" by others. This could easily be something cringe or forgettable but they actually took the time to make Hunter their own character, complete with voice acting! Yeah, you're super OP so you can stand alongside the giants of the Marvel universe but they somehow make it work. Speaking of voice acting, this game has a TON of dialogue. A little too much, in fact.

See, if I have one major gripe with Midnight Suns, is that there's almost TOO much content. This is factoring in the DLC, mind you, since I got the complete version on sale, and those characters and the entire DLC storyline are integrated almost seamlessly into the main narrative, so you'll be doing those missions as you work your way through it. This game took me over 60 hours, way more than I was expecting, and while I don't mind long games, Midnight Suns really drags towards the end. As I said, there's a lot of dialogue - characters usually have something to say after anything that happens - and while you can skip or ignore it, there are opportunities for friendship points in nearly every conversation, so it pays to pay attention. That said, by the end, I was almost entirely checked out as I pushed towards the final mission. Believe me, it's a lot.

The story itself is also pretty blasé. It's your pretty standard Saturday Morning superhero affair, with a bunch of good guys banding together to fight a mystical evil with mostly PG language and scenarios. It's also about these two groups - the titular Midnight Suns and the Avengers - being forced together to deal with this threat and the constant internal conflict these bands of heroes rub against. In theory, it works, but again, not nearly for the runtime of the entire game. There are three chapters and the repetitive nature of constant bickering between the two groups does wear on you well before they put their differences aside for good at the end. There is at least some really good character work for the individual heroes here and there, however, and if you do have the DLC, I would even say Midnight Suns features the best-written version of Eddie Brock ever put forward in media. Another surprise!

Nitpicks with story and length aside, I really adore Marvel's Midnight Suns. This game went overlooked by a lot of people, myself included, but there's so much here that I can definitely say it's worth your time, at least if you're into Marvel. Hell, I didn't even get into the fact this game has a hub world, with third-person exploration! Fucking wild! How did they not market this shit better?