Putting a new spin on things, depending on what they are, is questionable at best. Do a good job and you will be lorded, do the opposite and you will be persecuted. So, with that in mind, what would a new spin on a superhero game be? Normally the realm of third person action, what could you do to differentiate? Well, the answer, in the case of Firaxis’ Marvel's Midnight Suns, is to turn it into a hybrid of tactics, CCG and visual novel.
The big question is this: Does it work? As a concept, surprisingly, yes but with a few caveats. On a technical level, no, sometimes Midnight Suns barely works at all. When it does however, you are treated to a visual spectacle that matches some character action games, with a card system that has just enough depth to be engaging without being over demanding on your time. I really enjoyed my time with the game, but technical problems marred the experience to the point where I really hope they get a sequel.
The premise of the game is that Lillith, the mother of demons, has been resurrected by perpetual Marvel bad guys Hydra, which foreshadows the coming of the midnight sun. Which is bad, very very bad. Like, summoning evil Elder God bad. Into the fray steps the mystical hero team of The Midnight Suns, led by immortal witch Caretaker. They also get the help of the Avengers and thus the battle for the planet begins.
The two teams then perform a resurrection of their own, bringing back The Hunter, a mystically powered hero who defeated Lillith once before. This is the customizable character you take charge of through the adventure. The Hunter has a decent character creator so you can make a fairly unique looking hero, and there are lots of outfits to unlock for both in and out of combat, though the out of combat outfits don’t seem to have taken into account that you can make a feminine leaning character and sometimes don’t seem particularly fitting. Then again, you can have various swimsuits, including bikinis, so maybe it offsets that.
Fulfilling certain requirements, which we will get to in a minute, will unlock various combat outfits for The Hunter, some of which are cool, some not so much, but there are plenty to pick from. These can be further customized with ‘palettes’, different color schemes for each outfit. Then there are the various paintings and room upgrades for The Hunter’s bedroom, upgrades for facilities within the Abby where the inbetween mission sections happen and a host of other things which all mean that there is plenty to unlock throughout the game.
The main thrust of the game comes in two parts. The first is the character interactions, and while I said it was a visual novel at the start, that's actually a reductive way to think about it. The interactions for the most part are all fully voiced and clicking on a character rarely results in the same thing over and over again, and the characters animate and emote while talking. These generate friendship points which increase your overall standing with the characters and grant special bonuses in combat.
Get their friendship level high enough with the hunter, and you will unlock the midnight suns challenges for a given Hero, once you are far enough in, which is a unique challenge and unlocks a legendary ability and the characters Midnight Suns outfit, which I personally found were the coolest looking combat outfits in the game. There are 12 characters to interact with in all: Blade, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Dr Strange, Iron Man, Ghost Rider, Hulk, Magik, Nico Minoru, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Man and Wolverine. There is also Caretaker and others, but they don’t count to the friendship mechanic.
They do a good job of giving each character an actual personality, from Ghost Rider not being sure he can live up to the name to the head strong and bullish Nico. Some of the names on the list are of lesser known heroes but they all fit the story and setting and while some are more useful in combat than others, taking any into battle does result in some fun encounters.
The biggest problem with these interactions is that there is just a little too much of it. It’s cool to develop the relationship with the characters but it does take up far more of the game than the actual combat missions and can prove to be a bit of a chore by the end of the game. Though if you do it with the aim of getting their midnight sun's abilities then it provides more of a goal and is well worth it as those abilities are legendary level and some of the coolest moves in the game.
It’s a shame with these that isn’t an option to romance any of the hero’s, but I am not sure that would help with the whole ‘too much talking’ thing. Then again some area’s of this could be removed altogether to make room for it. For example, you can join ‘hang outs’ after some mission, picking one hero from a set to go and literally just hang out with for a time. Different characters will prefer different activities and you can give them gifts which again they will like or hate to various degrees depending on what you give to who.
This boosts your friendship with the character by quite a lot so in gameplay terms are worth doing, but again, one of these interactions can take ten real world minutes which is a lot when all you are doing is listening to two people talk. It works, but you really have to be into the game to not get bored. I can easily see why people would fall off of it due to this aspect of the game.
Around these interactions is Abby exploration, where you can run around in third person and explore the interior and ground of Caretaker’s mystical home. This does prove very useful, as chests, resource items and various secrets can found and these will provide different types of cards for use in combat. The Abby as a location is a pretty large and the secrets it holds are fun to find, but again it adds to the feeling that the battles aren’t the focus of the game, merely a fun addition, which frankly, is the wrong way round. However, if you are into what the game is putting down, then there is a lot of fun to be had.
The second portion of the game is handled by allowing you to perform one mission per day, during the day time. The social interactions handled either before you start a one or after completing one, depending on what you talking about. First off let me say that more than one mission should be allowed in a given in game day, it just feels like a really artificial way to extend the game time and frankly it doesn’t need it. I can get behind only having one story mission a day, but there are constantly freshing general missions that add nothing to the story and are just a way to gather currency or resources so should not count towards this.
When you do get into a mission, you are given a set of cards. These cards will cover at least two of the three hero’s you take into a mission, but are replenished as you end a turn. Each turn you get three card plays, so you can actually use three cards. Though that vary’s depending on a couple of things. Certain cards, for example, are free, which means that they do not cost a card play to use. Normally these are support cards that would do something like give the attack cards in your hand critical hits for two turns, but that can mean the difference between victory and defeat.
The other thing that will govern if you can play a card is heroism. This is key, as a given card will either cost or generate heroism. If a card generates, you will gain one or more points of Heroism and naturally it costs this will be taken away. Building up Heroism gives you the ability to play your most powerful cards and plays into your overal strategy as you fight through enemies. It’s a cool system and when you get it down you can unleash devastating attacks that clear out most, if not all, of the enemies on screen.
The battle options don’t end with the cards in your hand. You have combat items, cards that grant extra bonuses such as going into next turn with four card plays instead of three or giving a particular hero’s cards bleed for a set amount of time. Not only that, but each level will have a series of environmental objects that can be used to attack enemies for extra damage. These can do cost Heroism, but there are ways around that.
Finally, after a certain upgrade, your hero’s have access to a shoulder barge that will slam enemies back. This can be done into team mates, other enemies or the environment for various amounts of extra damage. Unfortunately you only get one of these, I would have liked to see an upgrade that grants one per move, as you only get two move’s without any extra help from a card. It’s a small thing and probably done for game balance, but some of the missions can be twenty minutes and up, so this extra option would have sped things up.
You have to make use of all of these options to succeed, though remembering all the options at your disposal can be difficult as you have so much to keep track of. When you do though, and absolutely shred through the bad guys, its the best feeling. Unleashing those massive, spectacular attacks that send them flying all over the screen with a burst of K.O’s is awesome and gives you goosebumps each and every time.
Unfortunately, all this comes at a cost. Not a monatery one, but a performance and technical one. Well, to be fair, there is DLC, but thats another matter. The simple of fact of that matter that from booting the game the frame rate dips and sounds and animations lag. At first I had no idea why, coming to the conclusion that because I was streaming at the time, that was causing issues. It wasn’t. It was the fact that even though I was launching it from steam, the 2K launcher was running. Which, to be frank, is crap. Setting steam to bypass this instantly sorted the majority of the issues I was having, though unfortunately not all.
The game still had dips in framerate, a couple of crashes to desktop, long load times and animation and sound desync’s. It was frustrating, but nothing more so than the almost unplayable final mission that was so low in frames that all the majestic spectacle on display was lost. It’s a shame because as epic finalies go, this one is pretty epic.
I really enjoyed by time with Midnight Suns, when it worked. I can, however, easily see how people will fall off it. There is simply too much talking. Normally in RPG games this isn’t a bad thing, but when all you want to do its play another mission because the action is as good as it is this gets frustrating quick. I hope they make a sequel, a version of this that fixes some of these issues and refines the technical aspects so that the game actually runs perfectly. If they do that, then it will go from a decent game to an awesome one.