Marvel's Midnight Suns hits everything right!
Marvel's Midnight Suns (Reviewed)
Publisher: 2K
Released: Dec 2, 2022
Price: $60 USD
Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a deck building tactical turn-based strategy game hybrid that combines many cinematic moments with some of your favorite heroes and villains alongside a solid story that always keeps you engaged.
You play as a reincarnated Hunter which is a fully customizable superhero of your choice (visually). You are brought back from the dead to help stop Lilith, Mother of Demons, after centuries of slumber from reviving her master Chthon.
Do you need to understand the Marvel universe?
No, the game is completely playable even if you don't know much about Marvel.
Some players might feel nervous to enter into a game surrounded by iconic heroes like Spider-Man and Iron-Man while not knowing anyone else.
This is perfectly fine and understandable, not everyone is going to know everybody. I personally only knew a handful very early on in the game, most notably Blade, Iron-Man and Doctor Strange. My knowledge of Marvel is particularly lacking, however, it did not affect my experience in the game.
What are some of the negative things surrounding this game?
Most of it is negligible but some of it does bring to light some concerns
The negativity towards this game has been mostly about how a single player campaign game has in-game purchases for cosmetics and a season pass. I kind of agree on this statement as it does nothing but demand more money from the customer when the game itself is already $60. It's bad practice.
The game runs on Denuvo DRM
Denuvo is an anti piracy software that has always been easy to crack. This is completely useless and just hogs your computer's resources, especially if you don't have that great of a computer. This causes a multitude of issues from performance loss, stuttering and ultimately errors and crashing.
People have already been complaining about how the game runs rather sloppily in certain scenarios, but I did not run into these issues myself.
Launching the game immediately loads up the 2K launcher
I don't get this at all, it's like with Ubisoft Games as well. If you have a game on Steam, there should never be another launcher being opened simply to play the game you want to play, especially if they try to force you to make an account.
While they don't force you to make an account it's still a nuisance to me.
How is the deck building?
Great!
It really doesn't take too much to understand. You have characters, you have ability cards, you can upgrade certain abilities when you have enough copies to increase their damage and their effects, similar to other deck builders.
You can also interact with your favorite heroes to help increase their friendship level allowing them to become more powerful as the game progresses.
That also being said, the more you use your characters in battle the more they level up personally increasing their overall stats, allowing them to take more damage and deal more damage, so be sure to keep that in mind.
How much customization is there?
Not a lot, but there is some wiggle room
The character is by default fully voiced with multiple ways to customize them visually. I chose a more masculine approach to my female character.
There are many things you can unlock and do to improve your experience. I'm sure with your imagination you're sure to come up with something you like.
How is the core gameplay?
Engaging and really well put together
If you are familiar with the genre then you might have heard of the names Slay The Spire or Xcom 2, what Midnight Sun's has done is combined the two styles together as one with the Marvel universe, which frankly turned out well with adding in all of the cinematic scenes with all the iconic heroes and villains.
The tutorial is detailed and straight forward
Oftentimes a game tends to be difficult to understand especially with all of the underlying mechanics, builds and dice rolled RNG variables surrounding it. You won't find that issue here, the developers effectively teach you everything you need to know on positioning, heroic cards, deck building and more.
The actual battle system is very satisfying
Unlike other games in this genre, Midnight Sun's doesn't have any (% to hit) targets, so if you're about to lose a battle and are one card away from being defeated, that card will always hit unless you're affected by some form of physical ailment like a stun or bind, so no more 99% chance to hit, misses!
You can use the environment to your advantage, throwing enemies into each other or objects into them and even setting off chain reactive combos that can bunch up your opponents for an explosive barrel finisher.
Would you recommend this game?
Absolutely
The game offers enough uniqueness to differentiate itself from others of the same genre, with a great cinematic showcase. Despite being an uneven experience for some players, Midnight Suns is ultimately a good game that's worth a try for tactics and Marvel fans.
This concludes my review of this game, while my opinions may be met with criticism, that's what makes gamers unique, you don't have to like the same things that others do, nor do you have to agree with them.
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