Developer: Firaxis Games, Virtuos
Publisher: 2K Games
Platform: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Tested on: PS5
Marvel’s Midnight Suns – Review
Superhero games are seemingly gaining a lot of traction in the gaming industry, and we can understand why. It’s very entertaining to be able to play with your favorite heroes (or villains) as it gives you a sense of how powerful these characters truly are. Even though not all of these games are very good, they still have a certain charm. Whether it’s the dark and gritty atmosphere in Gotham Knights or the space adventures of the Guardians of the Galaxy, these games still managed to captivate us with their interesting stories. Now, Marvel’s Midnight Suns gets its time to shine, and once again we were treated to a fairly entertaining story. That being said, we were mainly curious to see how the game fared because it trades in the action-packed gameplay of the aforementioned titles and replaces it with a hybrid of turn-based strategy components and card game mechanics.
Story
Marvel’s Midnight Suns follows a cliché superhero story where an ancient evil awakens and the world’s best and brightest superheroes will have to put a stop to it. In this scenario, Lilith is awakened by HYDRA, and she will take no prisoners on her rise to power. Lilith is preparing the world for the coming of the elder god Chthon, and it seems the Avengers are not equipped to put a stop to her. After an attack on the Sanctum Sanctorum, Dr. Strange, Captain Marvel, and Iron Man seek the help of Caretaker, who is the leader of the Midnight Suns. The Midnight Suns have a lot more experience dealing with magic entities, and they gladly join the cause. That being said, the only being that stopped Lilith in the past is The Hunter, who is Lilith’s child. You will pick up the mantle of The Hunter after being resurrected to fight your mother once again.
Overall the story presentation is quite good, and we did enjoy reading through the lengthy dialogues. The cinematics weren’t always as crisp as they could be, as some random NPC models looked a bit dodgy. Nonetheless, for a typical superhero story, this one was quite good.
Graphics
Graphically Marvel’s Midnight Suns is quite disappointing. As a whole, the game isn’t ugly, but it is very rough around the edges and most character models look dated. Most of these character models can, however, get spruced up with the many skins that are offered in the game. For some reason, these skins look a lot more detailed, and they truly make the heroes shine (sometimes quite literally). That being said, when performing certain special moves in combat, the developers forgot to animate the moves for those special skins, so your character will revert to its original skin during the attack animation. The game’s battle stages are quite simplistic, even though the backdrops are decent. Most stages will present you with the same obstacles or interactable objects, which is also a shame. Exploring the abbey and its surroundings is quite fun, but you’ll also see that there’s a huge lack of details, and you’ll find yourself clipping through the plant life, to eventually be blocked by many invisible walls around rocks and other more solid obstacles.
Sound
The sound design of the game is very nicely handled. We are so used to associating a lot of Marvel characters’ voices with the ones of the movies and series that it does take some time to get used to other actors voicing the characters. After a few dialogues, we were quite used to this ‘change’ and we absolutely enjoyed the different dialogues. Tony Stark once again earned himself a special spot in our hearts, as he truly feels like an original (and funny) version of the playboy millionaire. Other voice actors also do a formidable job, of course. The background music is also very cinematic, and it certainly is appropriate for everything that will be going on during the game. Sound effects are also of high quality, and it’s fun to hear all the different character skills being triggered.
Gameplay
Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a bit of a mix of different genres. Outside of combat, you’ll have a fairly relaxing exploration part where you can explore the abbey and its surroundings, and uncover the mystery of the area. This part is, however, for the most part optional. This means that you could focus on the meat of the game, namely the different turn-based battles with deckbuilding mechanics. Other than that, you’ll also have to work on the friendships between the different members of the superhero troupe, as well as keep an eye on crafting, training, updating your decks, and so on. Due to this, it’s hard to put a specific genre on the game, but we’d still mainly call it a turn-based deckbuilding game with a focus on the narrative.
The combat plays out nicely, and each of your party members can have a deck of eight cards which are randomly drawn during battles. Each turn will allow you to play a set number of cards, and using certain cards will increase your heroism points. The latter will allow you to play stronger cards or use objects in the stage to damage your opponents. The overall system works well, but it’s far too basic, and it’s still a matter of ‘luck of the draw’. This means that you often can’t really plan ahead. Of course, playing a lot of side-missions will net you extra rewards, and these are often presented in the form of extra cards. By combining pairs of the same cards, you can upgrade their effects, and eventually build a strong deck for your favorite superheroes. Overall, we felt like the basics were there for a turn-based deckbuilding game, but everything feels a bit simplistic. We reckon this has to do with the fact that you’ll unlock so many characters that it would be too hard to build complex decks for all of them.
Outside of combat, there is also a lot to do. We noticed that the game puts a heavy focus on bonding with your team members. You’ll spend a lot of time going through training sessions, talking with your team members, and running around the abbey. The training sessions are straightforward as you simply have to choose a sparring partner and you’ll automatically bond with said partner then. Dialogues can be a bit trickier, as you sometimes need to pick the right answer to have your dialogue partner like you more. You can also engage with your fellow superheroes by actually ‘hanging out’ with them, or taking them to so-called havens where you’ll bond even more. The more you bond with characters, the more bonuses you will receive.
The aforementioned exploration aspect is completely optional, but we did quite enjoy exploring our surroundings. It was fun to uncover all the secrets of the surrounding area, but once again, things felt way too basic. This feels like the biggest issue with the game, as it’s somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. The exploration portion suffered from this as well, as you cannot jump or climb basic obstacles, and this is simply ludicrous as you’re playing with a superhero character that can battle inhuman supervillains but for some reason, you are unable to step over a twig.
Conclusion
Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a fun game for superhero enthusiasts, but it is also quite basic and has many rough edges. We enjoyed the overall gameplay loop of the battles, and exploring the abbey and its surroundings was entertaining, but things were dragged down by odd design choices and very simplistic mechanics. We were enamored by the story and bonding with the different team members of the Midnight Suns proved to be an interesting and relaxing experience. While not perfect, Marvel’s Midnight Suns is certainly a decent superhero title.
Marvel's Midnight Suns - Review,
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