Midnight Suns is really a toxic marriage between two ideas that, in theory, should work. Firaxis' capability to iterate on their own distinguished make of turn-based strategy, through the implementation of free movement and a deck system, is undeniable and clearly is this particular game's strength. But as using their last game, XCOM: Chimera Squad, their wish to put the interpersonal ties on equal footing comes up short as virtually any second allocated to the Abbey grounds-which serves as both Hunter's once resting place and also the base of operations for that mission to defeat Lilith-feels like a total waste of time.
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Although the combat bonuses granted can be handy, building these relationships up through inane hangouts and jaw sessions is painfully lifeless. With dialogue and line delivery fit for a ham sandwich, I dreaded any moments of forced conversation.
Just when i think there are simply too many awkward pleasantries shared in the Abbey's halls, I feel like Midnight Suns lobs a few too many ideas in to the mix so far as upgrading your heroes goes. A number of the ideas, including rolling two identical cards right into a souped up “+” variant and visiting Tony's forge, work with me, though I fast gave up on sending heroes out on solo ops and other seemingly inconsequential things.
Thankfully, the meat and bones of Midnight Suns' squad-based strategic combat feels like Firaxis firing on all cylinders. Although I miss the easily quantifiable rules of grid-based movement, there's certainly a cinematic feel to having the likes of Captain America, Captain Marvel, or Blade freely moving around the play space. Managing your heroism level, which can tick down or up based on cards played, is certainly probably the most strategic area of the fray, even it feels a bit random because of the unpredictable nature from the draw. Of course, on the middling difficulty I played on, Midnight Suns is rather forgiving-when a character is downed in combat, you're likely to be dealt a revive card, so the fall of the cards can fit the circumstance you're in.
I feel like Midnight Suns' presentation is several rungs below what must have been expected, and it's even well below Marvel's Avengers which, despite its undoubtedly larger budget, is still years older now. To state Midnight Suns is hamstrung graphically by its support of older tech is definitely an understatement, which is a shame because its art direction isn't bad. There are unfortunate masked loads like passing through a portal in Limbo that is each time backed up having a literal loading screen, it stutters, and on Steam Deck-which to be fair isn't an optimised platform yet-it crashes after nearly every operation. The transitions between Hunter's sleeping and waking existence are cumbersome and clunky, it seems like the whole game reaches times a stitched together Frankenstein's monster.
Outside from the aforementioned cringe line delivery virtually across the board, Midnight Suns has pretty great sound design as well as an original score that's suitably epic.
Marvel's Midnight Suns seems like proof that, at some point, Firaxis will perfect this formula they are going for. Their handle for turn-based combat is first class, it is simply all the role-playing lite elements that ultimately hampers the experience. It's its share of issues but Midnight Suns is a straightforward enough recommendation for both strategy enthusiasts and those trapped through the Marvel machine.
