Marvel’s Midnight Suns - PS/XB/SW/PC - October 2022

[b00dles]

I've finished this and I can't help think I'd have actually preferred it to be more xcom like. 

 

All of the levels are the same square shape and although I 'get' the appeal of not having to slowly walk your squad to where the baddies are (which I also liked but can see that some people may not) it also limits it in my opinion. 

The lack of any height whatsoever is a really weird omission imho as well.

 

I also think that I actually really like overwatch and setting traps/ ambushes and given the potential things you could do with your squad, I really can't help shake the feeling it didn't start as a marvel game somehow. 

 

It's a good game definitely and I've played it loads (I think the whole squad was on lvl 26 and I'd got everyone's midnight sun outfit etc) but along with the above issues with the incredibly boring arenas, it is also pretty weird that your 3 superheros can't just punch a thing that they need to smash (and that the game doesn't even give an in-game reason why not) and that the majority of the missions are actually very, very similar. 

Too many of them involve a thing that you need to access/ break that is then protected by some sort of shield character. Artifacts, summoning circle, chopper, devices, hydra agent and I think another one all essentially play out in the same way and are made harder by the copy ability bad guys and/ or the soulbound.

I think there are 2 civilian rescue missions in the whole game and nothing like your xcom 2 'break prisoners out' type of thing and again, partly because of the small arenas all the levels are in. 

 

I think this is one that will definitely be better with the second iteration and/ or I really want another xcom.

 

The environmental attacks are a great idea and something I thought would be good in xcom / others in the genre after seeing bits of it in hard West (iirc). Although if I'm having a negative rant of a post, they do really run out of viable environmental things and you start to realise its a bit weird how there are always these storage boxes/ lumps of rock in strange places wherever the level is meant to be set. Oh and that if you're counter attacking with a character that has no projectiles, they just rip a bit of the ground up but if they do, they still use a bit of stone or pile of newspapers 😋

 

It's good but it's just not quite as good as it could be I reckon. Easy 7 if not an 8 out of 10 but somethings not quite there yet. 

 

Oh and it crashes like a bastard on my ps5, I couldn't use wolverine in the end game as I started a 'hero op' but didn't pick a hero for it somehow, so now when I go to collect the rewards it tries to load up a comic but there's no hero to put on the cover so it has a meltdown and I have to send an error report. I don't really mind but I'm also not entirely convinced it really looks like it should be taxing the ps5 so I can only assume it's just your standard firaxis jank, or it still needs a few patches.

[Wiper]

PSA for anyone playing on PC: disable the 2K launcher: 

 

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/no-seriously-you-should-disable-the-2k-launcher-for-marvels-midnight-suns

 

Something I wish I'd known about sooner, as it makes an obscenely dramatic difference. What the hell the launcher is doing in the background I don't know, but goodness me.

[bradigor]

That won't work on Steam Deck FWIW at least it didn't for me.

[BadgerFarmer]

4 hours ago, Wiper said:

The only character I tend to avoid unless needed is Blade, who I just can't figure out — maybe I've been unlucky with drops, but all of his abilities seem to revolve around bleed, but the only way I have to cause bleed is a self-buff card of his, so it rarely comes up.

Blade was one of my stronger characters. He's got good chain attacks like Wolverine, and combined with Make 'em bleed that can cause a lot of damage over time. Plus his life steal Stake, and another ability that regenerates health for free from bleeding enemies, makes him self-sustaining. 

[b00dles]

In case my rambling post mentioning a repeatable hard crash in the hero ops put anyone off, the update I just installed fixed it.

 

Hopefully it's generally more stable now too. 

[Hexx]

And done - very good but the last mission commits the sin of being a 4 phase battle with no checkpoints/saves.

An absolutely pleasant surprise, but I'm under no complusion to try new game plus. It makes you get good with everyone throughout, which oddly makes playing again less enticing.
 

[Scruff]

I received this for Christmas and it's very, very good. Been spending ages playing it and enjoying it enough to cast glances at the DLC. Is it really £40 for 4 characters and a couple of skins? If so, I can't justify paying that much (I imagine that Morbius plays like Blade, Deadpool like Wolvie and Venom like Spidey - Storm maybe like Iron Man?) if there isn't any commitment to additional story content or levels.

Bit of a shame really as I'm loving what I've played so far.

[BadgerFarmer]

1 hour ago, Scruff said:

I received this for Christmas and it's very, very good. Been spending ages playing it and enjoying it enough to cast glances at the DLC. Is it really £40 for 4 characters and a couple of skins? If so, I can't justify paying that much (I imagine that Morbius plays like Blade, Deadpool like Wolvie and Venom like Spidey - Storm maybe like Iron Man?) if there isn't any commitment to additional story content or levels.

Bit of a shame really as I'm loving what I've played so far.

It says here that:

Quote

 

In addition to these heroes and their respective new abilities, each of the four DLC packs included in the Season Pass will introduce new story missions, a new upgrade for the Abbey, and a selection of new skins and outfits.

 

What that actually means in terms of missions, though, is anyone's guess. New enemy types and mission objectives would be important, I think.

[BabelRich]

I am fucking loving this. Stayed up til 1:30 this morning playing and still had to force myself to put it down and go to bed. 
 

My only annoyances are the micro-transaction stuff, would be nice to earn some of those outfits as rewards, and the way everything costs gloss once earned as a reward. 
 

that doesn’t detract from a brilliant game though. 

[Gloomy Andy]

How much of this is actual deck building vs just using a card based combat. 

 

I just don't have the patience for deck builders I've learnt. 

I've just tried Slay the Spire for the first time recently as people called it a deck builder, but it's not what I'd call a deck builder in the traditional sense of having a gazillion cards and trying to create a persistent deck from them. 

 

How does it work in midnight suns?

[BabelRich]

There’s not a load of deck building. Each hero only has a deck of eight cards and so far it’s easy to just go with whatever cards work best for you. I am quite early on though so don’t know whether that will change. 

[BadgerFarmer]

Yeah, the deckbuilding aspect is fairly light because each character has a separate deck and new cards are fed in gradually. Between battles you might switch a couple of cards around and upgrade one or two, but a lot of the tactical considerations still take place on the battlefield where you're often working with a combo of characters you haven't tried before and figuring out how they best complement each other on the spot. 

[Gloomy Andy]

If the cards just sort of act like a skill tree that sounds perfect. 

Like I say I can't be doing with looking at hundreds of cards and trying to build tactical decks from them. I've bounced off every CCG I've ever tried (Marvel Snap being the latest) so was worried about this. 

[BabelRich]

I think you’ll be fine there. 

[Angles Morts]

Do you think they knew about the other (free?) Marvel card game when they were developing this? I would expect it to have sucked up a lot of the "like cards and Marvels" demographic despite actually being in different genres.

[Gambit]

A mix of card based tactical battles, Persona-like social interactions and the Krpyt from Mortal Kombat 11. A mixture I never thought would've worked but here we are.

 

Really enjoying this so far. Though I still haven't got a real hang of how to best position my guys during battles. The lack of taking cover behind walls and stuff like that is taking some getting used too after coming from X-Com.

[cassidy]

12 hours ago, Gambit said:

A mix of card based tactical battles, Persona-like social interactions and the Krpyt from Mortal Kombat 11. A mixture I never thought would've worked but here we are.

 

Really enjoying this so far. Though I still haven't got a real hang of how to best position my guys during battles. The lack of taking cover behind walls and stuff like that is taking some getting used too after coming from X-Com.

There is no cover. You use the objects placed around to smash the fuck into the enemies. 

 

Especially if you have Spidey on your team. 

[Captain Kelsten]

Couple of questions:

 

- do I have to play as some poorly generated character or can I just play as the proper super heroes?

 

- do I have to do all that weird persona/sims-esque friendship dating crap? 
 

 

[BabelRich]

Yes, you are the Hunter. You don’t have to take them on side missions but other than that they are your character. 
 

I think you can skip it after the tutorial bits, but it would be a mistake. Doing the friendship stuff opens lots of abilities and options. 

[Garwoofoo]

Really enjoying this but a bit concerned about the DLC as it looks like it'll just integrate straight into the main game. By the time it comes out I'll either have finished the game or be most of the way through, and it's so long it doesn't seem like something I'll want to replay in a hurry. It almost feels like those people waiting a year to play this will get the better experience.

[Captain Kelsten]

15 hours ago, BabelRich said:

Yes, you are the Hunter. You don’t have to take them on side missions but other than that they are your character. 
 

I think you can skip it after the tutorial bits, but it would be a mistake. Doing the friendship stuff opens lots of abilities and options. 

That’s a shame. I wouldn’t mind a bit of base building, but I am not at all interested in going fishing with Blade or ski shopping with Tony Stark. 

[BabelRich]

There’s no real base building in this one. You can kit out your room but it’s only cosmetic.  There is a big hub to explore though. 
 

The friendship stuff is pretty well done and not massively intrusive. Most interactions are about 30 seconds long and well written which adds quite a bit story wise. But they can be skipped with a few quick presses of B/O if you wanted the rewards but not the story. 

[footle]

There is a lot of upgrade your stuff to enable new abilities / optimisation though. The strategy is purely “which do I do first”, and how do I obtain the resources.

[Garwoofoo]

The character-based social stuff is an integral part of the game though, if you just want to play turn-based battles and aren't interested in the whole Marvel hang-out thing then there are plenty of other games that would suit you better.

 

Personally I've been surprised how much I've enjoyed the social side so far, the writing is pretty good and there are loads of little Marvel call-outs and references that I wasn't expecting. The versions of the characters they've got here are decent, too, far better than the Avengers game from a couple of years back. Tony Stark looks like Freddie Mercury but you can't have everything I suppose.

 

Like Fire Emblem: Three Houses (which has an almost identical structure), the first couple of hours are really heavy on the social side as it introduces all the characters, gives you a million tutorials and sets the plot in motion, but it calms down a lot after that and it all becomes pleasant downtime between the main missions.

[deerokus]

If you just want the gameplay without the extraneous stuff, this isn't the game. Play Fights in Tight Spaces instead.

[footle]

On 13/12/2022 at 13:52, b00dles said:

I've finished this and I can't help think I'd have actually preferred it to be more xcom like. 

 

All of the levels are the same square shape and although I 'get' the appeal of not having to slowly walk your squad to where the baddies are (which I also liked but can see that some people may not) it also limits it in my opinion. 

The lack of any height whatsoever is a really weird omission imho as well.

 

I also think that I actually really like overwatch and setting traps/ ambushes and given the potential things you could do with your squad, I really can't help shake the feeling it didn't start as a marvel game somehow. 

 

It's a good game definitely and I've played it loads (I think the whole squad was on lvl 26 and I'd got everyone's midnight sun outfit etc) but along with the above issues with the incredibly boring arenas, it is also pretty weird that your 3 superheros can't just punch a thing that they need to smash (and that the game doesn't even give an in-game reason why not) and that the majority of the missions are actually very, very similar. 

Too many of them involve a thing that you need to access/ break that is then protected by some sort of shield character. Artifacts, summoning circle, chopper, devices, hydra agent and I think another one all essentially play out in the same way and are made harder by the copy ability bad guys and/ or the soulbound.

I think there are 2 civilian rescue missions in the whole game and nothing like your xcom 2 'break prisoners out' type of thing and again, partly because of the small arenas all the levels are in. 

 

I think this is one that will definitely be better with the second iteration and/ or I really want another xcom.

 

The environmental attacks are a great idea and something I thought would be good in xcom / others in the genre after seeing bits of it in hard West (iirc). Although if I'm having a negative rant of a post, they do really run out of viable environmental things and you start to realise its a bit weird how there are always these storage boxes/ lumps of rock in strange places wherever the level is meant to be set. Oh and that if you're counter attacking with a character that has no projectiles, they just rip a bit of the ground up but if they do, they still use a bit of stone or pile of newspapers 😋

 

It's good but it's just not quite as good as it could be I reckon. Easy 7 if not an 8 out of 10 but somethings not quite there yet. 

 

Oh and it crashes like a bastard on my ps5, I couldn't use wolverine in the end game as I started a 'hero op' but didn't pick a hero for it somehow, so now when I go to collect the rewards it tries to load up a comic but there's no hero to put on the cover so it has a meltdown and I have to send an error report. I don't really mind but I'm also not entirely convinced it really looks like it should be taxing the ps5 so I can only assume it's just your standard firaxis jank, or it still needs a few patches.

I saw a couple more civilian rescues than that. The weirdest thing was a sudden “kill as many bad guys in three turns as you can” mission, that I picked up from the table (ie it wasn’t a story mission) while levelling up my last character at the end.

 

the only instance of that I saw in the whole game?!

[b00dles]

1 minute ago, footle said:

I saw a couple more civilian rescues than that. The weirdest thing was a sudden “kill as many bad guys in three turns as you can” mission, that I picked up from the table (ie it wasn’t a story mission) while levelling up my last character at the end.

 

the only instance of that I saw in the whole game?!

I might have been a bit hyperbolic but I can't think of more than... three? In terms of civilian rescue? But then I definitely did more than one of those 'kill as many in 3 turns'

although quite a few of those midnight sun challenges had missions like that I think.

 

I do think it's good but I do think it's gone too far in the 'streamlined' direction from old school UFO/ xcom. Some of it (like environmental attacks and mixing up your moves) are a great improvement but I do think the maps and lack of overwatch are a step back for the turn based tactical blahblah genre. 

 

I know it isn't xcom and perhaps it's a branch in that genre but that is where I'm coming from with this "point". It's a good game, I'm just probably having a conversation no one else is having about firaxis and the wider style of game

[footle]

4 minutes ago, b00dles said:

I might have been a bit hyperbolic but I can't think of more than... three? In terms of civilian rescue? But then I definitely did more than one of those 'kill as many in 3 turns'

although quite a few of those midnight sun challenges had missions like that I think.

 

I do think it's good but I do think it's gone too far in the 'streamlined' direction from old school UFO/ xcom. Some of it (like environmental attacks and mixing up your moves) are a great improvement but I do think the maps and lack of overwatch are a step back for the turn based tactical blahblah genre. 

 

I know it isn't xcom and perhaps it's a branch in that genre but that is where I'm coming from with this "point". It's a good game, I'm just probably having a conversation no one else is having about firaxis and the wider style of game

 

I was surprised how fleshed out it was (particularly in trying to make sure you used multiple heroes without artificially forcing you to). I suspect any 

Spoiler

fantastic four

based sequel will provide some more interesting maps and/or environment challenges.

[deerokus]

I just wouldn't even compare it to xcom positively or negatively and I don't really understand why people do. I've read reviews which focus on what it doesn't have that xcom does which just confuses me. Same developer but it's got very little in common beyond being turn based.

 

It's more like a mix of Fights in Tight Spaces with Persona. Combat is tactical but in a JRPG way. It's even got something similar to the press turn system from Shin Megami Tensei series and related games.

 

 

[footle]

There’s now a demo of this on Xbox for anyone on the fence.

And locked behind PS Plus Premium for anyone with more money than sense (in which case you should just buy it anyway).