My review of Marvel's Midnight Suns

[Yonix]

Disclaimer: I currently don’t own this game on Steam; I got it as a free game on Epic.

Playtime as of the 15th of July 2024: 73h 56m (Epic Launcher).

‘Midnight Suns’ is one of those games that I have tried in the past, but one that never really ‘clicked’ with me. Until last June, when I decided to pick it up on Epic, where it was offered as a ‘free’ game. Yesterday, I completed the game’s main campaign after nearly 74 hours.

The reason I gave the game a fair chance this time around had something to do with the fact that playing – and finishing – ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ opened a door to a whole new game genre for me: the turn-based, tactical RPG. ‘Midnight Suns’ offers a deck-building element as well. In the past, this was a genre that didn’t pique my interest.

The game is also set in the Marvel Universe, and as a big fan of everything comic book related, that was a big plus.

The Good:
• A decent story that fits well into the established Marvel Universe. Keep in mind, though, this is an alternate reality: Earth-TRN994.
• All heroes and characters are ‘fleshed out’ and given proper backgrounds that fit the comic book versions or are a complement to them.
• The voice acting: all of the interactions and dialogues are spoken.
• The gameplay: very satisfying, fast-paced, and with great animations. Seeing Iron Man do his ‘special move’ is a joy to watch every single time.
• The Abbey: being able to explore the game world in 3rd person view and interact with all of the heroes is a very nice touch. It’s also very well executed.
• The music by Tim Wynn and Phill Boucher. A great score that set the tone many times.
• The graphics: I played the game with everything set to maximum, with Ray Tracing turned on, and it looked amazing.
• The photobooth: The ability to create your own comic book covers is awesome.
• The DLC: The player is provided with three more heroes (Venom, Storm, and Deadpool) and a playable story that perfectly exists next to the main story or fits into the main story very well. It’s also good for another 5-6 hours of gameplay. Well worth the money, in my honest opinion.

The ‘Not So Good’:
• Deadpool's voice acting was a bit too much. It became annoying very fast, but then again, that is typical Deadpool.
• Part 3 (or Act 3) of the story loses traction in the beginning and forces the player to do missions or have certain interactions that felt tedious and mandatory to progress the game. Luckily, at the end of Part 3, the game picks itself up again.
• Scarlet Witch: for some reason, I could not care for her or the interactions we were given. The same goes for Agatha.
• The mission type variety is there, but it’s not everything. After 20-30 hours, you will have seen everything, and the feeling of grinding can set in. But that’s a player’s choice. I’ve read online that you can finish the game’s main campaign in 30-35 hours.

The Bad:
• The game does have a fair share of ‘padding’ or ‘filler,’ and that can ruin some of the overall experience. For instance, to play the next mission in the main quest, you first need to play a ‘general’ mission. Another example is that certain gameplay elements are ‘time-based’ or locked with a timer. For example, a hero that’s been injured in the last mission has to recover from that injury to lose certain negative status effects or to have interactions again. All of this adds to the total ‘game length,’ but it doesn’t always feel meaningful to the overall narrative or main quest.
• The game invites you to explore, mainly The Abbey, but it also forces you to have some interactions with heroes/characters. Some of these really feel like a chore and not in a good way. It also negatively impacts the game’s pacing.
• The inclusion of The Hulk in the roster. He was great as a villain, but as a hero, he felt unbalanced, unfinished, and more like an afterthought..
• Bugs: during Part 3 of the game, the game felt increasingly unstable. I had crashes to the desktop, mostly when skipping through dialogue, and the final battle was plagued by fps drops (and my GPU’s VRAM and system’s RAM were filling up quite rapidly).

Conclusion:
This game is one of the best Marvel games I’ve played in years, and that includes the Spider-Man games by Insomniac. Firaxis and everyone responsible for making this game happen have done a great job in creating a world and story within the Marvel Universe that fits and does justice to existing characters.

I wouldn’t have played a bad game for nearly 74 hours. ‘Marvel’s Midnight Suns’ is a great game.

My Score:
8/10

[donald23]

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