Even a few years ago, it would not have been easy to envision a game like Marvel’s Midnight Suns being created. Due to the MCU’s unstoppable success, Marvel has gained so much power in the pop-culture sphere that it can now take a chance on a game that is not only based on a niche subgenre of horror-related comics that were first released in the 1990s but also casts a cast that is largely unknown in a turn-based strategy game. We’ve come a long way from the drab, uninspired Avengers game from 2020, which included many well-known characters and action-packed gameplay.
The Avengers are still prominently displayed on the cover art for this title. They even steal the show in the game’s opening moments when a new supernatural threat emerges that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are ill-equipped to handle. However, the story’s real focus revolves around the Midnight Suns team. Vampire hunter A very well of the personalities is Blade, who is accompanied by Runaways spellcaster Nico Minoru, teleporting demon queen and erstwhile X-Men member Magik, and Robbie Reyes, the fourth flame-skulled Ghost Rider. The Hunter completes the crew, a new character-cum-audience proxy explicitly made for the game.
The Finest Marvel Game So Far(credit: Aroged)
The Fun Of Midnight Suns Is Manipulating Its Rule Set To Your Benefit
Miraculously, Firaxis has managed to maintain its reputation, given how the Marvel machine has attracted and devoured so much unique creative talent in the larger MCUniverse. They overcame the radioactive spider bite and recovered stronger and better, making not only the best Marvel game I’ve ever played but also one of the best superhero games overall.
Its meticulously planned fighting fields are the secret to both these things – strategy and the Supes. It makes space for some fantastic puzzle boxes in the Into The Breach manner, where crowd control and influencing enemy placements are the rule of the day because the cover is no longer an issue. You are given a set of weapons—in this case, a deck of cards featuring the three superheroes you choose to accompany you in battle—as well as a scattering of interactive items around the map, but how you combine them to cause the most damage is entirely up to you.
Your hand of cards will play a role in some of this. There are eight cards that each hero can bring to a battle, but you can only play three from your whole deck at once. Well, if you’re rigorously following the rules, that is. While missions usually require eliminating enemy forces, they also commonly include other tasks like recovering or guarding priceless relics, shutting portals, binging Hydra getaway trucks, and more. It also means that there are frequently a lot of pieces in play, but the fun of Midnight Suns is to bend and twist its laws to your advantage and see how long you can go between turns before giving up and terminating the game.
The fun of Midnight Suns is to bend and twist its laws to your advantage(credit: TrueAchievements)
A Single Character Loss Won’t Send You On A Path To Failure
This system’s shared pool of (typically) three “card plays” and one movement action every round for all of your characters is another outstanding feature. You can no longer use that hero’s cards, but those that are still surviving can continue to do all of their tasks for that round. This means that one person being knocked out does not immediately restrict your possible actions by a third. As a result, you are at a disadvantage until you can resurrect them, but it’s not as bad that you become sucked into the failure spiral that might occur in squad-based games like XCOM; nonetheless, this does not imply that Midnight Suns is simple.
The Animators Did Incredible Work At Firaxis
These turn-based battles feel exciting thanks to the excellent animation work by Firaxis. With powerful heroes like Iron Man and Captain Marvel, it works pretty well for so much of it to revolve around striking foes with a lot of force, and using Spider-webs Man to toss stuff into bad people’s faces from all over the map is very on-brand. Positioning is crucial when knockback is involved because you need to consider how to approach a target and how to set up more destructive hits.
These turn-based battles feel exciting thanks to the excellent animation work(credit: Geek Culture)
In that regard, I adore how each hero has their movement and attack style, whether flying, levitating, teleporting, or swinging. Additionally, the solid team-up attacks are entertaining as two characters alternately beat the crap out of a target. The visuals, which are all set to thrilling Avengers-inspired music, are a lot of fun to watch as you progress to the over-the-top late-game powers.
The Abbey Is Undoubtedly A Significant Diversion From Combat Though That Isn’t Necessarily A Positive
However, you must first locate those cosmetic objects before you can pay Gloss to unlock them. Most of these things can be found via spelunking the area surrounding the Abbey, the Midnight Suns’ headquarters, which is a castle-like structure. The parallel story being told here, in which Agatha Harkness’ ghost directs you to retrace the steps that led to her death and search for hints to memories of Hunter and Lilith’s earlier battle, was generally entertaining to me. It’s undoubtedly a significant shift from combat, though that’s not necessarily a good thing because it may feel like a tremendous time-sink.
Finding The Precise Location To Direct An Area-Of-Effect Assault Can Be Difficult
Yeah, moreover, there are several obnoxious niggles in Midnight Suns’ combat that you’ll have to adjust to: since positioning is so crucial, it’s a little irritating that you can’t truly govern where your characters arrive after an attack, and since there’s no framework, it can be challenging to cast area-of-effect attacks that target specific targets or to get environmental attacks to line up precisely. The primary thing that I still need clarification on is that it’s simple to move a character by accident when you’re trying to make them shove an adversary; if you do that, you’ve wasted that shove move for this turn.
Finding the precise location to direct an area-of-effect assault can be difficult(credit: Knews USA)
Final Remarks
Throughout an iconic campaign, its revolutionary turn-based hero combat system makes fantastic use of card game concepts to keep conflicts interesting, developing, and surprising. Bashing adversaries into things for additional damage is endlessly fun. The hero and villain’s family tie, at the center of the supernatural apocalyptic scenario, give it emotional weight. Doing everything tends to be worthwhile because almost anything you do that doesn’t combat increases your strength in the following battle.
