Looks like a cross between Fire Emblem: Three Houses, XCOM and Marvel Snap - a series of turn-based strategy battles with card-based attacks, interspersed with character-building "downtime" sections.
Reviews are out today and they've been a lot more positive than I was expecting. Avengers games don't have the strongest record on console over the last couple of years but this could be a good'un. And I was pretty much sold at "Firaxis".
I think I'll be getting this one. Not sure if day one though, will wait to see what reactions are like.
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this after watching a few reviews. I'm digging the idea that a lot of the characters aren't the most popular Marvel characters too. Unfortunately I won't be able to pick this up day one, but I'll get it at some point when it's cheaper.
Xcom 2 is my most played game on Xbox by a significant way last I looked through the stats. Think it's close to 7 days, so similarly will get this but probably after Xmas.
I got this for Christmas and have managed to find the time to put a few hours into it. I'm still very early in what looks to be an absolutely colossal game, but so far I think this is superb.
It really is a Marvel version of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. The basic structure is exactly the same - turn-based battles are interspersed with downtime where you explore an abbey, hang out with your team mates, upgrade your skills and abilities and work through plot. Like Fire Emblem, it's initially weighted quite heavily towards these downtime sections, to the point where you might be wondering if you've actually bought some sort of lifestyle simulator rather than a strategy game, but once you've worked your way through all the setup, character introductions and tutorials it does settle down a bit. The storyline is surprisingly in-depth and there are a lot of Marvel characters and callbacks throughout.
The character roster is large and varied, you get plenty of characters to start with and more unlock as you play. Like the other Marvel games, they are not the MCU versions you might be familiar with but actually they are pretty good takes on the characters with particularly excellent voice acting and they are very easy to adjust to, even if Tony Stark does look like Freddie Mercury.
The actual battles themselves are fantastic. You get to choose three heroes (story battles require the player-generated "Hunter" MC, side missions do not) and the fights are fast and scrappy. The areas are combat bowls so you get right down to fighting straight away. Environmental items aren't used for cover but you can blast enemies into them or pick them up and hurl them around the battlefield. The card system keeps things interesting and varied. It's all really good fun and it feels just right for the characters too. It's not XCOM at all but very much its own thing.
Oddly the graphics are a bit poor. They're fine for the battles but the exploration sections have strong PS3 energy, there are a lot of Mass Effect-style talking head conversations and nothing casts any shadows which means it all feels a bit overlit and unconvincing. Some of the cut-scenes are clearly pre-rendered videos, too, which feels very PS3. I'm also not totally sold on the Hunter character you create at the start of the game: there are loads of character customisation options but they all unlock as you play which means no matter what you do your character always initially looks like a 20-something social media influencer. I'm playing as some sort of ginger gimp who looks like he's stepped off the set of Love Island, which is very much at odds with the way all the other characters refer to him in awe as a legendary demon hunter. I'm sure I'll be able to customise him / cover his face up as I progress.
Anyway, I love this - I'm very much looking forward to putting more time into it.
Well as a huge Three Houses fan that write up has definitely got my interest, will look up some clips now. Not sure where I'd fit this in but it could at least jump the queue on the backlog a bit.
I'm cooling on this ever so slightly - not because it isn't good (it is) but because it's very very slow to the point of feeling ever so slightly disrespectful of your time. I mean I like the Abbey stuff and it's genuinely fun to hang out with these characters but my god they do chunter on. There must be hundreds of hours of dialogue in this and you can easily get sidetracked with an hour of chit chat when all you want to do is a quick side mission or something. It keeps on blindsiding you with unexpected slabs of plot when all you want to do is go and check your cards and turn in for the night. It's starting to feel like the kind of game I'll be playing in the background for months: I've put 25 hours into this so far and I haven't even finished Act 1.
What's there is still very very good and the combat system in particular is excellent, I just wish the pacing was a bit snappier.
I got to the point long before the end where I’d skim the character dialogue at the the bottom and then skip them actually saying it, just to try and keep the pace up a bit.
I enjoyed the whole thing overall, and was relatively thorough, getting the Midnight Suns garb for every character, and most of the trophies. Once it settled into its groove many of the pacing issues did melt away, though eventually I was getting a little keen for it to end.
A fun one, anyway, nice mishmash of XCOM, Slay the Spire and Fire Emblem, and probably the best use of a Marvel license in gaming that I can think of other than the Sony Spider-Man games.
Bought the DLC. Reinstalled the game. Save appears to be gone. Tried to look at the cloud save, and think I just managed to overwrite that with the new "blank" save instead.
Fuck. I'm not sure I see myself replaying the whole thing anytime soon, so I think that's been a thorough disaster.
Ah crap, I tried to start the trail finally the other day as been off work a few days this week but it needed a 30gig update. I will try this at some stage though.
Really enjoying this. Granted I haven't seen any of the Super Hero films and have no idea who Wanda is (is that Grey Jean from the X-Men?) but the 2 hours or so intro I have played are really nice.
It does have a strong board/card game element to it so not surprised that either I like it, or that others didn't and kept expecting this to be Marvel vs Xcom.
Wanda is Scarlet Witch, she appears in quite a lot of the latter MCU stuff but isn't connected to the X-Men.
Honestly for the purposes of Midnight Suns it doesn't matter whether you know the characters or not. Most of them are unique takes on the characters anyway and it does a good job of explaining who they are. About a third of the cast was completely new to me when I started the game and it didn't matter in the slightest.
