There are really two sides to Marvel Midnight Suns. The sunshine and rainbows side is that its XCOM with superheroes which, like... yeah... that's the greatest pitch of all time. It's the equivalent of someone saying to me: "Callum. I'm going wild and serving you Ice Cream and Jelly together. Hope that's okay". Of course you can serve god to me in a bowl, I don't mind.
Midnight Suns' tense combat and "make every move count" mantra is why Firaxis is unrivalled in the strategy space, and as usual, they absolutely deliver in that department. Every hero is so unique and fun to experiment with, and the way you quickly grasp how to seamlessly merge their talents is sublime. I maybe would've preferred the game let me create my own team of superheroes so I can give everyone funny haircuts, name them shit like "Snakey Bones Johnson" and turn their armour toxic sludge green, but I'm happy to compromise for more of that sweet, sweet XCOM combat.
But the flip side of the coin is that everything around the battles is just really, really weird. And not weird in a way where I'm like, ooooh, how quirky and fun. Weird in a way where I'm like, this was a... creative choice... you... uh... could've made... that's for sure. Like, why does this feel like a self-insert fan fic? Why am I taking Wolverine for evening tea and a picnic outside a picturesque cottage? Why is every character utterly in love with me and committed to spending their whole lives waiting on my beck and call? Why are there like 70 currencies and all of them revolve around me potentially buying Captain America a new pair of swimming trunks? It's just a bizarre game. So much of it is runtime is spent fleshing out the downtime between missions, but the downtime is spent with such cliche and uninspired takes on these characters. There's no creative liberty or attempt to add a spin to these heroes that's unique to Firaxis' universe. Instead, they all just say variations of "YoU Ain'T HALf bAd HUnTeR" and blurt out their backstories like walking Wikipedia articles. It doesn't help that the writing isn't great either, making most of the dialogue cringey, while the NPC animations are static and lifeless.
Everything outside the combat just makes this feel like half a peak Firaxis strategy experience and half one of those bargain-bin-destined licensed games that I'd want for Christmas as kid but quickly realise were actually shite the moment I sat down to play them (I see you Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer). Don't get me wrong, there are much worse things out there than a game that's half XCOM 2 and half X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse, but I couldn't help but dread everything between the moments where I'd kill 9 demons in one turn by making Ghost Rider surf on a Chevy Impala while screaming about vengeance at the top of his lungs.
Midnight Suns' tense combat and "make every move count" mantra is why Firaxis is unrivalled in the strategy space, and as usual, they absolutely deliver in that department. Every hero is so unique and fun to experiment with, and the way you quickly grasp how to seamlessly merge their talents is sublime. I maybe would've preferred the game let me create my own team of superheroes so I can give everyone funny haircuts, name them shit like "Snakey Bones Johnson" and turn their armour toxic sludge green, but I'm happy to compromise for more of that sweet, sweet XCOM combat.
But the flip side of the coin is that everything around the battles is just really, really weird. And not weird in a way where I'm like, ooooh, how quirky and fun. Weird in a way where I'm like, this was a... creative choice... you... uh... could've made... that's for sure. Like, why does this feel like a self-insert fan fic? Why am I taking Wolverine for evening tea and a picnic outside a picturesque cottage? Why is every character utterly in love with me and committed to spending their whole lives waiting on my beck and call? Why are there like 70 currencies and all of them revolve around me potentially buying Captain America a new pair of swimming trunks? It's just a bizarre game. So much of it is runtime is spent fleshing out the downtime between missions, but the downtime is spent with such cliche and uninspired takes on these characters. There's no creative liberty or attempt to add a spin to these heroes that's unique to Firaxis' universe. Instead, they all just say variations of "YoU Ain'T HALf bAd HUnTeR" and blurt out their backstories like walking Wikipedia articles. It doesn't help that the writing isn't great either, making most of the dialogue cringey, while the NPC animations are static and lifeless.
Everything outside the combat just makes this feel like half a peak Firaxis strategy experience and half one of those bargain-bin-destined licensed games that I'd want for Christmas as kid but quickly realise were actually shite the moment I sat down to play them (I see you Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer). Don't get me wrong, there are much worse things out there than a game that's half XCOM 2 and half X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse, but I couldn't help but dread everything between the moments where I'd kill 9 demons in one turn by making Ghost Rider surf on a Chevy Impala while screaming about vengeance at the top of his lungs.