Marvel's Midnight Suns [Firaxis]

[Max Peck]

Me too, although I did buy the legendary edition at launch. I had other things on the go at the time, so I decided to wait until all the DLC unlocked so that I could have the full set of characters.

[Smoove_B]

So this is a weird game, eh? Not at all what I was expecting (and my expectations were shifted based on early feedback posted here). I finished the tutorial and have since just been wandering around the main base (and surrounding areas), boosting relationships and finding *stuff* that's (seemingly) randomly deposited for me to acquire. I think I've done 3 side missions, avoiding advancement with the main story (what I think is the first actual mission after the tutorial completes with a friendly neighborhood dude).

Anyway, y'all already know this, but apparently the side missions will just infinitely generate each day. That seems like an odd design choice - especially for a completionist like me that is thinking I need to work through side missions to "gear up" for a main story mission. Instead, I can apparently go through side missions forever and max-level everyone before I even start the main story?

Again, weird.

[Smoove_B]

I've just crossed over 31 hours and I think I'm halfway through the main story. This game easily has some of the most grind I've ever experienced from a SP title - and I'm not even sure what's necessary vs making the game easier.

Kudos to the team of psychologists that came up with the game's core design - the intricate lattice of tasks that you need to complete in order to:

(1) Raise friendship levels
(2) Raise team friendship levels
(3) Unlock new abilities
(4) Unlock new gear
(5) Unlock combat bonuses
(6) Boost combat skills

It has MMO levels of interconnected elements; it's genuinely crazy how you can just keep playing side missions and grind out all of the above.

I'd say like 20% of my time playing this game has been in combat. I said it earlier; it's weird!

[Smoove_B]

I think I'm burning out on this (and not in a fun Ghost Rider way). I have it on story mode and didn't realize just how much of a grind the campaign is. I put another 6 hours in over the weekend and only managed to finish two more campaign events. Why? Because the campaign is "gated". Either you have to complete a research item in order to progress (which takes in-game time) -or- you have to complete a secondary mission before progressing in the campaign. This translates to game time spent grinding through another wave of enemies to get various loot items. Had I known the "grind" was going to be baked into the core game play loop, I would have not done my own grinding early on in the game to level up my team.

I really want to finish, but I have 6 more campaign missions to go, which means more like 12 total missions to complete, which is probably going to come out to ~20 more hours as I'm at ~40 hours right now. Not sure I have that in me as some of the missions seem to be intentionally longer - enemies that require multiple KOs or nested missions that have waves of enemies or mini-scenarios.

I guess there's a group of players that likes this type of design, but I'm not sure it's me.

[hepcat]

Towards the end I gave up on socializing with the other characters and just went combat mission after combat mission. I was able to avoid most of the grind that way as I got near the end.

p.s. I did bump down the difficulty on the final boss battle so I probably should have been a bit more grindy. But at that point, I was about 60 hours or more into the game and ready to be done. That's not a critique really though. I enjoyed most of that time, which is rare for me. I'm sad they probably won't make a sequel.

A sequel focusing more on the anti hero Paste Pot Pete and his battles against those who don't adhere to a "sticky life".

[Blackhawk]

I ended up doing the same thing I did with Batman: Arkham Asylum almost 15 years ago. I got a few minutes in, realized that I knew less than half of the characters, realized that there was a ton of story, background, and setting 'cool stuff' that was just going right over my head. So, like with Arkham, I put it aside until I learned about that stuff. A couple of hundred Marvel comics later and it's back on my radar.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, I wasn't fully knowledgeable about the Midnight Suns stuff, but I am still enjoying the story and characters. I do think the game provides a good job of info-dumping what you need to know. And I'm still probably only playing 1/3rd of the game, haven't at all really gotten into the whole exploration of the grounds (which, no surprise requires puzzle solving and grinding).

It's fun...I just think maybe they should have tightened up the SP experience some more. There's so much potential for replay with mixing and matching heroes and their decks, I'm not sure they needed to have as much...repetition as I'm finding.

[ChuckB]

I knew NOTHING about the Midnight Suns stuff and was, honestly, surprised when I learned after playing a bit that that stuff already existed and was not entirely created for the game ...

I really enjoyed the game, including the social stuff (I actually finished the game but did not pick up any of the later additional characters). I can't really explain why, as I would normally think that this mix of superheroes, comic book characters, some paranormal stuff etc. is really not my cup of tea but I liked it (well, sometimes, it's just about being in the right mindset for a game). I loved the tactical battles and I thought the exploration of the grounds was fine.

What was weird to me was the overall pacing and alignment of the story with the activities: it felt that I had explored the whole grounds at around the 60% overall completion point of the game and after that point, I never even put a foot into the grounds anymore. Exploring the grounds felt like a completely different game, disconnected from the other parts (the social as well as the tactical battles). I also never used ANYTHING I collected on the grounds for any of the tactical battles - I never took any potions or other consumables I created into the battles.

So, in the end, this felt like three games glued somewhat weirdly together (but which I quite enjoyed as a combination): (1) great tactical battles I really enjoyed, (2) a superhero/paranormal storyline with some social group dynamics similar to Fire Emblem: Three Houses on Switch, and (3) a walking simulator with resource collection and light puzzles.

[msteelers]

The season pass is on sale, at least on PS5. I picked it up and plan on another run soon to see all the additional content.

[Carpet_pissr]

Hmmm, PC or console for this game?

[msteelers]

I haven't played games on a PC for... 20+ years? That can't be right...

Either way, this one was fine on the console for me.

[ChuckB]

Hmmm, PC or console for this game?

I played this on PS5. I generally prefer to to play this type of turn-based combat with a controller (and think that mouse & kb is considerably more clunky in these cases). It looks great on PS5 ... BUT: this was probably the buggiest game I ever played on any Playstation console with both bugs (nothing game-breaking, though) and even some crashes (but I don't think I ever really lost any progress).
But, to also put this into perspective: the buggiest game on a console would probably still be considered rock-solid on a PC. After not having a gaming PC for a couple of years and got a new one at the beginning of the year and I'm honestly sort of baffled how rough the gaming experience (still) is on PC ...

[Zenn7]

If you haven't bought this yet, it's coming to Humble Bundle in January. Might want to wait and get it much cheaper than you probably can any place else (plus whatever else is in the monthly bundle).

That's my plan.

[NickAragua]

Forty hours in, and I just got through the New York story missions. Which appears to be about 1/3 of the way through the game. I'm truly amazed at the amount of banter they've come up with. And it looks like I've still got 2-3 heroes that I haven't recruited to the team yet.

The tactical battles are fun little short affairs. Most are not super hard, but there were a couple where I had to really think it through. Including one of the trials where the objective was "kill 16 dudes". No way to kill all the big guys, but you can kill 4 little guys per round. So I settled on an approach of just killing the little dudes then going into stealth using either a card or Hunter's special ability.

Technically speaking, it took a lot of tweaking to get the graphics settings to a point where the textures would actually load; but honestly I didn't even care because I was getting such a kick out of the gameplay and super cheesy story. Not sure what did it - maybe the graphics card driver update and physically rebooting my machine? I've had two or three crashes in forty hours of gameplay, and either I don't understand it or the "quick" card characteristic doesn't always trigger, but, other than that, I don't have any technical issues.

Although I do wish that Hunter's outfits were a little more varied than "pants and a t-shirt or tank-top". And I know the collar is a story element, but it's kind of obnoxious.

Overall verdict: 7/8 tentacles.

[Pyperkub]

Hunter did get some better clothes for the abbey, as well as the missions. I did stick with the Aviator glasses most of the way tho.

[msteelers]

One nice touch is being able to toggle on/off the clothes changing every day for various characters. I just wish the other characters besides Hunter had a bit better wardrobe.

I also wish I could turn off some of the costumes from the rotation, but that's a minor annoyance.

On my 2nd run through now, this time with the DLC characters, and I'm enjoying it almost as much as the original playthrough. I'm ramping up the difficulty whenever a new level is unlocked as well. I'm up to Ultimate II, with one more difficulty level to go. So far every mission has been challenging, but I'm still usually able to complete them on my first try. And that's without focusing on mix/max my team or each character's decks.

[Carpet_pissr]

If you haven't bought this yet, it's coming to Humble Bundle in January. Might want to wait and get it much cheaper than you probably can any place else (plus whatever else is in the monthly bundle).

That's my plan.

Nice, thanks for heads up!

[msteelers]

I'm up to Ultimate II, with one more difficulty level to go. So far every mission has been challenging, but I'm still usually able to complete them on my first try. And that's without focusing on mix/max my team or each character's decks.

I lied. I did a story mission last night and had to retry it several times before getting past it. I was using Hunter, Iron Man, and Deadpool which isn't really a great combo. I think I'll need to bring Captain America along to soak up some damage for the harder missions. I'm also oddly resistant to using items in this game. I should probably carry one of the items that gives me an extra revive.

[hepcat]

I've got to say, Nico eventually becomes ridiculously overpowered if you level her up enough. The heals alone are worth it.

[GreenGoo]

Thanks to Blackhawk, I integrated my steam wishlist with "isthereanydeal.com". And itad just emailed me to let me know that humble bundle has a bundle that contains Midnight Suns on the first tier, so you can get it from humble bundle for pretty cheap. Like 15 canuckabucks or so.

I don't think I've seen it for less than that before.

edit: Looking at humble bundle, I see midnight suns is part of the monthly subscription bundle and not a separate individual bundle. Which makes sense, since a monthly subscription is about 15 bucks if you pay by the month for Canadians.

So 1 month subscription will give you the base game an a skin for Dr. Strange.

[El Guapo]

I've got to say, Nico eventually becomes ridiculously overpowered if you level her up enough. The heals alone are worth it.

Yeah, Nico became my favorite character pretty quickly. She has heals that are useable without slowing your offense down too much (especially the one where you attack and then get an auto-heal if you kill the target) plus she has great crowd control too.

My go-to trio was generally Hunter, Nico, and Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel's great in part because she can build up quite a bit of defense while fighting, which again helps you keep your party's health up while still attacking the enemy.

[hepcat]

Mine was Nico (healing and that one crowd killer that does damage to up to 3 or 4 baddies...I would whittle a bunch down and then wipe the floor with them all with her), Hunter (I mean...he/she has some of the best attacks and a decent heal. Not to mention that one that allows him/her to control an enemy for a bit) and Ghost Rider (the attack with the car leveled up enough can just decimate the battlefield).

Although after I got the Hulk, I would use him instead of Ghost Rider sometimes.

[Pyperkub]

I bounced around characters a lot, but used illyana's portals quite a bit. I loved using them with knockback.

[El Guapo]

Mine was Nico (healing and that one crowd killer that does damage to up to 3 or 4 baddies...I would whittle a bunch down and then wipe the floor with them all with her), Hunter (I mean...he/she has some of the best attacks and a decent heal. Not to mention that one that allows him/her to control an enemy for a bit) and Ghost Rider (the attack with the car leveled up enough can just decimate the battlefield).

Although after I got the Hulk, I would use him instead of Ghost Rider sometimes.

Yeah, some of the most annoying missions for me were story missions where they forced you to take some underpowered loser (looking at you, Blade) instead of bringing along the world-destroying sorceress in my employ.

[RMC]

Mine was Nico (healing and that one crowd killer that does damage to up to 3 or 4 baddies...I would whittle a bunch down and then wipe the floor with them all with her), Hunter (I mean...he/she has some of the best attacks and a decent heal. Not to mention that one that allows him/her to control an enemy for a bit) and Ghost Rider (the attack with the car leveled up enough can just decimate the battlefield).

Although after I got the Hulk, I would use him instead of Ghost Rider sometimes.

Yeah, some of the most annoying missions for me were story missions where they forced you to take some underpowered loser (looking at you, Blade) instead of bringing along the world-destroying sorceress in my employ.

My worst missions were the DLC missions where you had to take the DLC hero's. I mean, they were okay as Hero's but not my favorites..

[hepcat]

I will say that after I leveled up Wolverine a bit, he was amazing in a fight. His berserks could change the course of a battle.

P.S. Morbius was friggin’ useless.

[GreenGoo]

Installed.

This was probably mentioned earlier in the thread, but in case it wasn't, or for newcomers like me, you can disable the 2K launcher. Instructions here on Rock/Paper/Shotgun: disable launcher

[Carpet_pissr]

Installed.

This was probably mentioned earlier in the thread, but in case it wasn't, or for newcomers like me, you can disable the 2K launcher. Instructions here on Rock/Paper/Shotgun: disable launcher

Awesome, thanks!

[msteelers]

I will say that after I leveled up Wolverine a bit, he was amazing in a fight. His berserks could change the course of a battle.

P.S. Morbius was friggin’ useless.

I’ve enjoyed morbius actually. Venom and Deadpool are the two dlc characters I use the least.

[hepcat]

Venom has some decent multi enemy attacks after he levels up a bit. Morbius, not so much.

[Blackhawk]

But can he morb, assuming there's time?

[hepcat]

I tried assigning "morb" to a hotkey, but all it ever did was make him crouch.

[Blackhawk]

Are you sure you assigned "Morb" and not "Take a Morb"?

[hepcat]

[Blackhawk]

That'll be my new phrasing when I need to use the bathroom.

"May I be excused? It's morbin' time."

[hepcat]

Make sure you make 'morbing sounds" while you're in there.

[Smoove_B]

I tried assigning "morb" to a hotkey, but all it ever did was make him crouch.

I legitimately laughed out loud.

[Blackhawk]

As an aside, I have now read several hundred Marvel comics issues, and Morbius is one character I have yet to encounter. Of course, I've only read a couple of dozen issues of Spider-Man, and haven't encountered Blade yet, either. That'll probably change once my list starts hitting the Spideys.

[hepcat]

Morbius USED to be one of my favorite characters. If I recall correctly, he was introduced decades ago in Spiderman. He was another in a long line of scientists who wanted to do good but ended up creating something bad. In his case though, he was able to get control of his bad side. I used to love his character and Man Bat from DC, another example of that type of character. I always associate the other when I think of one of them.

...but then Jared Leto took a giant morb on the character and I just can't get quite as happy about his appearances.

[El Guapo]

Morbius USED to be one of my favorite characters. If I recall correctly, he was introduced decades ago in Spiderman. He was another in a long line of scientists who wanted to do good but ended up creating something bad. In his case though, he was able to get control of his bad side. I used to love his character and Man Bat from DC, another example of that type of character. I always associate the other when I think of one of them.

...but then Jared Leto took a giant morb on the character and I just can't get quite as happy about his appearances.

I can't believe that post ended without a mention of Bat Mite.