Marvel's Midnight Suns

The part you quoted suggests that being 70+ hours is a good thing.
But beyond a certain length story driven games start to loose focus and fall apart, every story driven game I played that was over 40 hours was to its detriment. Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda, recent Assasin's Creed games all suffered greatly due to their bloat.

The only long game that I felt didn't stretch out unnecessarily that I played recently was FF7 Remake. That was around 45 or so hours. Most games just can't keep the story pacing up past 40 hours and become too repetitive. I'd like more story/chapter/level based story drive games to make a come back. The few games that actually do an open world well like Fallout are fine. So many games have so much filler that just sabotages any theme/mood the game may have.

If I try and think of my most memorable moments in games or a particular area, it is almost always shorter games that have specifically designed individual levels rather than hundreds of mundane locations.

As for this game, I think I'll pass. The character dialogue and camera work just looks atrocious from watching videos.
 
I'd agree. Combat is excellent and with the missions being so short and each character feeling different it does take some time before everything starts to feel same-y.
The problem is that some characters are way overpowered compared to others. I'd say combat wise the biggest problem of the game is that it's imbalanced and greatly depends on random luck. The same mission can be a breeze or extremely hard depending on what cards you get, and what characters you take. I mean my hunter at level 25 which is the max level has attacks in the range of 200-600 damage. While Doctor Strange's best attack is like 150, the rest floundering under 100? What good will that do me when ultimately all missions are won on offense. You can have all the best support spells and defense, you can't complete missions unless you have good attacks. This means I'm forced to take the hunter on every mission, and at least one other relatively overpowered character, unless I want to suffer.

This results in all the encounters becoming the same routine. I tried a side mission recently with just second tier characters and it was literally impossible. I couldn't even make a dent in the first wave, and then on the first reinforcements it summons a dread mother. I was fucked, and you can't even change difficulty after you started a mission, which is the only part where it would make sense to change it. Not at the abbey, where there is no combat, how shall I predict that I won't be able to complete the next mission?

The suggested difficulty of side missions is completely meaningless also. There were "hard" ones that I sailed through no problem, and "easy" ones that required several retries.

The outside of combat parts of the game are super hit and miss though. Exploring the Abby is an enjoyable diversion,
Exploring was alright, although it feels completely out of place for this type of game. They are trying to bridge two genres that very few people like both I'd think. If someone wants a turn based strategy game they are probably not interested in a TPS RPG, and vica-versa. It's only luck that I have no problem with either. And even I feel that the RPG part is an unnecessary distraction.
building up decks is great,
I have to disagree here, the strategy aspect in building up decks is great, but not the implementation. I can not tell you that after 60 hours how much I hate the chore of running to the forge to unlock my lootboxes, excuse me "gamma coils" then running to the yard to upgrade any abilities I can, only to find that I miss some component. So run back to the forge to craft the missing cards, then run back to the yard again, realize I don't have enough essence. So get out of the yard menu, open the inventory to start breaking up unused cards, rinse and repeat. ALL OF THIS, should've been put in a singe well designed interface.
but maaan the writing for the characters. Sometimes it really hits and the characters feel like how they should, but then you get those moments where a joke fall flat or they're clearly just filling space (or, like, 90% of Captain Marvel's dialog) and it all comes tumbling down.
I'd say over 90% of all of the writing is a miss, I can count the moments on one hand when the writing was enjoyable in the 60 hours I spent with the game. The rest of it is either passable or outright cringe.
I want to enjoy spending time with the characters and getting to know some of the ones I'm not super familiar with, but it all feels so surface-level like the writing team only had a basic understanding of each character and only took a deeper look at a few of them. Most of them feel so one-dimensional. The voice acting definitely does not help things either.
The voice acting feels like they just made the actors read the exact cue cards the game shows to you, without context and no second takes, as there is barely any emotion to the lines, pauses are all at the wrong places, and tons of mistakes where the actor will say something different than what's on screen.

The writing always circles back to the heroes being mopey narcissists, who need their egos stroked. But you can't have clever writing if your writers are not experienced and intelligent.
Seeing you and the article talking about 60-70+ hours is concerning. I really don't think the game can hold itself together that long. As fun as the combat is, eventually you're going to get everything upgraded and have good decks built for each character. After that, I feel like even the combat portions are going to lose their luster.
After part II the decks for most starting heroes barely change, if there are more abilities to unlock the lootbox mechanic just doesn't want to give them up for me. The only thing you can focus after a while is modded versions of already owned abilities. And the heroes who join you later in the game.
 
The problem is that some characters are way overpowered compared to others. I'd say combat wise the biggest problem of the game is that it's imbalanced and greatly depends on random luck. The same mission can be a breeze or extremely hard depending on what cards you get, and what characters you take. I mean my hunter at level 25 which is the max level has attacks in the range of 200-600 damage. While Doctor Strange's best attack is like 150, the rest floundering under 100? What good will that do me when ultimately all missions are won on offense. You can have all the best support spells and defense, you can't complete missions unless you have good attacks. This means I'm forced to take the hunter on every mission, and at least one other relatively overpowered character, unless I want to suffer.

This results in all the encounters becoming the same routine. I tried a side mission recently with just second tier characters and it was literally impossible. I couldn't even make a dent in the first wave, and then on the first reinforcements it summons a dread mother. I was fucked, and you can't even change difficulty after you started a mission, which is the only part where it would make sense to change it. Not at the abbey, where there is no combat, how shall I predict that I won't be able to complete the next mission?

The suggested difficulty of side missions is completely meaningless also. There were "hard" ones that I sailed through no problem, and "easy" ones that required several retries.

I just recently picked up Cap and I'm moving towards getting Wolverine, so I'm still early-ish in the game. But, I've definitely started to see some of that. I want to take different characters along to build up their connection to Hunter in order to unlock more passives, but sometimes it feels like the game wants to punish me for doing so. I don't mind the luck part of the combat as I'm a fan of deck builders and I haven't, yet, felt too screwed out of options with it.

Exploring was alright, although it feels completely out of place for this type of game. They are trying to bridge two genres that very few people like both I'd think. If someone wants a turn based strategy game they are probably not interested in a TPS RPG, and vica-versa. It's only luck that I have no problem with either. And even I feel that the RPG part is an unnecessary distraction.

I kind of get the impression that someone working on the game saw how much people loved Fire Emblem: Three Houses and decided they should try to copy what that game did.

I have to disagree here, the strategy aspect in building up decks is great, but not the implementation. I can not tell you that after 60 hours how much I hate the chore of running to the forge to unlock my lootboxes, excuse me "gamma coils" then running to the yard to upgrade any abilities I can, only to find that I miss some component. So run back to the forge to craft the missing cards, then run back to the yard again, realize I don't have enough essence. So get out of the yard menu, open the inventory to start breaking up unused cards, rinse and repeat. ALL OF THIS, should've been put in a singe well designed interface.

That's a completely fair point. I'm still early enough in the game that it isn't a problem. Though, the constant need to grind resources is already starting to wear on me. If the game allows you to spend money on resources it would go a long way towards explaining a lot of the design decisions.

I'd say over 90% of all of the writing is a miss, I can count the moments on one hand when the writing was enjoyable in the 60 hours I spent with the game. The rest of it is either passable or outright cringe.

The voice acting feels like they just made the actors read the exact cue cards the game shows to you, without context and no second takes, as there is barely any emotion to the lines, pauses are all at the wrong places, and tons of mistakes where the actor will say something different than what's on screen.

The writing always circles back to the heroes being mopey narcissists, who need their egos stroked. But you can't have clever writing if your writers are not experienced and intelligent.

The cringe-y dialog doesn't bother me as much as it does you, but I can't disagree with some of your issues here. It's pretty obvious that they have a very inexperienced writing team. It doesn't seem like they even worked with writers familiar with the characters or who have done extensive comic book work before.

All three people credited with VO direction have done excellent work on other projects before, I wonder what went on behind the scenes to cause the voice acting to come out this bad. I don't think I've ever heard Matt Mercer and Yuri Lowenthal put out performances as bad as what they deliver in Midnight Suns.

After part II the decks for most starting heroes barely change, if there are more abilities to unlock the lootbox mechanic just doesn't want to give them up for me. The only thing you can focus after a while is modded versions of already owned abilities. And the heroes who join you later in the game.

I was afraid of something like that happening. There simply aren't enough cards, or characters, to hold the game over for that long of a time. I figured this would be like a 30-40 hour game, not double that.
 
That's a completely fair point. I'm still early enough in the game that it isn't a problem. Though, the constant need to grind resources is already starting to wear on me. If the game allows you to spend money on resources it would go a long way towards explaining a lot of the design decisions.
Money is the most scarce resource in the game, you always have enough gloss to spend on cosmetics, and always can salvage essence from the tons of cards you don't use. But credits is so scarce that I often couldn't even do daily sparring because I had no money for it, or wanted to save it for an abbey upgrade.

Later you get an upgrade where you can buy essence, but not sell it, completely stupid design. You can buy a resource there is already an abundance of but can't sell it. They only offer to buy intel, which is hard to come by and needed for hero ops.

All three people credited with VO direction have done excellent work on other projects before, I wonder what went on behind the scenes to cause the voice acting to come out this bad. I don't think I've ever heard Matt Mercer and Yuri Lowenthal put out performances as bad as what they deliver in Midnight Suns.
The importance of the director in VO work can not be overstated, when the actor has no context for their lines. If the direction is superficial and no budget is allocated for second takes you can have anyone sitting in the booth, the result will be what we see.
I was afraid of something like that happening. There simply aren't enough cards, or characters, to hold the game over for that long of a time. I figured this would be like a 30-40 hour game, not double that.
Same here, when Part I ended I was expecting the end of the game. When Part II ended I was hoping for an end, now I'm in Part III, and there better be no Part IV or I go crazy.
 
The part you quoted suggests that being 70+ hours is a good thing.
But beyond a certain length story driven games start to loose focus and fall apart, every story driven game I played that was over 40 hours was to its detriment. Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda, recent Assasin's Creed games all suffered greatly due to their bloat.

if the person is enjoying the game then 70 hours is fine...I don't consider a game 'long' unless it's at least 100 hours...70 hours is my normal playthrough for a lot of games...I think I had around 70 with Far Cry 6 (not because I enjoyed it that much but more because I just wanted it to end)
 
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if the person is enjoying the game then 70 hours is fine...I don't consider a game 'long' unless it's at least 100 hours long...70 hours is my normal playthrough for a lot of games...I think I had around 70 with Far Cry 6 (not because I enjoyed it that much but more because I just wanted it to end)
If you wanted it to end it was too long. Some games can be fun for a long time, but not ones where the story plays a central part.

Unfortunately Midnight Suns has no replay potential, because you can't get straight to the missions. You need to do all the dialogue and exploration again too, and that's a pointless waste of time.
 
The Deadpool DLC, titled The Good, the Bad, and the Undead, will be available on January 26th...

 
The Deadpool DLC, titled The Good, the Bad, and the Undead, will be available on January 26th...


The DLC can be literally finished in 30 minutes. It is 3, yes three missions, that is not a typo. I was like WTF after it just ended barely after starting. Yes, you get a new character that you can use for other missions as well, but still 30 minutes of content for $15? If you don't already have the season pass it's not even worth considering.
 
https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1622707723480563721?s=20

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Critics may have liked it, but consumers didn't. The user score on Metacritic is a middling 57 compared to the 83 critical score. A lot of the 10 user scores are copy-pasta reviews, so Take Two was probably doing some astroturfing for this one.

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The console versions fare better, but strategy is even more of a niche genre on consoles.
 
Venom DLC Trailer | Marvel's Midnight Suns

Venom joins the Midnight Suns on February 23rd...

 
Critics may have liked it, but consumers didn't. The user score on Metacritic is a middling 57 compared to the 83 critical score. A lot of the 10 user scores are copy-pasta reviews, so Take Two was probably doing some astroturfing for this one.

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The console versions fare better, but strategy is even more of a niche genre on consoles.

Not terribly surprising. There are a lot of good ideas in the game, but it's all marred by some abysmal writing and a game that massively overstays its welcome. If they can get a better writing team built up, I'd love to see what could be done with a sequel. There is potential in the property, Firaxis just needs to get it's shit together first.
 
Not terribly surprising. There are a lot of good ideas in the game, but it's all marred by some abysmal writing and a game that massively overstays its welcome. If they can get a better writing team built up, I'd love to see what could be done with a sequel. There is potential in the property, Firaxis just needs to get it's shit together first.
Sadly, this was just the logical progression from Chimera Squad, which had similar issues with dialog and story. Zach Bush, who graduated from intern writer to lead with Chimera Squad, led the writing for Midnight Suns, but this was the first game credited to a "narrative" company called Martian Brothel. The writing team consists of one woman who wears "problem glasses," another who was the lead writer on the terrible Telltale Batman games (and also has DeSantis Derangement Syndrome), another is a writer for the LA Times who also worked on the Telltale Batman games, and finally somebody who has no prior game credits despite supposedly being a writer for a decade. This narrative company also worked on God of War: Ragnarök, which explains a lot.
 
Game is free to try for the weekend on Steam. 54GB download. Current reviews say they've added in an anti-cheat software, the 2k launcher can't be skipped and the game is more unstable than before.
 
Well glad I got some game time in with this last night.... the free weekend ended apparently today, Sunday at 10am pst.. Odd that they didn't run it through Monday morning.

Combat was pretty good though I can see it getting boring for sure. Spell effects were good. Story stuff was as corny and as bad as people have said. The game started out bad with sound stuttering on the splash screen but got better. Loading screens and the main menu were down to 5fps. Game was playable at least on a 4790k with 2060S at medium settings.
 
The 4th and final DLC 'Blood Storm' lands on Tuesday, May 11th...as with the previous DLCs, it can be purchased separately at $14.99 or as part of the full Season Pass, priced at $49.99...the Nintendo Switch version has been canceled...

 
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Forgot to add that I have 87 hours into the game and I definitely do enjoy it but two problems I can acknowledge are that the tutorial is horrible because even though I have other turn based games, I've never played something like this thats turn based with cards and theres a few nuances that aren't mentioned and left to the player to figure out, as a result I had grown frustrated because I didn't know of all my options and ended up dying and restarting quite frequently. Even now I'm unsure of how a few things work and theres still quite a bit of guess work.

Finally, another mechanic that I see as cheap and uninspired is having to defeat the same boss twice like for example Dracula where he is defeated once and then stunned or just kicking back for a turn or two and then he comes back with full health and has to be defeated again.
 
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Just started playing this and I am enjoying it quite a lot. Not sure why it tanked so hard and is like 10 bucks on humble choice bundle. But worth it for 10 bucks IMO.
I think I finished 2 missions thus far.
 
Just started playing this and I am enjoying it quite a lot. Not sure why it tanked so hard and is like 10 bucks on humble choice bundle. But worth it for 10 bucks IMO.
I think I finished 2 missions thus far.
I heard that it’s really repetitive. I don’t know. I bought it… and then played it for 30 minutes.
 
I heard that it’s really repetitive. I don’t know. I bought it… and then played it for 30 minutes.
The awful story and frequent awkward character interactions that the player is forced to participate in also turned people off. The actual gameplay is decent, though.
 
So after spending some decent time in it. It is a fantastic game. If you like super heroes and Marvel this is a must play. I am enjoying it quite a lot. I know people were complaining about the repetitiveness or abbey missions etc but I find them a good change of pace. Talking to characters gives them some buffs as well over time. Increasing friendship also has benefits so it is not time wasted.

Honestly, for the price I paid (less than 20 for everything including DLC) this is a big surprise. Needs a bunch of time investment though so be ready to do that. But for me I can even play this while doing zoom calls etc. It is just the right kind of game. Wish it were on the mobile lol.

Dope af.
 
So after spending some decent time in it. It is a fantastic game. If you like super heroes and Marvel this is a must play. I am enjoying it quite a lot. I know people were complaining about the repetitiveness or abbey missions etc but I find them a good change of pace. Talking to characters gives them some buffs as well over time. Increasing friendship also has benefits so it is not time wasted.

Honestly, for the price I paid (less than 20 for everything including DLC) this is a big surprise. Needs a bunch of time investment though so be ready to do that. But for me I can even play this while doing zoom calls etc. It is just the right kind of game. Wish it were on the mobile lol.

Dope af.
Nice, I'll have to grab it next time it's on a good sale!
 
One of these days I'll get back into it but meh...some of the abbey drama stuff was just too lame. Oh yes, let me help Blade in his book club so he can make a move on Capt. Marvel.
 
I don’t mind the drama. It adds to the gameplay and that’s all what I care. I skip most dialog anyway except the unskippable cutscenes. I am in it for buffs.
 
After 24 hours and some change, I am still enjoying it. DLC packs are welcome as well. Some of the recent fights have been tough so I need to level up a bit more before I engage the new battles. Also use of tactics is becoming more and more important. The randomization keeps things interesting and it is easy to restart encounters etc in case you mess up. Really a great game all around. I had tons of photos but I will leave just the few here.
 

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I am officially addicted to this game. I haven’t gone to office in 3 days and am spending on average 3-4 hours per day on it. wtf.
 
Just started playing this. The card combat is kind of entertaining so far but I hate everything else. Whenever I finish a mission and am taken back to the base I just alt-tab out and do something else; I can say with some certainty that it's quite stable as a minimized application. Kissing the dog was unexpected and enjoyable but the rest of it screams, "We wrote this new Reality TV show but no Network will touch it. 2K will bail us out if we give them the script and change the names to Marvel characters." A modder could improve it by removing the home base, the dating sim aspect, and all of the related dialog. I just want to play cards man.

I can't believe that this came in the same Humble Choice as Roguebook when it's also a character-based card combat game. In Roguebook you pick your team and you go play with your cards. And you improve your cards by building towards synergies that you find between the combined decks and steering it to a wincon. So the card game is the fun part and you're doing things that enhance the fun part the entire time.
 

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Hangout completed! You got board shorts! Who wears board shorts! Marvel heroes wear board shorts!
 
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