We Can be Heroes--Marvel's Midnight Suns

As mentioned in my previous post, I'm a sucker for Epic's free game giveaways.  I don't snag them all, but when they give away positively reviewed games...it's a must grab situation.  This is despite the fact that I know that it's very likely that I won't ever play it.  But it's free, so what the heck, right?  I decided to start scaling the pile of shame with one of the recent "big name" giveaways--Marvel's Midnight Suns.

What is it?

I knew very little about this game prior to grabbing it--I knew: 1.) It had good reviews on Steam and 2.) It was described as being "like XCOM 2."  I very much enjoyed XCOM 2, so I decided to give it a go.  I didn't grab it for the "MARVEL!" of it all.  I've seen some of the Marvel movies, I'm passingly familiar with many of the heroes but I'm not a huge Marvel fan.  Honestly, that's totally okay--even if you're someone who isn't all that familiar with the Marvel universe, you'll still have fun and get to know some of the marquee level heroes as well as some less familiar faces.

The beginning of each mission features a cool walk up cutscene.

The actual gameplay consists of turn-based battles that are scripted around a story.  It's sort of card-based, but it's not really a deckbuilder.  Basically each battle features 3 heroes that have their own "decks" made up of 8 cards.  These cards can be attacks that generate heroism and damage foes, defensive/buff abilities, or heroic skills (that consume the aforementioned heroism).  These abilities are unique to each hero--so, for example, Captain America's attacks involve lots of shield tossing and Iron Man jets around zapping baddies with his super suit.  The heroes get 3 card plays and then the bad guys get their turn to attack.  Each battle has a specific goal that needs to be achieved and differs from mission to mission.

Once you've finished your battle, there's an entire other part of the game that's part exploration and part gift-giving/friendship building.  Your group of heroes gets an amazing hideout--the Abbey, a magical base that exists in a pocket of reality around Salem, Massachusetts.  Each day follows a cycle:  the day starts with the ability to chat up any other characters who want to talk.  Then there's some business to take care of--you can visit the forge and start a research project (each one takes 1 day to finish), you can head to the training yard to spar with another hero (an activity that grants a buff for the hero you spar with), and then you can head off on a mission.

When you return from a mission, there's occasionally the option to join a "hangout" with a specific hero.  The goal of talking to and hanging out is to build friendship--the entire squad benefits from having a close bond and you get combat (and non-combat) rewards for raising the level.  There's a bit of challenge and need to pay attention when befriending other characters--you earn more friendship for picking activities and giving gifts that heroes like, so the best results come from noting their likes/dislikes.

If there's no hangout option, the other way you can spend your nighttime activity is to explore the grounds around the Abbey.  There are items/reagents that can be gathered, there are collectibles to find, and eventually there are challenge battles that grant abilities that unlock more of the grounds to explore.

This is what a mission looks like.

How long can/does a playthrough last?

This number can likely vary greatly depending on the effort you decide to put into your exploration/befriending efforts.  If you just stuck to the main storyline, I would estimate 40+ hours.  My playthrough clocked in at 74 hours and I was thorough about exploration, but not a total completionist with maxing out friendship level (I only maxed out 1 character...).  If you decided to max out friendships, it could take quite a bit longer (*maybe--I also felt like I made a few mistakes with gifts/activities).  I was surprised at the total playtime and the length of the main storyline.

Pros:

+ You get to design your own unique hero (the protagonist) known as the Hunter.  The character creator options aren't extremely detailed, but there are many choices to give your hero their own look and style.

+ Speaking of creating a unique character...let's just say that there are tons of cosmetic options.  And we're not just talking for the Hunter, but for the entire cast of heroes.  If you've ever felt like Iron Man might look cooler with a blue and silver color scheme, you can try it out.  Since heroes don't wear their armor all the time, each hero also has a casual look that they wear around the Abbey.  Outfits as well as "palettes" that offer up special color schemes for armor can be discovered in special arcane chests that are hidden around the Abbey grounds.  Outfits and palettes can be purchased with a discoverable resource known as "gloss" that can be found through exploration of the Abbey (each day little glowy balls of different resources spawn so it's worthwhile to explore the Abbey itself to gather them) or in arcane chests.  Special armor sets can also be unlocked through certain achievements or (of course) can be purchased with real money (*possibly as part of the "season pass" which I didn't look too closely at seeing as how I got the game for free)

+ Strategizing during battles is challenging, but doable.  There's a star rating system at the end of each battle that ranks you based on how quickly you finished the mission and whether any heroes were knocked out (KO'd).  Besides playing your cards for maximal effect, there are also environmental sources of damage scattered around the site of each battle.  If you run out of card plays you can utilize these options (but do need to be aware of friendly fire) to further cause damage, but they do cost heroism, so you have to decide if it would be better to save it for the next round of card plays.  There are lots of other things to consider too such as using consumables or completing optional side tasks.

I didn't find myself getting a ton of 3 star ratings--my problem is that I'm too slow and focused on eliminating all the enemies rather than just the mission goals--but I found combat (even the boss fights) to be on the easier side of things.  The first few battles were a bit challenging as I figured things out, but overall it wasn't too bad.

Completing missions (story or side missions) rewards different items.  Gamma coils unlock new cards for the heroes who completed the mission; artifacts mostly reward resources that can be used for upgrades; credits are used to purchase upgrades for the various rooms around the Abbey; intel is used to send heroes on "ops" which reward new cards (an option to keep building the decks for characters who aren't on a mission); and blueprints can be used to craft cards.  You can complete as many side missions as you want--they respawn.

+ The story is straight out of a comic book--big bad villains trying to cause chaos/end the world and heroes who must pull out all the stops to find a solution. There are tons of ups and downs and plenty of boss battles with familiar villains.

+ There's a whole cast of very familiar Marvel characters as well as some faces that you might not recognize (unless you're a big Marvel fan).  I don't want to spoil anything, but let's just say that two prominent "teams" of heroes wind up fighting together.  I'm not a huge Marvel fan, but found it enjoyable to learn more about the entire cast and "befriend" them.  If you are a Marvel fan...well, this will definitely make you happy.

+ The dialogue is well written and has the exact comic book/Marvel movie vibe--slightly cheesy at certain points with a dash of inspirational/heroic.  Each character has their own personality and there were moments sprinkled throughout that made me chuckle.

+ The voice acting is good and if you're a BioWare fan you will recognize several familiar voices.  There's about half a second of cognitive dissonance if you've seen the movies and are expecting game Tony to sound exactly like movie Tony, but once you get past that, it's golden.

+ Gloss can also be used to purchase upgrades to the Hunter's room.  You can add different pieces of furniture as well as changing the color scheme for curtains and bedding.  It's kind of fun.

One of my customized comic book covers.

+ There are tons of cool comic book-esque moments and features built in.  When you start a mission there's a short cutscene of your team heroically striding toward the portal.  Another really fun cosmetic feature is the ability to create customizable comic book covers at the end of every mission--there are tons of graphical, text, and character options.  You can spend gloss to "print" these covers and place them in empty frames throughout the Abbey.  You can also create "post cards" with customizable scenes from your training sessions with the other heroes.  Honestly, you could spend way too much time making these, but it's kind of fun.  I only made a couple, but they turned out really cool.

+ You can pet the dog!  And the cat!  The Hunter has a hellhound companion who can be pet every day to earn resources.  Your faithful hound can also briefly fight by your side once you've unlocked a certain legendary card.  The cat randomly pops up and gives a variety of nice rewards once you find her and pet her.  If you hear meowing, try to find the cat because it's totally worth it (hint: you can use the map to see the location of both Charlie the hellhound and Ebony the cat).

+ New Game + and the ability to continue playing after you've finished the main storyline.  If you're invested in trying to max out the friendship level with ALL the heroes, this is the perfect opportunity.  Why?  Max friendship level unlocks a challenge mode mission (*with the correct forge upgrade) for that specific hero that unlocks a unique set of legendary armor.

+ There's some replayability built in.  The dialogue options you choose for the Hunter can lean toward either the "dark" or the "light."  (Or you can choose to stay neutral/balanced)  The amount of dark/light does seem to have some impact on dialogue/events, but I'm not sure exactly how much.  I leaned toward the light but would be curious to see if there are any differences between the light & dark.

Charlie is the best hellhound!

Cons:

- Suffers from the curse of the stacking game launchers (which is basically unavoidable).  You have to launch the game through your digital service of choice (Epic or Steam) and THEN from the 2K launcher.  When I first started it up I thought it was crashing because it was taking forever.  It turns out that it was just trying to get to the 2K launcher...so I could launch it again.  It's a common and annoyingly stupid problem.

- I did encounter a few glitches/bugs.  Some of them were of the more comedic variety--a character is sitting through a chair rather than on it or standing in the floor.  Twice, after I had done something at the Forge or Intel center I had the screen blackout.  Luckily it's not totally blacked out and you can still get the the menu and save and quickly re-load which solves the problem.  Minor, but inconvenient.

- If you aren't totally into the whole "friendship"/talking to the other heroes...well, there's a lot of that and you might not like it.  You can skip it, but your friendship level with the team does provide some good bonuses.  There's quite a bit of dialogue, but it's well written.

Recommendation:

I had a shockingly good time with Midnight Suns and if you're either a Marvel fan or an XCOM fan, I can say that you'll undoubtedly enjoy it.  Even though I got it free, it's well worth paying for it (*you can get the "legendary edition" which is the base game and the season pass which features new heroes and missions for $24.99 in the Steam Summer Sale).  It's a truly fun time strategizing to slay baddies and then hanging out with a cast of cool heroes.