The first review of Marvel’s Midnight Suns said, “It’s like XCom or Slay the Spire.” I don’t know about you, but these are one of my absolute favorite games. So I checked it out on Steam and what was the first thing I noticed?
this:
Microtransactions!
And the second thing you noticed? Game and season passes were $100. 100 dollars? That’s, for example, 100 dollars! So I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I’ll buy it when it comes out.”
So what pisses me off the most about the whole “Season Pass” thing is how it started out as giving you a chance to get all the DLC for the game in advance (if by “DLC” you mean “expansion” I’m not sure) (which I vaguely support) changed to selling 80% of the original game to customers and then taking a nickel and a half to get it all.
So maybe it was a good match, maybe it wasn’t. But I wasn’t going to pay $100 to find out.
This was a year and a half ago.
The game is on sale for 75% off this weekend. $25. We measured this to be 50% off, considering that without the microtransactions, the entire game would probably be worth $50. And 50% off a game that the reviews say is a combination of your two favorite genres? Well, that’s a risk worth taking.
So I picked it up.
I just skimmed through the tutorial and noticed two things:
1. The overlap with XCom is somewhat exaggerated (for now, anyway). Rather, there are attacks like “pushing the enemy”, where you can push an enemy into an obstacle or another enemy, dealing damage to both. You cannot push enemies sideways, so you must position yourself on the opposite side of them to line them up.
2. There are *a lot* of slightly unpleasant Reddit dialogues. It’s another thing to have Spider-Man say he’s sarcastic every two seconds. It’s quite another to have jokes on various title cards. An example is shown below.
And so far almost all the dialogues are like this.
I think when things like this were rare, it would have been perceived as irreverent and subversive. But what about when it’s everywhere? It’s not destructive anymore. Whatever it has been trying to destroy is no longer in control. So that’s just irreverent. Every time something like this happened, I found myself saying, “Yes, yes, let’s get back to the game.” And it *always* showed up.
However, if you’re lucky, you’ll be able to enjoy the gameplay without noticing any of this.
So far, it’s not bad.
After the tutorial, create your own character. You are the Big Bad’s child in the game, you defeated her centuries ago, and now it’s time to defeat her again:
Unfortunately, you can’t make it thicker.
The game requires you to alternate between your home base (which is full of customizable elements) and combat, both of which are pretty competent. Customize your character’s costume, run around, talk to other heroes who will talk to you as if he woke up three centuries in the future, and use the hero bulletin board to read their “funny” jokes You can adjust the deck.
You run around the battlefield, slamming enemies into enemies, enemies into obstacles, and obstacles into enemies. I haven’t encountered any “cover” yet (though I’ve only been in a few missions in the game).
Draw cards from your pool and play against your opponent. In addition to direct attacks, each hero has something unique (so far). Blade has a card that can make his opponent “bleed,” Iron Man has a card that can damage everyone on the field, and Captain Marvel has cards like: Dealing damage in a straight line… something like that.
Overall, I’m happy with how I got this game, and if you can get past the “humor,” you’ll be glad you picked it up.
But seriously, it’s no fun when everyone is talking like Spider-Man and then Spider-Man shows up and starts swearing. He’s just doing what every other player in the game does.
So…what are you playing?
