The best Avengers game without being one | Marvel's Midnight Suns - First Impressions

Sure, it is titled Marvel’s Midnight Suns, but don’t let the relatively inconspicuous title fool you. It is a full blown high-profile Marvel game packing a roster that features popular Marvel characters including Iron Man, Captain America, Doctor Strange, Wolverine, Spider-Man and The Hulk. As well as including less-known characters like Nico Minoru and Magik. All of these characters are fighting in a high-stakes interpersonal story involving the demon  Lilith, the military organization Hydra, as well as throwing other heroes and villains into the mix.

A couple of hours in, and I already dare say that Midnight Suns is a better Avengers game than the actual Marvel's Avengers game we got two years ago. With an innovative combat system, intriguing story, and a densely packed narrative with a novel’s worth of character development.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns allows you to create your own blank slate character nicknamed “The Hunter”. Customize his or her appearance and over the course of the game, personalize his abilities and build relationships with the different Marvel characters. This plays out similarly to Mass Effect’s Commander Shepard, or Dragon Age: Origin’s The Warden.  You can also customize the Marvel heroes appearances by unlocking cosmetics via exploration of the game’s hub level “The Abbey”, the team’s secret castle base. An unexpected element for a comic book video game, almost borderlining the realm of fan-fiction and fan service, where you can create your own person and meet your favorite superheroes and save the day.

Here’s where I think it gets a little alienating for many potential players: the turn based combat system. It also features the rather unconventional mixing of card based game mechanics and turn-based XCOM-esque gameplay where positioning and the environment also matters.

The turn-based gameplay of Midnight Suns is beautifully done. At first I thought it was gonna be an JRPG turn-based combat, where the characters just stand in place taking turns to attack, but I was surprised at its energetic manner, interactivity with the environment, and the mobility offered to the combatants. It does a great job of translating that kinetic superhero fight set pieces that we are all familiar with and love, into turn-based format. You can throw stuff to enemies, punch them through the environment, and use it to your advantage.

Card system of Midnight Suns is commonly frowned upon based on early audience impressions, but I found it growing over me, it is even more fun and sustainable than traditional turn-based combat systems. The random nature of giving you random cards every fight keeps it fresh. It doesn't make me min-max my approach and doesn’t make me stick to the best skill combo available ever which inadvertently hurts the experience. This is saying a lot since the campaign can take more than a whopping 50 hours to finish and this card system is a literal savior in dealing with repetitiveness.

The character relationship and narrative part, again, is surprisingly good and expansive. In fact it even roughly comprises 70% of the game with only 30% being the actual combat gameplay.  It's ridiculous how narrative and character driven this game is and I’m saying that as a positive.

With over 60,000 lines of dialogue in Midnight Suns, there are tons of dialogue and conversation paths that you can take with the characters and the story. You are literally the glue of the team and everyone’s friend in this game. As said earlier, bearing many parallels to the Mass Effect series.

I do appreciate that all of the Marvel characters, popular or not, are represented very well in the story and gameplay. With their own moments to shine as well as accurately capturing their fighting styles, animations, mannerisms, and quips during fights.

A truly superb addition to the Marvel video game collection, It caught me off guard of how narrative driven it is, as well as the surprisingly fun and engaging combat that exceeded all my expectations. Basically everything in Marvel’s Midnight Suns surprised me in a good way, and it’s definitely one of the better titles to come out this year.