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Marvel's Midnight Suns


DisturbedSwan
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So, this is the new game from the Civ and XCOM developers, Firaxis.

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly then, it is a turn-based game. It's safe to say it's more closely aligned to XCOM than Civ though, but this has an ace (or many aces to be exact) up its sleeve that differentiates it from just being a Marvel XCOM game, and that's the largely divisive (from Previews) inclusion of Cards into the combat. As a result of the cards coming into play, the game isn't as rigid or locked into a grid like it is in XCOM, you're free to move somewhere within the little combat arena you're placed in once per turn, with certain placements being preferable, scoring knockbacks or environmental attacks. You can draw three cards per turn, but certain cards do get refunded as they're used up, giving you an additional card or two per turn, you can also redraw any card you're not happy with twice per turn.

 

A lot of the cards so far are quite basic, in that they are 'standard' kind of slash/punch kind of moves, but they do come with additional benefits like knockbacks, chain attacks, inflicting bleed damage and the ilk, on top of these you've got ability cards which gives you and your team buffs as you fight and hero cards which are much more powerful and usually allow you to take out multiple enemies at a time, the kicker being that you need 'heroism' to use them, which is gained by taking out enemies. The enemies themselves have been fairly standard grunts for the most part, if you imagine the basic super soldiers from XCOM, then it's pretty much the same here, just they're now Hydra Soldiers. The bosses have been more interesting as they're now various Marvel villains instead of snake-creatures or something like they were in the XCOM titles. 

 

As established in the paragraphs above, the game shares a lot of DNA with XCOM, and that's no bad thing, the animations, certain effects you can pull of like the knockbacks mentioned earlier and the environmental attacks all look and feel very similar to XCOM but they've now got a more grandiose superhero sheen on them. You'll head out on missions from the 'war room' with yourself ('The Hunter') and two other heroes chosen at random to assist you. You'll about your task, fight a boss or retrieve an item at the end of it and then return back to your base.

 

It's in this base segment of the game where you can see where Firaxis has been far more ambitious than their previous title. In XCOM, the base was an important part of the game where you'd build new sections, invest research points into them to help bolster certain specialisations, new weapons and all that good stuff. All of this DNA is contained within the 'Abbey' in this game, which is a huge Cathedral with sprawling grounds for you to explore to your hearts content, you explore this in 3D in your role as the Hunter, gone are the days of a 2D plain, seeing all your little soldiers move into their newly built wing. It's super impressive and such a great feeling 'base' right away that really makes you feel at home, all the segments you'd expect to be there are in their place but there's also tons of secrets to explore and a sprawling grounds containing blocked passageways which will likely reveal themselves to me later on.

 

The Abbey has the feel of the School in Fire Emblem Three Houses or the Normandy in Mass Effect to it. This also takes inspiration from those titles in the new social links system, where you can sit down and hang out around the Abbey with your new team mates as you assimilate and get used to your new surroundings, doing so gets you friendship points which levels up your bond with your squad mates as the game goes on. I'm not too far into the game but I assume the more it goes on the more activities around the Abbey get unlocked and some of the more mysterious bits and pieces I've seen so far unveil themselves. The Abbey is the most ambitious element of the game and is almost a game unto itself, it makes me realise why it got delayed a few times. 

 

So yeah, I've loved my time with it so far (probably about 4-5 hours) and can't wait to play more, it's a real breath of fresh air compared to some of the other stuff I've played lately.

 

To be continued and pics added.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I never updated my original post and here I am now 25-30 hours in (not sure of the exact time) and this keeps getting better and better. It’s engrossing and moorish in all the best ways. 
 

The three pillars of the game in the action tactical card turn-based combat, social persona-esque shenanigans of the Abbey coupled with the various mysteries and exploration opportunities of the larger Abbey grounds all come together so perfectly. Perhaps more importantly they stop the game from ever feeling boring, you’re never doing one of the three activities for very long before moving onto the next and there is always little things to do that the game moves at such a great pace that entire virtual days go by in the game and hours in the real world without you realising it. 
 

None of the three aspects to the game feel wasted or neglected, every part feels integral and given the love it deserves, everything feels part of a whole and nothing feels phoned in or unnecessary to the overall game.

 

The story has been great with some new cool characters introduced already and a few more to come in the near future I’m sure. There’s twists and turns in there I haven’t expected, the fallout of some are reflected in the social side of the game where certain characters feelings on key events are reflected upon. The characters, dialogue and voice acting is all really written and performed which makes you feel like you know these famous characters and personalities more than perhaps you ever have.

 

A tip though for anyone who plays it, the side missions are endless and don’t go away, I found out the hard way when I kept doing them day after day and more and more started popping up. I googled it and sure enough they are procedural and don’t end. 
 

It’s easier than XCOM on the Normal difficulty and it’s possible to grind away to your hearts content thanks to the endless supply of side missions. There is a story difficulty and about 9 higher difficulty options to try though but I’m having enough fun with the combat on Normal for now with new threats and enemies being introduced with regularity. 
 

It’s nothing less than extraordinary. The Abbey feels like ‘home’ so to

speak and is so cool hanging out there going about your little tasks around the Abbey night and die, diving into a mission and then exploring the grounds to explore a new mystery every now and then.
 

Pics:

 

Spoiler

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I’ve played about 3 hours of it so far, and it’s pretty damn good. The combat is simple enough to pick up, and very satisfying. The story is interesting. I’ve seen it hit a fair few “Worst of 2022” lists on various YouTube channels. Which leaves me thinking “What the fuck? Did you even play Saints Row? As that game was absolute wank”. 
 

Nah. I’m really enjoying this.

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I really don't get the negativity this got before/upon release really, a lot of it seem to be from folks that have either not played it, hate the card mechanic being in the game or are annoyed Firaxis spent their time on this and not XCOM 3 and hold some kind of grudge. I've seen it on a couple of GOTY lists, most notably from PC Gamer where it got runner-up to the inevitable Elden Ring.

 

In regards to my own progress, I had another solid day of progress last week before that all came to a halt on NYE and has continued into January. I did make it to the end of Act I at the weekend though and things have ramped up in difficulty since, towards the end of Act 1 I was going into almost every mission overconfident as I did probably too many side missions which made my team a bit OP but the first side mission I did in Act 2 absolutely kicked my arse and handed me two knock outs, with one new enemy type introduced and two carried over from the tense Act 1 mission finale. So yeah, there's no more going through missions (even side missions) on autopilot anymore in Act 2.

 

One of the things I've loved most about this game is it feels like I'm always learning new stuff. There's so much information to take in, so many tutorials, different systems in combat, in the abbey, in the social side of the game to take in and learn how they work that it can feel overwhelming and bewildering at times in the beginning but the more you play the more you feel at ease with how everything works in harmony, there are things even now at 30-35 odd hours in that are being introduced and new stuff thrown at me, which is cool.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Put in about 20 hours now, really enjoying this. Been doing most

of the side missions, so I’ve only just got to Act 2. It’s certainly an addictive game, the combat is really satisfying. Majik is my favourite character, her abilities are brilliant for crowd control, and killing multiple enemies at once. 
Which is helpful when you’re getting ganked by loads of enemies.

 

If you like X-Com, this is definitely a must play. 

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Glad you're enjoying it @AndyKurosakithink you got to Act 2 quite a bit quicker than I did but then I did do a lot of faffing about as I usually do in most games lol.

 

I haven't had too many chances to play this lately, about 4-5 hours over the weekend and probably around the same last weekend so progress has been quite slow but I've recently finished the third story mission in Act 2, I'm not spending as much time with the side quests as I did a lot of them at the beginning of the game, but yeah the story missions have been a lot of fun. Without giving anything away I've been trying to do one of the 'mystery' side missions for awhile now and keep getting my arse handed to me, you have to kill a certain number of demons and survive 4 turns and it has kicked my arse repeatedly.

 

@mfnick I'd say it's still worth playing personally. Every character comes with pre-made deck as standard and it's up to you really how much you want to customise that deck, jig around with it etc. really, you can just kind of go along with what the game gives you and throws at you, subbing out worse cards for better ones as you go on, you can engage with it as much as you want really.

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I had a go at one of those side missions, probably the one you’re talking about. I’ve failed it twice and sacked it off for now. Couldn’t figure out what I was meant to do. 
 

Deck building isn’t a massive issue. I’m not an expert at that kind of stuff, but I’ve managed to get by so far. You get a generous amount of cards thrown at you, and by doing side quests you soon get access to more powerful versions of them. 
 

Some characters are definitely better than others. I’m not too keen on Ghost Rider, as although his abilities do damage, they inflict a fair amount of damage to him as well. 
 

Characters you don’t use level up regardless, and some missions require you to use a specific character, so you’ll soon get chance to figure out who you like to use.

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Yeah it might well've been Andy, the first two didn't give me too much trouble, more puzzle fights that I was scratching my head on for a bit and then inevitably turned to Google for help. This third one though there's no straight-up guide to get through it, it's down to using the ol' noggin and that has failed me thus far lol. I manage to wipe out the number of enemies required but fail either because a squad member gets KO'd for the second time or I run out of turns (have to do it in 4). It's difficult, I might drop the difficulty tonight. I think some special ability cards that give you heroism and an extra card play might help too if I can craft some of them.

 

I agree some characters are definitely better than others. I really like Spidey, Magik, Nico, Hunter (obvs.) and Ghost Rider but the rest I dabble with but have never really impressed me a lot, some of their card attacks are just a bit underpowered compared to the likes of those listed above.

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Definitely. Majik is brilliant as she has so many attacks that can damage multiple enemies. There’s been fights where I’ve not been able to use her, turning what should have been a simple enough fight, to a massive 20 minute slugfest. 
 

Nearing the end of Part 2 I think. Still loving this for the most part. Though there was a mission last night, filled with constantly respawning enemies that would have been a massive ballache without Majik. 

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Finished Part 2, onto Part 3. There’s been some significant difficulty spikes from time to time, because of the demon enemies introduced in Part 2. One of them is a right cunt. Every time you hit it, it splits into a slightly weaker clone of itself. Which is bad enough, but it also has an attack that creates a copy of literally any other enemy. So if you don’t have some powerful area attack abilities (Majik for the win, best character in my opinion), you can soon get overwhelmed. 
 

Then there’s another fucker that casts “soul link”, connecting its health to another enemy. The only way to kill them, is to kill all the soul-linked enemies in your turn, and you get a maximum of 3 attacks per turn. Combine them with the copying arseholes, and you can quickly find yourself in a fight that’s literally unwinnable. 
 

Thankfully, those kind of scenarios haven’t happened often. 
 

I’ve used google/YouTube a few times to suss some stuff out. Once you reach maximum friendship level with a character, you unlock a Challenge specifically for them. Complete it, and you earn a powerful new ability, and a snazzy outfit. Problem is, there’s only one way to solve each puzzle. And because I suck at puzzles, I’d have absolutely no chance without resorting to a video guide. 
 

Done the same with some of the “mystery” side missions, as frankly some of them you’d not figure out at all without some guidance. 
 

Still, it’s a bloody good game. And it’s getting Deadpool DLC added from Jan 26th. Should be interesting.

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Yeah Magik is great, I really like using Nico, Hunter and her in combination as their attack cards seem to compliment each other really well, likewise with Ghost Rider who has great AoE effects and damages multiple enemies at a time. I did a side mission with Spidey last night as well in combination with Nico and Captain Marvel and Spidey alone took out about 10 enemies in one turn with his 0 heroism cost environmental attack card, super handy that.

 

I think I'm not far away from where you are, the last story mission I did last night resulted in the squad adding 

Spoiler

Wanda

to the team, so I've not sure how many more story missions I've got left in Act 2. I agree the difficulty has definitely ramped up, those 'soul link' enemies where you have to take them all out in one turn and the splitter enemies who can multiple other enemies can be a right ballache especially if you don't have the right cards in the deck at that time.

 

I got past that challenge mystery mission I mentioned in my previous post but I had to drop the difficulty to 'story' and even then I only just managed it by a whisker, how I managed it was not spending 2 heroism on reviving an ally and instead using it to do a final attack on the last enemy I needed, thankfully that did the job. 

 

I then did some more exploring and found another mystery mission to do but I'm not at the required level (16) yet so I'll come back to this later, I think it'll be another pain in the arse to complete.

 

But yeah, I absolutely love it too, it's a fantastic game. 

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I didn’t get around to to the mystery missions til later on. I had to Google how to even do them, as it wasn’t obvious to me at all. By that point I was maximum level (25) and thrashed them all first time.

 

You’re definitely at the end of Part 2. I’ve reached the final mission of Part 3 (the game helpfully warns you that it’s the last mission). I’ve a bit more I want to get done before I tackle that.

 

There has unfortunately been a few times where the game has utterly crashed, which can be extremely annoying mid game. 
 

Ah well. That’s only happened about 3 times, in 40+ hours. So it could be worse.

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Wow that's impressive, I'm nowhere near Level 25, I think Hunter is Level 12 or 13 at the moment and the rest of my squad between 9-12.

 

Ok that's cool I haven't got much longer left of Act 2, fingers crossed I get time to hopefully finish it over the weekend or the Wife falls asleep in the evening the next couple of nights lol.

 

I had one side mission about 5 hours in that crashed upon completion no matter what I did, I tried redoing it, reloading a save, wiping the save and going back to an older one then re-doing it again to no avail so I gave up on it, this was when I thought side missions weren't infinite so I was a bit annoyed. Carried on after that and haven't had any issues since other than minor bits of slowdown when I do a multi-KO on some enemies in a mission.

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I definitely over-levelled during Part 2, because a lot of research tasks in the Forge involve completing 3 missions with a character, i grindeed and did multiple side missions. That led to getting better cards/mods, and quickly levelling up my Friendships with each character. 

 

Ghost Rider remains my least favourite, as every attack he does inflicts a fair bit of damage to him. 
Majik remains a go-to, as she has so many abilities that inflict serious damage on multiple enemies.

 

Having said that, several characters have attacks that let you chain multiple enemies, leading to several KOs at once. Spider-Man and Iron Man are pretty good for that.

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I’d definitely recommend everyone giving it a go. I’ve found it extremely hard to put down, and from little I’ve played of the Deadpool DLC so far, it’s not disappointed me. 
 

It’s genuinely a bloody good game. Now I’m back from my holiday, I’ll get round to finishing the campaign.

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