Marvel’s Midnight Suns is an amazing anomaly; something that flew over my radar so hard when it came out that I picked up on a whim (while it was free), but it truely made me wish I would’ve bought it on release. I really had no clue what to expect, a card-based RPG featuring Marvel characters made by the XCOM team? I had the (wrong) idea that there would be dating elements too, but chalk it up to superhero fatigue or a lack of interest specifically for deckbuilders, I had ignored it then. Playing it now - with the DLC and all - was a really fun experience.
In a tight gameplay loop almost a mix of Fire Emblem games and XCOM, you run around your base, talk to characters, start research projects, unlock new cards and purchase upgrades, hang out with heroes, give them gift, explore the grounds, then you go do a fight. Afterwards, you have some more time, then you go to bed, rince, repeat. It’s a very addictive formula that feeds into the “one more turn” mentality these games have, with new upgrades or story beats always around the corner. Some aspects did make me raise an eyebrow, like the lack of any upgrade or research that took more than one day, or the lack of any time limits for anything. The day-based structure feels almost like an afterthought if there are basically no mechanics that leverage it, but it didn’t hurt the game too much.
Battles are pretty fun, you bring a team of three heroes, each with their decks of eight cards and your goal is usually to defeat all enemies, collect items (that you’ll get via defeating enemies), hack terminals (by defeating the enemies protecting them) or destroying a larger object. To do so, you play a few cards per turn, more your heroes and use items. Cards are the bread and butter of the combat loop and they often deal damage, but also generate Heroism, a resource needed to use more powerful cards. Furthermore, there are a lot of effects on them, like getting card plays refunded if you defeat an enemy, chaining to multiple targets, buffing or debuffing, allowing you to redraw more cards, and more. It’s a really good battle system, even if the lack of grid means you’ll have to contend with angles and lines that can get finnicky for no reason.
Characters are well-written even if they give the vibes of off-brand Marvel heroes sometimes, but the cast is diverse and they all play fairly differently. It was pretty fun going around on sidequests, increasing our relationship status with the members of the team and learning what gifts they liked. The game has a fairly extensive amount of stuff to do outside of battles, with a lot of exploration into the forests and other areas around the base, with an almost metroidvania flavor of new abilities to unlock that let you explore more places where you’ve already been. The lack of minimap, compass, waypoints made it extremely confusing, however. I really wish there had been any kind of navigational help there. There’s also various kinds of crafting, different resources to juggle, it’s a big game. We hit the level cap on many systems fairly early, so that was a bit disappointing.
Marvel’s Midnight Suns is worth your time. It’s really good, both on the gameplay and story/character side of things. I really didn’t know what I would get into, but I don’t regret it one bit. I absolutely recommend it.