• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Marvel Midnight Suns | Review Thread

amigastar

Member
Absolutely flawless. No bugs, no crashes. Looks amazing. Loading times are fast. Only some texts are a bit too small but I bet that's gonna be fixed real soon. If you wanna play it now there is nothing to worry about.
How's the DualSense? Is it good or rather forgettable?
 
I was hoping it would be like xcom where you mamage your squad and facilities between battles, but was under the impression you battle then sit through tedious dialogue and thats it?
You’ll do both both actually, the Xcom building part and squad management are there although a bit different. It’s a big mash of genres.
 

xrnzaaas

Member
Absolutely flawless. No bugs, no crashes. Looks amazing. Loading times are fast. Only some texts are a bit too small but I bet that's gonna be fixed real soon. If you wanna play it now there is nothing to worry about.
It's nice to hear it runs well on the PS5, I love XCOM2 but the PS4 version had horrible loading times and it kept crashing more and more often late in the campaign. It probably helped that this time they planned this as a multiplatform game from the start.
 
The abby life sim stuff really isn’t that bad at all. Its not overly time consuming tbh, you do more research and development, upgrading skills and gear, and party management then social stuff.

You only really gotta do a couple quick social things a day. Also, the writing isn’t great, but its entertaining if you’re into the marvel lore/history. Its quippy and to the point mostly.

I’m honestly not sure why anyone would have high expectations for writing in a marvel game. It’s about the same level as the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games
 
Last edited:

Raphael

Member
From what i read its like an incredible 10 min battle and then 20 mins of useless dialogue on a loop?
Thats roughly what i have seen on a lets play. However proportion might be more 50/50. The writing isnt too good either.
I will wait for a sale or game pass sadly.
 
Last edited:

Jennings

Member
I'm not trying to shit on the game here, but due to consistent good word of mouth since the game's release I decided to buy this for Xbox. But when I go to the Xbox store all I can buy are the premium editions. And when I open any of these editions and try to select only the base game out of the bundle, it tells me that the base game is not sold separately from the premium bundles.

How much of a moron am I that I can't seem to find a way to buy the base game, because I haven't seen a new release limit purchases to premium editions before, and I have to assume I'm doing something wrong.
 
Last edited:
I'm not trying to shit on the game here, but due to consistent good word of mouth since the game's release I decided to buy this for Xbox. But when I go to the Xbox store all I can buy are the premium editions. And when I open any of these editions and try to select only the base game out of the bundle, it tells me that the base game is not sold separately from the premium bundles.

How much of a moron am I that I can't seem to find a way to buy the base game, because I haven't seen a new release limit purchases to premium editions before, and I have to assume I'm doing something wrong.

Its the same on PSN, i paid 70 dollars for it, i just assumed it was the base price cause thats what it was on xbox also.
 

Freeman76

Member
The abby life sim stuff really isn’t that bad at all. Its not overly time consuming tbh, you do more research and development, upgrading skills and gear, and party management then social stuff.

You only really gotta do a couple quick social things a day. Also, the writing isn’t great, but its entertaining if you’re into the marvel lore/history. Its quippy and to the point mostly.

I’m honestly not sure why anyone would have high expectations for writing in a marvel game. It’s about the same level as the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games

Tbh i never expect good writing in any videogame lol, its ok as long as it isnt an integral part of the game though. I struggled with Persona 5 (which ive seen a lot of ppl compare this too dialogue wise) due to the insane amount of dialogue it just put me off playing it. Skipping it feels like missing half the game but I just cant be arsed to sit through it.

Xcom games had me hooked for hours on end, i loved the mix of combat and management, it was perfect for my taste. I will def play this game but the social parts are what make me think i might regret paying full price for it now.
 

Jennings

Member
Its the same on PSN, i paid 70 dollars for it, i just assumed it was the base price cause thats what it was on xbox also.
Okay, the cheapest purchaseable option is also $70 on Xbox, it's a bundle that contains the base game plus a pack with 5 cosmetic outfits.

I guess the problem lies with my understanding of base game for this title.

Thanks for the reply.
 
Last edited:
10 min battles? Maybe in the tutorial/early game, and on easy difficulty. Speaking of, they're really engaging and with enough tactical depth to allow for a lot of flexibility in how you approach them.

Anyway, like remember_spinal remember_spinal said, another short session turned into 5 hours, most of that time spent exploring the Abbey. I wasn't expecting it to be such a vast location full of challenges, secrets, loot etc. It gives me such a Fire Emblem: Three Houses and past Bioware rpgs vibe. Hanging out with your buddies, sparring with them, decorating your room, reading books and documents. Then in true XCOM fashion you have your research and upgrades, you can create new items and stations, send teammates on special ops.

Great game so far.
 

marjo

Member
The abbey stuff is more than just social interaction. There's a lot to explore and discover. I think the main issue people have is that they expected Firaxis to make a strategy tactics game, and this more of an RPG. (With awesome tactical combat encounters). I'm personally loving it.
 

amigastar

Member
The abbey stuff is more than just social interaction. There's a lot to explore and discover. I think the main issue people have is that they expected Firaxis to make a strategy tactics game, and this more of an RPG. (With awesome tactical combat encounters). I'm personally loving it.
Exactly, it's a Videogame in it's purest sense/form. Tactical Combat and an Area to discover and interact with and having fun.
 
Last edited:

ANDS

Banned
Okay, the cheapest purchaseable option is also $70 on Xbox, it's a bundle that contains the base game plus a pack with 5 cosmetic outfits.

The base game is 70 dollars on consoles because of course it is. Should it be 70 bucks? Nope. Did 2K still, even when already benefitting from the next-gen tax, force Firaxis to shove a shitty "Marketplace" into the game with the removal of two high end skins for each character? Yes, they clearly did. Everything wrong with this game from a third-person view is entirely on 2K and this garbage need to force EVERY game into the "AAA Space." This is not a 70 dollar game; not from a value proposition perspective but simple math: GOW:R is 70 dollars. Does anyone think MMS costs the same to make? Maybe the license is that expensive (I doubt it).

. . .the biggest problem with the game is that the art direction just doesn't fit. This should have been WILDLY comic stylized and I bet a lot of the complaints about "tone" would go out the window. Imagine the game looked something like the actual promo trailers, with incredible cell-shading work and vibrant colors. FE:TH worked for me a lot because the very competent (much more than MMS) story here, while still cheesy, was matched with nice breezy anime visuals. Here everything is played way too fucking straight, such that. This mostly affects the cutscenes and everything at the Abbey - which is actually a very good idea for the game that just doesn't fit within this game engine. Same with the UI which is almost Gotham Knights level of lazy.

Also agree (with reviews) that the VA work for the Hunter is not as good as it could be. They sound like they're shaking off a night of gummies and booze, just very muted.

Everything else about the game is fantastic. Something tells me a game like this probably didn't want to be played and reviewed in the compressed schedule that "Day 1 views" demands. Like, if I was playing this game, as my job, for 8 hours a day, 8 hours where you aren't idling or fucking around in the Abbey and instead are constantly pushing the game forward to meet a deadline - yeah. I can see the complaints. When I don't want to deal with the Abbey, I just go to sleep so I can grind another mission. There is no FE:TH or XCOM timer so there's ZERO pressure (Spiderman and Venom have been, by my count, swinging around Manhattan for at least a week while I experiment with party comps).
 

BennyBlanco

aka IMurRIVAL69
Started this last night and I kinda love it. I just skip the dialogue for the most part. The combat is fun as hell.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
Solomon-sama, I kneel...

So I bought this despite my significant reservations, because it got good reviews and Firaxis has never led me astray. This game is fantastic. I normally don't like card games because they feel unnatural, stupid, and random, but here it feels logical and keeps you on your toes. The combat system also fits better with the capeshit than XCOM with cover and chance to hit would, obviously. Just really smart design that I am still learning about. The abbey feels like an evolution of the XCOM HQ, with a focus on exploration and ME-style character development along with the technology upgrades and resource management. But it IS a big part of the game and I would recommend skipping it if you don't want to play that part, or if you are sick of capeshit (I don't watch the movies).

Somehow this game works, I really thought it looked dumb as hell but they nailed it.
 
Last edited:

Coconutt

Gold Member
Great game been playing since release. I find the gameplay itself pretty addicting, gotta say that the character interactions can be pretty cringe at times but in spite of that it is not enough to deter me from playing. Would give it a solid 8.5 out of 10, one of this years better releases.
 
Can someone tell me where I can find this goddamn cat? It doesn't show on the map. The fucking dog does but not the cat. Is there a way to tell?
 
Man this game is fantastic. Didn't think I would like all the abbey stuff but the gameplay loop is very rewarding and addicitng.

Combat is obviously great. Could be my goty
 

chixdiggit

Member
Hmmm sounds good though I think I will wait for price drop and pick up Warhammer Chaos Gate instead for my Turn Based Combat fix as you can find it on PC for $25
 
I found a cat by that altar on the grounds.
where you go to meet Agatha I think
It's the same cat. Called Ebony. It heals all wounded team members. I found it in the abbey, in the room with the symbols on the wall at the end. I know it spawns in the library at some point but I have no clue where to look for the fucking thing.
 

FoxMcChief

Gold Member
It's the same cat. Called Ebony. It heals all wounded team members. I found it in the abbey, in the room with the symbols on the wall at the end. I know it spawns in the library at some point but I have no clue where to look for the fucking thing.
Hey! Don’t disrespect the cat!
 

ToadMan

Member
I got this on PS5 - played about 15 hours so far so these are initial impressions.

First things first, I’m not a Marvel fan really - I’ve watched a few movies but skipped most of the later Avengers MCU stuff (so far anyway).

1) It runs very well on PS5. There’s not much DualSense support but I can’t see where they would put that in this game anyway. Other than that, it’s been smooth sailing.

2) Gameplay isn’t really like XCOM - it’s different enough to be its own thing both in the missions and the Abbey. The missions themselves don’t seem (so far) to take as long as XCOM ones although there are some caveats. Personally I like this focus on actions and tighter play areas - it allows me to focus on the meat of card play. In the context of this game, bigger play areas wouldn’t really make sense I guess.

3) So the missions are card based. Each hero contributes 8 cards and there are 3 heroes so 24 cards in your mission “deck”. However card play is impacted by playfield positioning so choosing where to move and play cards is an element of the mechanics.

Handsize is 6 and you fill up to that number each round. So while cards introduce some randomness there’s not as much card draw luck as the card based gameplay might imply. Add in that the hero card hand has composition rules coupled with a few game time mechanics, and it’s unlikely a bad card draw will cause problems.

However the cards a hero takes into battle are user configurable within the composition ruleset - I wouldn’t really call this deck building since 8 cards isn’t enough to really constitute a deck. But there are various rarities of cards and each can be upgraded.

4) The Abbey is where the heroes are outfitted with new … outfits, as well as cards. Some stuff is cosmetic, some has gameplay effects.

Yes there is the social aspect which increases cohesion between characters and the team as a whole. Doing this gives in-mission benefits.

The Abbey parts are quite deep and offer quite a lot of tinkering. Some stuff is “serious” and related to mission effects, and some is just side fun like having different outfits for hanging at the Abbey.

5) Socials and dialogue. There seems to be a lot of negativity around this, and I’m a snob when it comes to dialogue - but actually I found this to be fine so far and there’s not that much dialogue between missions - this isn’t Yakuza or an RPG or something. It’s mostly short and skippable.

The dialogue is typical of stuff like the Ironman movies - have grand world domination threat conversations, mixed in with run of the mill day to day stuff that doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s fine, there are a number of references to other movies early in the game, the characters are largely in keeping with their cinematic counterparts.

Yeah - like a lot of games the voice acting doesn’t always fit the context and the talking head animation is stilted.

But anyway, I’d say the socials here are easy enough to stomach, don’t take up that much time and are skippable if you’re not feeling it.

6) What I did find jarring about the Abbey compared to XCOM is getting around. Here you control your character so doing the busy work needs you to run around the abbey visiting places.

Some stuff can be done through menus but there is time required to get around that wasn’t there so much in XCOM.



Anyway so far I’m enjoying this a lot - it’s a surprise hit and I’ve got one eye on the DLC already.

I view the abbey stuff as a kind of Marvel playset. Just have fun with some familiar and not so familiar characters - it reminds me of those DOA titles, dating and choosing the outfits of characters there - some parts of the Abbey seem to be an ironic take on that. The missions are fun to play and while you create your own hero, they aren’t required all the time if you prefer to use other more familiar characters.

Surprise hit so far for me.
 
Last edited:

Freeman76

Member
I caved in and bought this, and ah man what a cool game. Played around 3 hours and loved every second of it, all my reservations have been proven wrong, and I'm really looking forward to putting more time into it. Crazy how they used such a different system to Xcom combat yet it feels massively similar at the same time.
 

amigastar

Member
Just a question,
when i level up with a character can i manually increase stats or does this happen automatically, i haven't found anything yet.
 

FoxMcChief

Gold Member
Great word of mouth. I was hoping we’d have a Digital Foundry comparison video by now, to help bring the game to more eyes.
 

Hambone

Member
Is there a way to change my team when I lose? All it seems I can do is load an old save or go to the main menu.

I can see that being a good quality-of-life feature that if you lose you can reform your team. As for now, it should give you an auto-save right before you launched the mission, so it's not that big of an inconvenience.

Did not see myself enjoying this game as much as I have been. This meme from Reddit pretty much sums it up my first 10 hours (I'll spoiler tag just in case)

dfx1uix2q64a1.jpg
 

xrnzaaas

Member
I got this on PS5 - played about 15 hours so far so these are initial impressions.

First things first, I’m not a Marvel fan really - I’ve watched a few movies but skipped most of the later Avengers MCU stuff (so far anyway).

1) It runs very well on PS5. There’s not much DualSense support but I can’t see where they would put that in this game anyway. Other than that, it’s been smooth sailing.

2) Gameplay isn’t really like XCOM - it’s different enough to be its own thing both in the missions and the Abbey. The missions themselves don’t seem (so far) to take as long as XCOM ones although there are some caveats. Personally I like this focus on actions and tighter play areas - it allows me to focus on the meat of card play. In the context of this game, bigger play areas wouldn’t really make sense I guess.

3) So the missions are card based. Each hero contributes 8 cards and there are 3 heroes so 24 cards in your mission “deck”. However card play is impacted by playfield positioning so choosing where to move and play cards is an element of the mechanics.

Handsize is 6 and you fill up to that number each round. So while cards introduce some randomness there’s not as much card draw luck as the card based gameplay might imply. Add in that the hero card hand has composition rules coupled with a few game time mechanics, and it’s unlikely a bad card draw will cause problems.

However the cards a hero takes into battle are user configurable within the composition ruleset - I wouldn’t really call this deck building since 8 cards isn’t enough to really constitute a deck. But there are various rarities of cards and each can be upgraded.

4) The Abbey is where the heroes are outfitted with new … outfits, as well as cards. Some stuff is cosmetic, some has gameplay effects.

Yes there is the social aspect which increases cohesion between characters and the team as a whole. Doing this gives in-mission benefits.

The Abbey parts are quite deep and offer quite a lot of tinkering. Some stuff is “serious” and related to mission effects, and some is just side fun like having different outfits for hanging at the Abbey.

5) Socials and dialogue. There seems to be a lot of negativity around this, and I’m a snob when it comes to dialogue - but actually I found this to be fine so far and there’s not that much dialogue between missions - this isn’t Yakuza or an RPG or something. It’s mostly short and skippable.

The dialogue is typical of stuff like the Ironman movies - have grand world domination threat conversations, mixed in with run of the mill day to day stuff that doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s fine, there are a number of references to other movies early in the game, the characters are largely in keeping with their cinematic counterparts.

Yeah - like a lot of games the voice acting doesn’t always fit the context and the talking head animation is stilted.

But anyway, I’d say the socials here are easy enough to stomach, don’t take up that much time and are skippable if you’re not feeling it.

6) What I did find jarring about the Abbey compared to XCOM is getting around. Here you control your character so doing the busy work needs you to run around the abbey visiting places.

Some stuff can be done through menus but there is time required to get around that wasn’t there so much in XCOM.



Anyway so far I’m enjoying this a lot - it’s a surprise hit and I’ve got one eye on the DLC already.

I view the abbey stuff as a kind of Marvel playset. Just have fun with some familiar and not so familiar characters - it reminds me of those DOA titles, dating and choosing the outfits of characters there - some parts of the Abbey seem to be an ironic take on that. The missions are fun to play and while you create your own hero, they aren’t required all the time if you prefer to use other more familiar characters.

Surprise hit so far for me.
Cool impressions, the game's slowly going up on my wishlist. Have you experienced any crashes on the PS5? I've seen various posts from people complaining about them at the end of the mission or when collecting rewards.
 
Last edited:
If there was no forced main character and no forced Abbey sections this would honestly be a 10/10 from me. I was really skeptical about the card system but it is a pure joy to play.

I don't hate the Abbey stuff but I find myself just clicking through the dialogue now to get to the next mission ASAP. I wouldn't mind if it was more like X-com where you have to make actual choices about base building but here it is just choosing the order to build upgrade stuff mixed with mediocre dialogue.
 

Freeman76

Member
I do too, but this doesn't to really read like an XCom 3 in marvel clothing - though I may be reading that wrong.

To me its very much Xcom in Marvel clothing. Yeah the systems are very different but the Abbey is basically a physical version of the base upgrade segments of Xcom, and the card battles are different but still have the same kind of feel. You can definitely tell it was made by the same people.
 

ANDS

Banned
To all the people bemoaning the Abbey - just don't do it? Like the game tells you way early on "You don't have to do ANY of this." Yes, you are going to gimp your characters, but if you don't want Hero passives, or some cosmetics, you can skip a great deal of the game you find unappealing. I don't even think you have to do ANY of the social stuff after a mission and can just go right to sleep to restart the day, collect your mission rewards and move on.

To me its very much Xcom in Marvel clothing. Yeah the systems are very different but the Abbey is basically a physical version of the base upgrade segments of Xcom, and the card battles are different but still have the same kind of feel. You can definitely tell it was made by the same people.

Not. . .really. As a poster above you mentioned, the only competition for upgrades is in time and resources. There's no "urgency" like in XCOM because it isn't that kind of game. You will never fall behind in MMS, because you can't. Same with the actual battle system; other than being a strategy game (that isn't turn based beyond you take your full turn and the enemy takes there's) there isn't much similarity beyond a surface one.

The only design decision that seems to be brought over from XCOM is static random number generation preventing outcome-scumming (which I prefer because otherwise the systems are trivialized and you're rerolling every random event to get what you want).
 

Freeman76

Member
To all the people bemoaning the Abbey - just don't do it? Like the game tells you way early on "You don't have to do ANY of this." Yes, you are going to gimp your characters, but if you don't want Hero passives, or some cosmetics, you can skip a great deal of the game you find unappealing. I don't even think you have to do ANY of the social stuff after a mission and can just go right to sleep to restart the day, collect your mission rewards and move on.



Not. . .really. As a poster above you mentioned, the only competition for upgrades is in time and resources. There's no "urgency" like in XCOM because it isn't that kind of game. You will never fall behind in MMS, because you can't. Same with the actual battle system; other than being a strategy game (that isn't turn based beyond you take your full turn and the enemy takes there's) there isn't much similarity beyond a surface one.

The only design decision that seems to be brought over from XCOM is static random number generation preventing outcome-scumming (which I prefer because otherwise the systems are trivialized and you're rerolling every random event to get what you want).

Nah, I played a lot of xcom and as I said, it is a different system but feels very similar to me in the way the battles play out.
 
Top Bottom