When the rumors started to spread about Marvel’s Midnight Suns, there seemed to be a sheer amount of excitement for it. Little by little the curtains were being pulled back about the game. The roster of heroes grabbed attention of new and old Marvel fanatics, and the customization aspect of the Hunter furthered interested gamers. However, was this enough to hold their attention?
Marvel’s Midnight Suns follows a band of famous heroes of the Marvel universe fighting off Hydra, whom have been able to resurrect the big baddie: Lilith. Unfortunately for them, not even the combined powers of Doctor Strange and Scarlett Witch can magic their way out of this problem. With the combined abilities and powers of Earth’s Mightiest heroes, the player finds themselves in control of the hero of this story, the Hunter. As the Hunter, they are the only individual that can defeat Lilith, their enemy and their mother.
Throughout the game you have the ability to fight alongside your favorite heroes to create the ultimate team. There is even the ability to customize the Hunter to how you want them to look, and their room. Aside from taking the role of the Hunter, you will be required to build friendships with some of Marvel’s popular characters. You can become best friends with Spider-Man and work on tools for battle, or even train with Blade in the Abbey.
The story has many twists and turns that even allows the player to choose to walk the line of good, or follow in their mother’s footsteps and play on the dark side. These choices follow you throughout the story which gives certain comrades boosts in your friendship levels, along with unlocking new abilities for your Hunter. Each character is mostly true to their comic origins aside from odd changes such as Blade’s mystifying crush on Carol Danvers. Many of these characters are even voiced by their previous voice actors, such as Steve Blum reprising his role as Wolverine and Nolan North returning as Deadpool; and as usual do fantastic jobs at their line deliveries.
Firaxis Games even had us looking forward to DLCs. As mentioned before we got Deadpool, but we were also given the chance to see an X-Men favorite, Storm, return to Marvel games. It didn’t just end with additional characters though. We were given additional story missions and upgrades for each new character release, giving gamers a reason to return to the game.
So why did Marvel’s Midnight Suns fade away?
I for one will say, book club makes no sense. You have the ability to hang out with certain characters working on certain projects, such as Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes) working in the garage. However, sitting down with Blade, Captain Marvel, Captain America, and even Wolverine just seemed a little uncomfortable.
It is also important to mention the surprising amount of glitches throughout the game. I myself experienced Carol rendering into the game on top of tables, Nico and Robbie being fused together in an arm chair, and Logan completely losing his head. It was all very unsettling.
However, I do believe the biggest negative about this game was the fact that gamers were not expecting the turn-based play-style. Many who picked up this game were more than likely familiar with Marvel’s Ultimate Alliance, X-MEN Legends, or have even played some of Marvel’s recent video game projects, such as Marvel’s Spider-Man. These games were all pretty consistent, action-packed where you’re given control of the characters.
While turned-based is not a poor choice, personally one of my favorite styles, this game may have been expected to be similar to Marvel Strike Force, or even Marvel Snap. What they were not expecting: a deck-building pseudo-tactical. I was almost certain I left the days of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories in the past, but they crept up.
With this deck-building you are given the choice of what cards you can use. However, it is fair to say it was not an easy concept to grasp at the very beginning of this game, despite the tutorial. In fact, it is almost as if many gamers dropped this game upon learning of this concept, and failed to return back just due to not being able to grasp it.
I do truly believe if the card concept was tossed out the window, Marvel’s Midnight Suns would have received a more positive review. It’s a shame, because for the most part the story is strong and pretty easy to follow. The characters are all written very well and you have the opportunity to learn more about your favorite comic book characters. All-in-all, the benefits just doesn’t seem to be worth it locked behind a card game.