Midnight Suns

This game has been a lot of fun. I think I played a decent amount, maybe 12 hours or more and there are still systems being unlocked and added. My characters are between level 8-11.

The one part they really nailed is the battle animations. Each move looks great and hits hard. I wish they had a replay mode where you could watch the battle without the breaks between turns

Bfgp wrote:

How long does each mission take on average?

They game is split between time at the Abbey and time in the missions. And time at the abbey is split between daytime and nighttime. So a typical day will be doing some things around the abbey that takes about 5-10 mins. This is usually stuff that improves your combat capacity like getting new cards or sending heroes out on passive missions that are rewarded with resources.

Then you choose a mission and go do that. There are story missions that have more dialogue and often a couple phases and then side missions which seem to fall into a few categories. It feels like the story missions take 20-30 mins and side missions are more like 15-20 mins. It does depend on how good you are and how long it takes you to choose actions.

When you get back from the missions it’s evening and the stuff you can do around the Abbey is different than during the day. Most of it is focused on socializing. Then you go to bed and start over the next day.

Who are people using as their main crew? I’ve been having a lot of fun focusing on pushback and environmental damage with Hunter and Magik, and then bringing along others to level them up. Blade has been my most common third so far, but I just rescued SpiderMan and he seems to fit the theme. I do wonder if environmental damage will increase as enemy health increases or if I’m eventually going to have to focus more on normal attacks.

Leveling up teamwork stuff boosts damage for environmental effects, and you get new move/push stuff. Lots of cool things.

I love Captain Marvel. Still figuring everyone else out.

Book Club

I haven’t gotten to book club yet, but I did laugh the first time I wore my Emo Kids outfit and Dr. Strange said ‘hello, fellow Emo Kid!’

The incidental dialog, as well as the main dialog, they are both amazing. I've noticed that what characters say to me changes over time as my personality becomes more clear to them. (In game terms, because of the choices I've made when speaking.) I can't imagine how much dialog was recorded, but it's absolutely astounding so far.

And Deadpool is an upcoming team member! I'm going to fanboy him.

The game suggested I up difficulty again last night. So I did. And I lost my first mission.

Partially I did it to myself with timing. I beat it very easy the second time, no one even KO.

It was a capture mission and when you capture the NPC the game sends in reinforcement units. Now if you do this at the first of a turn after the next wave has already entered it's like double. And all the ones you can't defeat will get damage turns on you. But if you do capture at the end of a turn, yes reinforcements show up, but since you've completed the primary goal, the next wave doesn't show up. Just defeat what is already spawned. Also the capture wave doesn't attack you immediately because your turn ended. So you have an entire turn to thin them out before they hit you.

Just that little switch made the fight tons easier. No one even got below half health for me.

And Spider-Man is like the ultimate trash cleaner with his chain attack. Can wipe out 4 enemies when it's upgraded! Maybe there's other AOE attacks that could do more but that's pretty solid. Looking at the stats he has to be my highest kill per mission ratio. He's passed Captain Marvel sushi already, only 2nd to Hunter, and he's been on probably 3 less missions.

How does this play on PS5 or Xbox? 60 fps? Controller is not too frustrating compared to M/K?

I'm calling it. This is my personal GOTY. Just so much unadulterated fun for a Marvel junkie like me. Firaxis did an amazing job adapting their tactical system in an entirely new and refreshing way. LOVE IT!

Balthezor wrote:

How does this play on PS5 or Xbox? 60 fps? Controller is not too frustrating compared to M/K?

I'm playing on PS5 and it's fine.

Smooth framerates, and combat with the controller is a lot like XCOM 2 / Divinity Original Sin -- L1/R1cycles through heroes/targets, D-Pad cycles through cards. Combat maps are small enough that the camera control and zoom are up to the job. You have to hold the button down to do things like redraw or end turn, so you can't goof up too badly.

Balthezor wrote:

How does this play on PS5 or Xbox? 60 fps? Controller is not too frustrating compared to M/K?

I'm playing on Series X. I think the controller controls are great. My only complaint about the console version is some of the text is pretty small and isn't the easiest to read from the couch. It feels like the UI text was designed for being close to a monitor. I can still see everything, but sometimes I do have to lean in a bit.

billt721 wrote:

Who are people using as their main crew? I’ve been having a lot of fun focusing on pushback and environmental damage with Hunter and Magik, and then bringing along others to level them up. Blade has been my most common third so far, but I just rescued SpiderMan and he seems to fit the theme. I do wonder if environmental damage will increase as enemy health increases or if I’m eventually going to have to focus more on normal attacks.

I try to mix it up a lot so I can get more cards for all the heroes. My top tier would include The Hunter, Blade, Spiderman, Wolverine, and Ironman. I think Nico, Magik, and Ghost Rider could move up the list as I get more cards for them and play them more. They feel more specialized. My most disappointing is Captain America. I don't like this version of Cap at all. I just unlocked Scarlet Witch and I'm looking forward to trying her out.

Yeah when you get gamma from a mission the card rewards from it are only from the heroes you took on the mission. So it's a bit of the rich get richer situation. Or you need to vary up your team if you want them to be useful. You can see when you go to the gamma screen in the forge icons of who you can get cards for.

Sometimes I think I need to do a general mission or two without the hunter to lift up some of my heroes. But 1, she's really useful, and 2, won't get any friendship boosts that way. I guess the big friendship gains are from stuff at the house, but still, hard to let go.

I had a thing last night where I went to training in the Yard and the 2nd bonus was to level up someone to match my Hunter at 6. So Spidey was already 7, and I wanted to take him on the next mission but I trained someone else instead.

There's a ton of interconnected systems in this game and I'm still searching for the balance. Read some tips and tricks articles, and a tweet thread last night, and there's so much it's tough to remember.

1st patch. Look out it's 25GB

General
● Includes various bug fixes and adjustments to improve stability and performance
● Addresses the Hero Ops progression bug
● Fixes game crashes when attempting a manual save
● Fixes Magik standing on the chair while speaking to her in Wanda’s Room

Combat
● Capture Agent general missions will now grant 3 stars if they are completed in 3 turns (up from 2)
● Fixed tracking for multi-detonate kills against Intel Challenges
● Non-damaging knockback attacks no longer trigger Lilin Guardian's Rage
● Magik's "Reinforcements" ability will now Draw the proper card amount on Play
● Heroes will now have "Vulnerable" for correct number of turns when a "Moderate" Injury is applied
● Nest Mother should now Summon Altars at the start of each mission
● Improved hitches during specific combat actions, like Vaulting

Photo Mode fixes
● Ensure clothing settles when changing poses
● Ghost Rider's flame head effects render correctly
● Effects remain if Depth of Field is changed

Ouch. So far I haven't gotten one save file of mine to load without crashing after the patch (PC). A new game starts fine but man I do not want to start this game all over again.

Oh no.

Were you bypassing the launcher? Heard some save incompatibility with that, or people that started with it then started skipping. Think there was something on steam forums about which directory saves were in.

I got it fixed. In Steam had to check the integrity of the files. The first time it didn't pick up any issues. But after trying a few things in-game I ran the integrity check once more and this time it downloaded and patched a few files.

After that I was able to load my old saves. Whew.

I was gonna suggest that. No troubles here for me.

I've put in 17 hours on this and it's okay... it's not great.

1) The foundation is clearly XCOM2. You can see it in the animation and in the weird little hangs between moves at times. The RNG is exactly the same (i.e. not random but is set on loading a mission). This led (for example) to a mission where Dr. Strange died automatically at the beginning of a mission every time I reloaded it to EXACTLY the same two attacks from the same two mobs NO MATTER WHAT I DID.

2) The card based combat, I like it generally, but you can quite literally get stuck with a bunch of unplayable cards for the first two turns very easily. (8 cards per hero - 6 cards in hand - only two redraws per turn).

3) Way, way, way too many things going on at the Abbey. Pop-ups and alerts from Superlink are constant and 90% of them meaningless to the gameplay. Five (maybe six or seven?) different currencies and upgrade and sidegrade systems that are poorly explained.

4) So many combat debuffs get applied to your heroes. So, so many and there's no obvious way to prevent it. Card upgrades don't seem to include "Protect you from Stun/Corruption/Dazed/Bleed/Bind/Weak", the other single use things you can make at the Forge don't seem to do it.

5) You are often forced to take a specific hero on a mission. Often when you haven't upgraded that specific hero. I've been upgrading six characters (Captain Marvel, Captain America, (the main character), Blade, Spiderman and Iron Man). And yet I'm stuck taking Dr. Strange (whom I loathe) on multiple missions.

6) It's *NOT* a game that makes you feel like you're playing unique superheroes (and this I think is the cardinal sin). All damage scales the same whether delivered or received regardless of hero. The heroes don't FEEL like heroes, they feel like re-skinned XCOM2 soldiers. The biggest thing that stands out in this for me is that Iron Man doesn't have Armor. Yes, he's wearing an armored suit (it's kind of his thing), but Iron Man has NO Armor. The first hit he takes, it's to his health bar. It's an incredibly odd design decision.

I'll keep playing, but it's really not what I was hoping it was going to be.

Not a fan of Wanda's powers. It feels like it should be good but just is not that useful compared to the others.

I just got Captain America. Seems good.

Having a bit of choice paralysis with who to bring on missions. Roster feels huge.

I did unlock the solo combat training in the yard and tried it with Carol. She's so good. Took no damage thanks to her block. By the 2nd turn had cleared all enemies with card plays to spare. Really fun.

Had some interesting stuff with friendship conversations this weekend. You start to get a feel for x likes light, y likes dark choices. But then after a story event with Wanda, 8 found that Nico was pissed and she wanted dark responses to everything now. Choosing light actually got negative points, so I reloaded and tried again. Same with Carol, she was angry and light response just annoyed her.

In context it makes sense but it caught me off guard. Feels more like natural conversations. And I hesitated because I didn't think the response was realistically what I would say to what they were saying. Gut was right.

Okay, it's growing on me. I've found some characters and card combinations that make it feel like actual superheroes, but still the XCOM2 in this is SO STRONG.

Got a legendary blue print last night and used it on the wrong ability. Sorry Magik you will have to wait until later.

Yeah, that's wild. I did notice that the stutter went away, but didn't see much in the way of framerate increase since I was already solidly at my monitor max even with the 2k launcher there.

Tach wrote:

Okay, it's growing on me. I've found some characters and card combinations that make it feel like actual superheroes, but still the XCOM2 in this is SO STRONG.

What parts do you feel channel that game? As someone who would consider XCOM2 a top-5 game of all-time, I'd love to find more of it in here. Or rather, I thought I wanted more XCOM, but what we got here is surprisingly satisfying. For me, it's far more Into the Breach (near perfect information when you start your turn + environmental interaction) + deck builder, and I very little XCOM influence overall.

beanman101283 wrote:

Disable the 2K launcher on Steam

Wish someone could find a way to do it on Epic.

Also there's no Epic achievements. But the 2k overlay has them when you press Shift+F3 in game. But it's worthless because none of them unlock, ever.

Not that achievements are everything. But I'm really wishing I'd got this on Steam or PS5 instead of saving $10 from GMG to get the Epic version

Stele wrote:

I did unlock the solo combat training in the yard and tried it with Carol. She's so good. Took no damage thanks to her block. By the 2nd turn had cleared all enemies with card plays to spare. Really fun.

I did this with Spidey - he's so good at taking out mooks that in the entire fight no enemy even got to take an action. Cleared the board each turn.

The XCOM vibes to me are in the DNA of the game, you can see the common ancestry even if the gameplay isn;t very similar. The Abbey = the Avenger; the Soulless = the Lost; Caretaker's commentary as you enter the mission is like Bradfords (I think the War Room's computer is even called C.E.N.T.R.A.L). When you send someone on a Hero Op, Carol sometimes says "this would be a good time send out a rookie to get experience, but were way beyond that." Some mission types are similar: Protect the Device, Capture a Hydra Agent (the card for the agent looks a lot like a Thin Man).

I've been greatly enjoying this, and I was even warming up to the "Hangin' at the Abbey" stuff. Sadly, I've hit a bug on my PS5 version, where the game crashes whenever I interact with the War Room to check in on my Hero Ops.

Sure, I could not do Hero Ops ever again, but I sent Magik on one, which is completed, but it crashes on the screen that compiles the comic book picture for the end of her mission. Because of this, she is not "clocked out" and is unavailable for any other missions.

If I hit a story mission that requires Magik, I'm borked. Might put it down and wait for a patch . . .

Hero Ops bug was fixed with Friday patch. Make sure you're updated.

And it seemed to happen when you unlocked the second slot for ops, if I remember. Luckily I hadn't got that far before patch.

Wow, cheers for that! I put it down on Thursday, will check it out.

I had opened up that second slot...

Kid Charlemagne wrote:
Stele wrote:

I did unlock the solo combat training in the yard and tried it with Carol. She's so good. Took no damage thanks to her block. By the 2nd turn had cleared all enemies with card plays to spare. Really fun.

I did this with Spidey - he's so good at taking out mooks that in the entire fight no enemy even got to take an action. Cleared the board each turn.

The XCOM vibes to me are in the DNA of the game, you can see the common ancestry even if the gameplay isn;t very similar. The Abbey = the Avenger; the Soulless = the Lost; Caretaker's commentary as you enter the mission is like Bradfords (I think the War Room's computer is even called C.E.N.T.R.A.L). When you send someone on a Hero Op, Carol sometimes says "this would be a good time send out a rookie to get experience, but were way beyond that." Some mission types are similar: Protect the Device, Capture a Hydra Agent (the card for the agent looks a lot like a Thin Man).

Yes, this is what I mean by so much XCOM. The enemies are also in a lot of ways re-skins of the XCOM enemies, down to abilities.