Midnight Suns

Just finished it. Almost exactly 40 hours. Last battle was... fine. When you get there, save early and save often because you can lose it instantaneously without recourse and you'll be back to the beginning of it.

Don't see much reason to replay or New Game+.

Reviews have said more like 60 hours, but I didn't sit through any cutscenes and my 'Esc' button got a significant workout on the dialogue, which might give you some idea of how much padding there is in the Abbey.

My review of the game: Fine, kind of disappointing, but fine. A shockingly small collection of villains.

(Just for reference, I still have a 2000-book collection of mostly Marvel from early-80s to early-90s bought off the stands, so Marvel is near and dear to my heart).

How much optional content is there? As in, are there additional side-missions or other optional gameplay content or is it a linear series of missions until the end of the story?

I'm one of those types who gets a pretty good chunk of time out of optional/side gameplay, so that's always a big factor in how much I'll get out of a game.

Farscry wrote:

How much optional content is there? As in, are there additional side-missions or other optional gameplay content or is it a linear series of missions until the end of the story?

I'm one of those types who gets a pretty good chunk of time out of optional/side gameplay, so that's always a big factor in how much I'll get out of a game.

There are quite a few side missions if you want to run them (again, very similar to XCOM2). But not that many different enemy types (six? maybe 8?).

There is an almost comical amount of optional faffing about and conversations in the Abbey, so if that's your thing, ENJOY!

Tach wrote:

Just finished it. Almost exactly 40 hours. Last battle was... fine. When you get there, save early and save often because you can lose it instantaneously without recourse and you'll be back to the beginning of it.

Don't see much reason to replay or New Game+.

Reviews have said more like 60 hours, but I didn't sit through any cutscenes and my 'Esc' button got a significant workout on the dialogue, which might give you some idea of how much padding there is in the Abbey.

My review of the game: Fine, kind of disappointing, but fine. A shockingly small collection of villains.

(Just for reference, I still have a 2000-book collection of mostly Marvel from early-80s to early-90s bought off the stands, so Marvel is near and dear to my heart).

Did you solve all the mysteries on the abbey grounds?

IUMogg wrote:

Did you solve all the mysteries on the abbey grounds?

Absolutely not That would fall into my category of "faffing about", YMMV

I'm all about that faffing! Disappointing to hear there's not that much enemy variety with the side missions though.

I finally got to Hunter's (first?) legendary mission from the forge. That was truly a puzzle like Into The Breach. Pretty fun.

Tach wrote:
IUMogg wrote:

Did you solve all the mysteries on the abbey grounds?

Absolutely not That would fall into my category of "faffing about", YMMV :)

It’s real hit or miss, but there is some good backstory info and special battles from that stuff

I'm about 40 hours in and I'm genuinely surprised at how much the writing has grown on me. There are some foreshadowed plot twists coming up I think so I'm reserving some judgement, but the characters are great. Really didn't expect that.

I think I am near the end. I don't think I will have the desire to NG plus this game but it would be fun to jump into a random mission every so often. I think I may have bugged some side stories but it may be that those story lines ended.

Unlocked the Limbo combat training stuff last night (~20 hours in at this point). Tried with Blade first, who I haven't taken on a ton of missions. Got KOd in the first round. Used Magik next, who I do take on a lot of missions and she cleaned house. Cleared the board with card plays to spare every round and never took a hit. I got close with Nico, but she's so RNG-dependent (which enemy is witchfire going to hit?) that I easily could have been KOd in the first round with her had things gone slightly different.

I really need to progress the story a bit, now. 20 hours in and I think I've done like 5 story missions.

Yeah I did it with Nico today, and got a full deck of cards, and boosted offense, so basically the 3rd turn was just me playing Witchfire+ and then drawing it again after 2 enemies died... 3 times in a row. Haha.

After the patch today I'm getting freezes during every bit of dialogue. I haven't bypassed the 2k launcher yet though (I'm on Steam)

I seem to be at a complete standstill on exploring outside the abbey. I'm trying to get the 3rd moon seal so I can start doing those additional night combats. I did everything at the church I can except to get past this ward there. I need Dr Strange to assist me with that.

Dr Strange said we'll talk in a few days. Well, I'm like on day 19 now and he still hasn't talked to me. With the exception of collecting resources and chests there hasn't been anything for me to do on the abbey grounds. And this has been for like 6 or 7 days since Dr Strange initially spoke to me - maybe more

I cheated and looked at the hints and it looks like at this point I need the event to trigger. Dr Strange should be talking to me about the ward on the library.

Anyone else have issues with this where it took over a week for Dr Strange to talk to you about this? I figured it would be two or three days. Wondering if I'm bugged at this point.

Yes, I did the same thing, it's tied into story progress.

You have to finish the mission with Venom to

Spoiler:

retrieve a sample of symbiote

After that Strange will be outside your door, and tell you how to break the ward that night.

Ah that makes sense then. I've been doing mostly side missions and ignoring the main story missions. Thanks.

I'm about 20 hours into this now. The more I play, the more I enjoy it. I cringe at some lines of dialogue here and there, but for the most part, I'm finding most of the chatter quite charming.

I've lost track of time the last three sessions I've spent with the game. That doesn't happens to me very often anymore.

So I have a few objectives to do for certain superheroes. I think they're crafting things. And I recall when I got the objectives, I have x number of days to do them in. Problem is I can't find how to see what I need to do to complete those objectives. When I start a new day it pops up briefly for whom but not with enough information on what I need to do. On the Map screen I see the Objectives in the upper-left but no way to select those to get more information. I don't see any other pages that would have the information either.

Any ideas?

Alerts in the top left are usually, talk to person, private message from person, go to forge, you can combine cards and so on.

I think mousewheel let you look at them on pc.

D-pad on PS5 does the same thing, I think.

BTW, another XCOM easter egg

Spoiler:

at some point a satellite crashes down on the Abbey grounds, and when you find it the Hunter remarks "that doesn't look like a Stark design..." It's one of the satellites that crashed into the cities in XCom 2, creating the Lost...

So I unlocked beat the 3rd gate in the abbey side mission the other night, the one that's blocked until story progress. Then that same night I got all the way to the 4th gate unlocked. Pretty crazy how some nights you can do nothing and some nights a ton. It was late so I didn't get to fight but in theory I could get the final power word and unlock the entire grounds in one night. But I'm only 15 and that gate was labeled 16. So we'll see in a few days when I get back home.

Crawley wrote:

So I have a few objectives to do for certain superheroes. I think they're crafting things. And I recall when I got the objectives, I have x number of days to do them in. Problem is I can't find how to see what I need to do to complete those objectives.
...
On the Map screen I see the Objectives in the upper-left but no way to select those to get more information. I don't see any other pages that would have the information either.

So I did figure this out.

I was scouring the menus to try and find where the objectives details are. And they're actually on the main game window. Just use the dpad to select them and the details are displayed.

Stele wrote:

So I unlocked beat the 3rd gate in the abbey side mission the other night, the one that's blocked until story progress. Then that same night I got all the way to the 4th gate unlocked. Pretty crazy how some nights you can do nothing and some nights a ton. It was late so I didn't get to fight but in theory I could get the final power word and unlock the entire grounds in one night. But I'm only 15 and that gate was labeled 16. So we'll see in a few days when I get back home.

I was afraid of that.

I have still yet to unlock that 3rd gate because I haven't advanced far enough in the story missions - sounds like it may be the next one. I've just been doing so many side-missions to try and meet whatever requirements are needed to continue research projects, or get enough resources to upgrade or create cards. I've pretty much stopped exploring the abbey grounds until I do the story mission that unlocks that 3rd gate.

I imagine when I do that mission I'm going to be so overpowered.

So yeah a bit of a pacing issue for this game. They actually don't want you to grind out anything and expect you to focus on the story missions.

Still playing this game - 52 hours in.

Really enjoying it. But do have two complaints.

1. I've run in to two side-missions where I was unable to complete them as my companions were just not able to do enough damage and getting overwhelmed.

I basically have a tight 3-some crew that can win about any mission (Hunter, Magik, Nico). I can swap out Magik or Nico and with someone else and can typically win but not 3-star a mission. But man I've had some missions where I couldn't use either Magik or Nico and had to use two stand-ins. Its rough. Sometimes impossible to win missions with heroes I haven't built up quite enough.

The game really punishes you for not spreading the love equally throughout all the characters. Hate that.

2. I've run in to a side-mission where you have to kill all enemies within 4-turns. It's like a challenge mission and that again sucks if you don't do it using your A-team. In this case I had to bring Blade, who isn't terrible, but can't do the output needed to take out enemies with a lot of health. So it's always at the final round that I basically lose.

At that point your options are to start again and find out after 4-rounds you still can't kill everyone. Or re-load an older save and choose a totally different mission.

These challenge missions should not be part of the side-missions.

I guess I could technically turn down the difficulty for this one mission but should not have to do that. It's again a case where the game is punishing you for not equally upgrading each hero.

Ok. Rant over.

And Blade is just not good. DoT is not effective in this game. You need to kill things before they kill you, stun them for a turn, or shield/taunt to survive. DoT is mostly useless, except for 3v1 with bosses with giant health pools.

I have taken a break as my only remaining thing to go is build up my underused teammates. Blade is like Scarlet Witch to me. Both should be very good but are based on abilities or map requirements that make or break them.

Since you don't know if your mission will always have the right conditions you taken them for fun rather than to win.

Blade can be great single target if you have a single target in the mission. Otherwise he needs a tank friend to take hits so bleed can work.

I mostly rely on Blade's Bleed to feed Hunger which then spreads marked. It takes a lot of setup with Make 'em Bleed, but it means I can usually cover the entire battlefield into quick kills.

Also, every level people get offense, so if you have folks who are underleveled (or don't have their better cards yet), you will suffer, unfortunately. There's a loading screen tip I think that says characters stay leveled with Hunter, but I've found that only works when the option comes up in the training yard to give 'em a boost. I hope they revisit that to take the sting out of not playing equally out of it.

I've finished the game, but am finding the battles fun enough that I'm trying to unlock the new cosmetics you get access to upon beating the final mission. Goal will be to have fun with that until I see myself getting bored and then put aside until DLC comes out and I can new game plus at that time.

Wish you could bring the dog on missions. AOE Marked is badass. The dog is better than Blade.

Are you a light or dark hunter?

Yeah, I just got a card that lets me bring Charlie.

Re: levelling characters, take advantage of the Limbo training thing in the yard that lets you level characters by soloing a pretty easy 3-round fight.

I am a a few missions in I welcome newbie tips. For example, how do you spend a typical day in the Abbey after waking up? Regarding conversations, is there a min/max at play like there was in Mass Effect? Thoughts on how to choose how to use the gamma coils?
In short, any comments welcome!

Thanks,
Chad