South of Midnight’s story is beautiful, but with a very unpleasant combat.
As April arrives, comes another game that fans have been waiting to play since the Xbox Showcase. After seeing some footage of South of Midnight’s gameplay, it was one that must be played because it looked quite promising. Being that the game features black characters makes it more interesting and would entice many players into getting involved with this. And to top it off, this game is available on PC and Xbox Game Pass, so a simple installation is needed. Meanwhile, the other side has people upset with this game because it has a black protagonist.
South of Midnight becomes the third game created by the Canadian developer, Compulsion Games, with their last game, We Happy Few, being the last game they’ve made, which arrived almost a decade ago. Now, they’ve finally brought us a brand new title. But the question is, is the game worth playing? Fortunately, the answer is yes. However, it comes with a massive asterisk. And we’ll get onto why this is the case.
In a dark, modern-styled Folktale, you take on the role of Hazel, who has lived in the deep South of Prospero with her Mother, Lacey, throughout her life. She just graduated from High School and is getting ready for College in the coming fall. But out of nowhere, a fierce hurricane arrives and tears her hometown apart. During the storm, she takes her trailer inside with her mother. Hazel is then taken to a Southern Gothic, fantastical universe where memories have become a reality.
She’ll have to become a Weaver, a magical bender of spirits and bonds, face her trauma, family history, and legacy, and an army of mythical creatures known as the Haints to recover her mother and homeland from the horrific event, and discover a new place that she can call home.
A pretty interesting and unique story and concept that still garners your attention from start to finish. Including well-written dialogues and impressive voice acting, it’ll have you going through a rollercoaster of emotions. You can check over your lore, which acts like an information or bio page on characters, creatures, the environment, and so on.
The graphics are one of the areas that caught my attention. The game features a unique style that features maquettes of clay designs and figures with animations implemented. This is a pretty cool feature, as it kind of gives the game its own identity and charm. The graphics look better when playing in higher resolutions, and the colours are vibrant, which strangely adds more attraction to the decayed environment, characters, and so on.
South of Midnight features a number of enchanting and stunning-looking magic spells that provide aid during puzzle solving and combat, and will enter a cool-down period after each use. The Weave Spell allows translucent echo objects to solidify temporarily, and against enemies, they hold them in place to prevent them from attacking you, leaving them completely vulnerable temporarily.
The Strand pull spell is pretty self-explanatory as it allows you to pull objects, yank enemies to you, or steer closer to the bigger ones. The same goes for the Strand Push spell, as it allows you to push objects, repel enemies, disrupt their attacks, and cause some damage.
Now, the asterisk – that being the combat. But before I get to that, let’s discuss its features and mechanics. There are a number of weapons to use, and they’re also known as magic objects. The first weapon that’s been issued to me is the hooks, which are the main weapon for Hazel. This weapon allows you to attack enemies with strikes and combos. This tool also allows you to interact with strands of the Stigma and the Grand Tapestry.
Another weapon is the Spindles, which are a crucial weapon a weaver must have to survive. This is the tool that essentially casts and channels certain magic spells. You also have the Distaff, which allows weavers like Hazel to enter memories of past events or echoes that are caught in the Grand Tapestry.
Then there’s the Bottle, which allows Hazel to trap certain traumatic memories in the Grand Tapestry. And if you gathered enough Strand fragments, it’ll create a pattern of a person’s past pain at the final stage of the chase sequence.
You can hold the strike button to unleash a powerful and amplified attack, and you can use this type of attack on enemies at range. After defeating the enemies, you get to unravel them, which makes the enemies disappear forever and revives some lost health. Now, the reason why I classed the combat as an asterisk is because it’s unbelievably repetitive.
The enemy variant is very poor and is a huge contributor to the repetitiveness of the combat. The enemies I’ve battled after playing hours of South of Midnight are exactly the same enemies I fought at the beginning of the campaign.
Also, the enemy pattern and sequences are the same. You get two enemies to fight against, unravel them, then another three arrive, unravel them, then unravel their main hub, and repeat. You know exactly what’s going to happen next.
There’s little depth to the combat to a point where you may as well not put much effort into them. In most cases, the combat in South of Midnight is tedious to the point where I just want to get the battles over and done with in order to progress the story and see what happens next. On the bright side, the boss battles are exciting though. Otherwise, if they weren’t, it’d be a sad day for us all.
On the bright side, there is a compelling upgrade system in South of Midnight, and there aren’t many abilities you have to upgrade. Unlocking upgrades will give you cool upgrades like the Amplified Rend, which will allow you to charge further against enemies and increase damage against them. Or the Aerial Rend that, while airborne, allows you to slam the ground and inflict damage on nearby enemies.
My personal favourite is the Weaver’s Blitz, which allows you to set off Strand Blast when you’re in the process of unraveling an enemy. The blasts contain small explosions of Strands that’ll damage and push back your enemies.
However, there’s really no point in fully utilising all the combat features when you’re facing the same variant and waves of enemies, no matter how far you progress in the story. This quality of combat definitely knocks South of Midnight a lot of cool points, as it’s one of the main factors that make this game click. In all honesty, I had more fun exploring the attractive environment.
It’s a great shame that South of Midnight didn’t fully meet expectations because I was looking forward to playing this game. This game is another example of anticipation being better than reality. However, it’s far from something I’d tell you to avoid completely, as other things, such as the story, are green flags.
Yes, the combat is highly repetitive, but if that doesn’t really bother you much, then you might have a much better time than I did with this game. I’d say that it’s a good thing that South of Midnight is available on Xbox Game Pass.
