Faisal Ghaffar 
The MCU has really taken the world by storm, and as the movies enter their fifth phase, Marvel is also seeing a resurgence in excellent video game titles. While the Marvel Avengers game was a major miss, the PS4 Spiderman game, the Miles Morales game, and the Guardians of the Galaxy games have all been fun and engaging. But with the release of Marvel’s Midnight Suns, developed by the same team that made XCOM, people were left scratching their heads. So is it good enough to be a part of the incredible Marvel Universe of games, or is this another miss as well?
Engaging Card-Based Strategy Mechanics
XCOM revolutionized strategy games with its more innovative approach that also made it playable on consoles. However, XCOM is a cult franchise simply because not a lot of people want to deal with the game’s difficulty curve. And it’s obvious that the development team understood this since they developed a new combat system that better catered to the comic-book style that the game was going for.
The game features a variety of cards for each hero that you have on your team. Along with choosing a deck of cards for each of your heroes, each turn has you select one movement card and three action cards to slowly bring the tide of battle in your favor. It is in no way easy since your heroes could get knocked down.
When they get knocked down, they are out of the fight, but you still get the same number of moves throughout the match. So losing a character doesn’t significantly stack the odds against you. Each hero can also play a specific role in a squad, so there is plenty of room to mix and match to find your perfect squad.
Fun Animations and Character Abilities
Marvel’s Midnight Suns really do make you feel like a ten-year-old kid playing with their action figures since it has plenty of fun animations and character abilities. some cards are named after popular comic book sound effects like Spiderman’s legendary “thwip” and Wolverine’s”snikt.”The animations for even more mundane tasks like taunting and healing are also very impressive and give your fight a cinematic feel.
Of course, the real star of the show is the actual combat animations that most characters perform. Not only do they have unique character actions depending on the character attacking, but they can also have different attack animations for heroes’ enemies with different properties like shields. So suffice it to say that you won’t have a bad time when playing.
Getting To Know Your Heroes
Along with putting a lot of focus on the minute-to-minute action of fighting off waves of enemies, Firaxis Games (developers for the game) have also put a lot of thought and effort into the character interactions outside of combat. When you’re not fighting off the legions of hell, you are in an X-Men-style mansion called the Abby, where you can interact with multiple characters.
How you talk to the heroes in the midnight suns can directly affect your relationship with them during combat too. So it’s nice that all of the talking you’re doing has a real gameplay advantage as well. You can get to know a lot more about the people that make up the Midnight Suns and the divide between the magic users and other heroes who are skeptical at best. The conflict between Dr. Strange and Iron Man is especially fun to unravel as you see both of them try to reason with each other and come to an understanding.
Conclusion
Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a fun addition to the new series of games by Marvel, but it might not be for everyone. The first few hours can be a real grind, and you generally feel like the strategy lacks the oomph of other games. But when it clicks, when Marvel’s Midnight Suns work its magic, the pieces fall into place, and you can start having fun.
