I'm going to start this off with a note that I am not a comics guy. What I know of Marvel lore comes primarily from the MCU, and not even all of that because I haven't kept up with said MCU.

Also I didn't know until getting this game that Blade was a Marvel character? Or that Ghost Rider was, for that matter. I'm familiar with both of them because I am an out-of-the-closet fan of both their movies (the Wesley Snipes and Nicolas Cage ones, respectively).

So! As you can guess from the above, I have zero fricken' clue how lore-accurate any of this game is, and y'know what? I don't care. I feel like the characters I 'know' are rotated like 10 degrees off their movie counterparts and I'm okay with that! And the ones I don't know are interesting and portrayed well enough that I don't feel like I need to wikidive to find out details; I'm getting enough from their in-game interactions that it's fully satisfying, if that makes sense.

In short: despite the reports of maximum suckage that I saw flying all over the internet, I'm having a lot of fun!

The best capsule description of the gameplay I've come up with so far is this: Midnight Suns feels like the offspring of the Sentinels of the Multiverse card game and XCOM, with Mass Effect adopting the baby and raising it afterwards.

There are Mass Effect-style RPG exploration elements, where you wander around in over-the-shoulder cam and find collectibles, talk to people, upgrade your abilities, hang out with the dorks, get hit on by Tony*, tear down masterpieces and hang your comic-book cover art in their place, tweak your wardrobe, snark with Blade, and so on. Also you can make (or lose) Friendship Points, which I'm not far enough along yet to see what mechanical effect (if any) that has but feels very Mass Effect-like.

(Becoming besties with Captain Marvel does seem like it'd be a helluva ride, tho, gotta admit.)

During combat, you're facing Mooks, who KO from any hit; Lieutenants, who have actual HP bars and additional abilities; and Bosses, who have big honkin' HP bars, a variety of abilities, and usually multiple phases and/or cutscene triggers. You fight using a card-drawing and deck-manipulating mechanic to employ various superheroic abilities in a clearly XCOM-inspired tactical turn-based battlefield with environmental interactions liberally scattered about. Captain Marvel can use her Photon Beam to hit a line of enemies all at once, damaging and taunting them so they have to attack her during their turn. Iron Man uses his palm repulsors to fling a baddie into the nearby generator, damaging and stunning them for their next turn. Doctor Strange unveils the mysteries of the cosmos and produces new cards to refill your hand -- or just summons a mystical tornado to fling a bad guy into another bad guy, KO'ing them both. The Hunter has Dark abilities and Light abilities and you can affect their Balance by which you choose to use and frankly I'm not sure yet what the point is there, but it's there. The system is not particularly complex but it's surprisingly deep and definitely captures the feel of superhero brawls.

Which is not to say that I don't have complaints. It's a 2K production by Firaxis, and variants of all the weirdness that we had to deal with in the XCOM games are rearing their ugly heads. I'm at a solid 50% for just being able to launch the game -- half the time, it crashes on startup. Although to be fair, if I get past the mind-bogglingly-lagtastic 1 FPS Unreal Engine logo screen, it's been rock-stable and buttery smooth, lookin' pretty on my several-years-old rig at a solid 60FPS. And I don't have to mash Caps Lock during loading screens either! (Hi, XCOM!)

The hair is... well, it's clear that Firaxis 'borrowed' some assets from XCOM, because not only are the hairstyle names the same, the hair IS the same -- including the jaggy yarn-like quality in some of the textures. I launched XCOM2 just to double-check and yup, that there is some XCOM hair. Someone get these folks a stylist, stat.

I would also really like it if the stupid battle camera would stop trying to be helpful and instead just stay where the hell I put it. Minor gripe, but twice now I've set up what I thought was a grand multi-KO finishing blow only to realize that there's one mook left behind the camera where I didn't see them. Grr.

The voice acting is pretty good across the board. I really like Female Hunter's voice. Caretaker has some good lines and some lines where I feel like she's phoning it in, and Nico's VA has this occasional weird delivery where the emPHAsis is on the wrong SYLaBAbble, but I feel like that's a symptom of the VA's all recording their lines in isolation at different times (it's only happened in dialogue between her and other characters and I think the VA was missing some context clues for how the scene was actually playing out vs how it was scripted).

And Blade's VA is a snarky sumbitch and I just like him a lot.

(* presumably Tony only hits on female Hunters, but experimentation is clearly required to test this theory)

--sofaspud
--also you can pet the demon puppy, thumbs up, Firaxis, you're doin' it right

>Also I didn't know until getting this game that Blade was a Marvel
>character? Or that Ghost Rider was, for that matter. I'm familiar
>with both of them because I am an out-of-the-closet fan of both their
>movies (the Wesley Snipes and Nicolas Cage ones, respectively).

Yeah, they're both originally from that gloriously weird period in the '60s/'70s when Marvel had a whole "supernatural" storyline running more or less in parallel with the "traditional superheroes" one and the "Kirbian cosmic weirdness" one, with occasional crossovers and overlaps. Doctor Strange was kind of the bridge between the supernatural comics and the superhero ones in those days, since he was a wizard but also an Avenger.

In more recent history, the "superheroes who specialize in the spookums" imprint was at first called Midnight Sons, with an O, because all the characters in it were dudes. I forget which female character originally got added and made them change the name—maybe Illyana? It's been a while. Something like that happened, anyway.

>I feel like the characters I 'know' are rotated like 10 degrees off
>their movie counterparts and I'm okay with that!

That's probably intentional! The more "mainstream" superheroes' involvement in supernatural stuff has always kind of been "weird side gig they don't talk about with their colleagues who aren't into it."

>In short: despite the reports of maximum suckage that I saw flying all
>over the internet, I'm having a lot of fun!

I've seen some gameplay on YouTube, and it looks cool but also incredibly grindy. Which is true to the XCOM roots of the product, if nothing else. :)

> Also you can
>make (or lose) Friendship Points, which I'm not far enough along yet
>to see what mechanical effect (if any) that has but feels very Mass
>Effect-like.

I think they unlock cooler combos, like in Sakura Wars, but don't quote me.

>(Becoming besties with Captain Marvel does seem like it'd be a helluva
>ride, tho, gotta admit.)

Heh, I have a comic kicking around in a box someplace from when they first made Carol Captain Marvel, in which she's hanging out with Spider-Man. There are hints that they might be FWBs, and either way Pete is obviously in way over his head dealing with the kind of day in the superhero office she attracts. :)

>Captain Marvel
>can use her Photon Beam to hit a line of enemies all at once, damaging
>and taunting them so they have to attack her during their turn.

Like my favorite psyker power in XCOM 2, Null Lance! "OK, line up, you ADVENT assholes, I'm only gonna do this once." :)

>The system is not particularly
>complex but it's surprisingly deep and definitely captures the feel of
>superhero brawls.

My favorite Power Stunt (as they used to be called in the Marvel Super Heroes tabletop RPG) I've seen in online footage is 'Yana's "thinking with Portals" move. She opens a teleport hole somewhere on the battlefield, and her next move is to punch a dude into Limbo so he comes out wherever she dropped the hole, ideally right in front of three other dudes and an explodey barrel. :)

>The hair is... well, it's clear that Firaxis 'borrowed' some assets
>from XCOM, because not only are the hairstyle names the same, the hair
>IS the same -- including the jaggy yarn-like quality in some of the
>textures. I launched XCOM2 just to double-check and yup, that there
>is some XCOM hair. Someone get these folks a stylist, stat.

Does it include the "OG X-COM" Guile hair from that one DLC? 'Cause I would totally throw that on my character if it was available. Looking good is secondary to being distinctive in the Marvel Universe. :)

--G.
-><-
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>Doctor Strange was kind of the bridge between the
>supernatural comics and the superhero ones in those days, since he was
>a wizard but also an Avenger.

He seems to be filling that role in this game as well. Or at least filling that role as far as Tony is concerned. Tony is most definitely Not Totally Cool with this magic stuff, although he does appreciate the demon-powered forge that he and Doctor Spooky (as he calls Strange) use to do unspeakable things to your equipment.

>In more recent history, the "superheroes who specialize in the
>spookums" imprint was at first called Midnight Sons, with an O,
>because all the characters in it were dudes. I forget which female
>character originally got added and made them change the
>name—maybe Illyana? It's been a while. Something like that
>happened, anyway.

Speaking of Illyana! You wrote a piece (The Other Side) featuring, well, Illyana. I think. Same Illyana? 'cause first time I saw her slice open a portal to Limbo in the game, I immediately thought of that story. See my previous post as to why I simultaneously had no idea who she was and suddenly felt like "Oh, hey, I know this girl! She was one of the ones saving the Ghostbusters!"

So, y'know. Nice work there! Even if it wasn't intentional.

>I've seen some gameplay on YouTube, and it looks cool but also
>incredibly grindy. Which is true to the XCOM roots of the product, if
>nothing else. :)

I don't know that I would agree with the grindy part, at least not yet? I'm only a few missions in and so far it's very much "I can do one more mission, NO STOP YOU HAVE TO WORK TOMORROW... okay, just one more", but hasn't felt grindy at all. If anything I kind of want to slow down a little and poke around more but they keep urging me to move on to the next mission. :)

>>(Becoming besties with Captain Marvel does seem like it'd be a helluva
>>ride, tho, gotta admit.)
>
>Heh, I have a comic kicking around in a box someplace from when they
>first made Carol Captain Marvel, in which she's hanging out with
>Spider-Man. There are hints that they might be FWBs, and either way
>Pete is obviously in way over his head dealing with the kind of day in
>the superhero office she attracts. :)

I was left staring at my screen, huge grin plastered on my face, when Spidey showed up and (not-really-a-spoiler) offered to take Venom for walkies.

Just, the writing on this. Someone loves these characters, you can tell.

>My favorite Power Stunt (as they used to be called in the Marvel
>Super Heroes tabletop RPG) I've seen in online footage is 'Yana's
>"thinking with Portals" move. She opens a teleport hole somewhere on
>the battlefield, and her next move is to punch a dude into Limbo so he
>comes out wherever she dropped the hole, ideally right in front of
>three other dudes and an explodey barrel. :)

I love the explodium barrels. Although I did manage to muss Carol's hair a little (well... a lot). Because I am dum, I didn't stop to think that the barrel in the group of baddies, the explodey barrel she was standing right next to because she'd just punchinated said baddies, would affect her too.

Sorry, Captain Marvel. Totally Blade's fault, he shoulda known better when I told him to shoot the barrel.

>Does it include the "OG X-COM" Guile hair from that one DLC? 'Cause I
>would totally throw that on my character if it was available. Looking
>good is secondary to being distinctive in the Marvel Universe. :)

I don't think so, but next time I hop in I'll take another peek. The customization options are another area where I feel like... I dunno, it's good enough? But I'd like to have more, y'know?

--sofaspud
--

>
>>Doctor Strange was kind of the bridge between the
>>supernatural comics and the superhero ones in those days, since he was
>>a wizard but also an Avenger.
>
>He seems to be filling that role in this game as well. Or at least
>filling that role as far as Tony is concerned. Tony is most
>definitely Not Totally Cool with this magic stuff, although he does
>appreciate the demon-powered forge that he and Doctor Spooky (as he
>calls Strange) use to do unspeakable things to your equipment.

Oh, that's a nice touch. I know you're not particularly invested in the lore, and that's OK! But as someone who kind of is, I find it nice that they're paying attention to this stuff. It's been well-established since at least the '80s that Tony hates magic. He's an engineer; if he has a religion, it's that the laws are physics are the goddamn laws of physics, people, jeez. OTOH, he considers himself and Dr. Strange "facial hair bros" (his phrase). :)

>Speaking of Illyana! You wrote a piece (The Other Side)
>featuring, well, Illyana. I think. Same Illyana? 'cause first time
>I saw her slice open a portal to Limbo in the game, I
>immediately thought of that story. See my previous post as to
>why I simultaneously had no idea who she was and suddenly felt like
>"Oh, hey, I know this girl! She was one of the ones saving the
>Ghostbusters!"

Yup, that's her. Illyana Rasputina, New Mutants codename "Magik". She's Pete "Colossus" Rasputin's little sister. The teleportation is her mutant power, and the rest of her deal comes from the fact that when said teleportation manifested when she was a little girl, she accidentally teleported herself to a Hell-like demiplane and was raised by demons.

No, seriously, that was a thing. And it's why she's so blasé about dealing with Outer Gods and stuff. Fighting Shub-Niggurath in midtown Manhattan is just another day at the office for our girl 'Yana. :)

>>I've seen some gameplay on YouTube, and it looks cool but also
>>incredibly grindy. Which is true to the XCOM roots of the product, if
>>nothing else. :)
>
>I don't know that I would agree with the grindy part, at least not
>yet? I'm only a few missions in and so far it's very much "I can do
>one more mission, NO STOP YOU HAVE TO WORK TOMORROW... okay, just
>one more", but hasn't felt grindy at all.

It's probably different when you're actually playing. In the gameplay I've watched, it's felt like the individual missions kind of go on longer than they really need to, which is what made me think of XCOM.

>I was left staring at my screen, huge grin plastered on my face, when
>Spidey showed up and (not-really-a-spoiler) offered to take Venom for
>walkies.
>
>Just, the writing on this. Someone loves these characters, you can
>tell.

Peter Parker is such a great character when he's handled right. It boggles my mind that someone high up in Marvel is so hellbent on replacing him. They've tried, what... at least four times now. It's never gonna take, guys. Peter Parker is the Amazing Spider-Man.

(No disrespect to Miles intended. He's cool! But it's like how everyone who cares about 007 movies has one Bond who's their real one, and all the others are stunt Bonds. :)

>I love the explodium barrels. Although I did manage to muss Carol's
>hair a little (well... a lot). Because I am dum, I didn't stop to
>think that the barrel in the group of baddies, the explodey barrel she
>was standing right next to because she'd just punchinated said
>baddies, would affect her too.
>
>Sorry, Captain Marvel. Totally Blade's fault, he shoulda known better
>when I told him to shoot the barrel.

Blade gives no fucks. If you're standing next to an explodium barrel, that's your problem. :)

>I don't think so, but next time I hop in I'll take another peek. The
>customization options are another area where I feel like... I dunno,
>it's good enough? But I'd like to have more, y'know?

Well, if the game's popular enough, there'll probably be DLC. Maybe we'll start seeing really obscure characters being added for $5 apiece, like... I dunno... Adam Warlock, or Dr. Strange's super-cute apprentice from the '80s whose name I can't remember.

I might have to pick this up, I see it's on sale...

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>Peter Parker is such a great character when he's handled right. It
>boggles my mind that someone high up in Marvel is so hellbent on
>replacing him. They've tried, what... at least four times now. It's
>never gonna take, guys. Peter Parker is the Amazing Spider-Man.
>
>(No disrespect to Miles intended. He's cool! But it's like how
>everyone who cares about 007 movies has one Bond who's their real one,
>and all the others are stunt Bonds. :)

Miles is important to Spider-man in the sense that he allows for teenage spidey shenanigans in settings that have Peter older, with MJ, and dealing with adult spidey shenanigans. And frankly, his interactions with Peter are almost always great.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

>Miles is important to Spider-man in the sense that he allows for
>teenage spidey shenanigans in settings that have Peter older, with MJ,
>and dealing with adult spidey shenanigans. And frankly, his
>interactions with Peter are almost always great.

Fair. I really need to get around to watching Into the Spider-Verse one of these days. I've had it on Blu-ray for, like... 80 years? Just never made the time to watch it.

Initially I think that was to do with the fact that I tried the comic series of the same name first and hated it, but I've been assured that they're not really related, so since then it's just been inertia and bad time management.

--G.
-><-
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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>Initially I think that was to do with the fact that I tried the comic
>series of the same name first and hated it, but I've been assured that
>they're not really related

Yeah, the movie took the name from the comic series, then actually did something GOOD with the concept.

That kinda sums up Bendis, doesn’t it? Screw up a good concept and wait until somebody else fixes it for you.

>>I was left staring at my screen, huge grin plastered on my face, when
>>Spidey showed up and (not-really-a-spoiler) offered to take Venom for
>>walkies.
>>
>>Just, the writing on this. Someone loves these characters, you can
>>tell.

The writing is hilarious at times, and very on point. You're absolutely right about them loving the characters. There's a few odd seeming missteps later (One later party member is WAY taller than he should be, for instance) but 99% of the time it's perfect, and 100% of the writing is awesome.

>Well, if the game's popular enough, there'll probably be DLC. Maybe
>we'll start seeing really obscure characters being added for $5
>apiece, like... I dunno... Adam Warlock, or Dr. Strange's super-cute
>apprentice from the '80s whose name I can't remember.

Currently, there's four DLC characters in the works. Two, Deadpool and Venom, have been released. Two more, Morbius and Storm, are yet to come. No word if there will be more past them.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

>Currently, there's four DLC characters in the works. Two, Deadpool and
>Venom, have been released. Two more, Morbius and Storm, are yet to
>come. No word if there will be more past them.

Wait. Morbius is one of the DLC characters? Oh, boy. He and Blade are... not pals.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>>Currently, there's four DLC characters in the works. Two, Deadpool and
>>Venom, have been released. Two more, Morbius and Storm, are yet to
>>come. No word if there will be more past them.
>
>Wait. Morbius is one of the DLC characters? Oh, boy. He and Blade
>are... not pals.

Knowing Marvel, they probably started work on the DLC thinking the movie would have raised his profile... instead of just being meme bait.

>Knowing Marvel, they probably started work on the DLC thinking the
>movie would have raised his profile... instead of just being meme
>bait.

I read somewhere that executives at Marvel thought all of the hashtag trending meant the film was some kind of massive sleeper cult hit that just hadn't shown good in the dollar numbers yet, which, if true, is hilarious.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>>Knowing Marvel, they probably started work on the DLC thinking the
>>movie would have raised his profile... instead of just being meme
>>bait.
>
>I read somewhere that executives at Marvel thought all of the hashtag
>trending meant the film was some kind of massive sleeper cult hit that
>just hadn't shown good in the dollar numbers yet, which, if true, is
>hilarious.
>

Given they re-released the film to theatres on that basis, I'm pretty sure it IS true.

>Well, if the game's popular enough, there'll probably be DLC. Maybe
>we'll start seeing really obscure characters being added for $5
>apiece, like... I dunno... Adam Warlock, or Dr. Strange's super-cute
>apprentice from the '80s whose name I can't remember.

Jennifer Kale! That was her name. Except I think maybe she was actually from the '70s. I associate her with the '80s because I first read about her in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, which was an '80s thing.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>Jennifer Kale! That was her name. Except I think maybe she was
>actually from the '70s. I associate her with the '80s because I first
>read about her in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe,
>which was an '80s thing.

Jennifer first appeared in a Man-Thing story by Steve Gerber in 1972.

You may also be confusing her with Topaz, who appeared in Werewolf by Night around the same time.

LAST EDITED ON Mar-02-23 AT 11:01 PM (EST)
 
>>Also I didn't know until getting this game that Blade was a Marvel
>>character? Or that Ghost Rider was, for that matter. I'm familiar
>>with both of them because I am an out-of-the-closet fan of both their
>>movies (the Wesley Snipes and Nicolas Cage ones, respectively).
>
>Yeah, they're both originally from that gloriously weird period in the
>'60s/'70s when Marvel had a whole "supernatural" storyline running
>more or less in parallel with the "traditional superheroes" one and
>the "Kirbian cosmic weirdness" one, with occasional crossovers and
>overlaps. Doctor Strange was kind of the bridge between the
>supernatural comics and the superhero ones in those days, since he was
>a wizard but also an Avenger.

Yep, when I picked up Midnight Suns I didn't know Blade was in there too. But it was cool.

>
>>I feel like the characters I 'know' are rotated like 10 degrees off
>>their movie counterparts and I'm okay with that!

It was weird having mentions of Agatha after everything that happened in WandaVision...until I remembered this whole game is indeed ten degrees off the zorth axis or something. And yes, it IS a very good thing.

>
>
>> Also you can
>>make (or lose) Friendship Points, which I'm not far enough along yet
>>to see what mechanical effect (if any) that has but feels very Mass
>>Effect-like.
>
>I think they unlock cooler combos, like in Sakura Wars,
>but don't quote me.

Having greater friendship with each character unlocks powerful passive effects for them. Cap gets more Block every turn, Nico has a chance to draw an extra card every turn, Strange has a chance to earn extra Heroism. They're all good to have though some are better than others.

>>The system is not particularly
>>complex but it's surprisingly deep and definitely captures the feel of
>>superhero brawls.

The combat system was MUCH better than I thought it was going to be when I picked up the game. I paid full price for it, dropped over 100 hours in my first playthrough and regretted nothing.

>
>My favorite Power Stunt (as they used to be called in the Marvel
>Super Heroes tabletop RPG) I've seen in online footage is 'Yana's
>"thinking with Portals" move. She opens a teleport hole somewhere on
>the battlefield, and her next move is to punch a dude into Limbo so he
>comes out wherever she dropped the hole, ideally right in front of
>three other dudes and an explodey barrel. :)

Yep. Magik is probably the most technical character in the game--if you use her portals right you can be extremely effective, but use them wrong and she feels very weak. You have to play her smart. Her Friendship passive really plays into it, though--every time you knock someone through one of her portals you have a chance to get a free new portal card. Combine that with her buff that damages anyone sent through a portal.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

>
>Heh, I have a comic kicking around in a box someplace from when they
>first made Carol Captain Marvel, in which she's hanging out with
>Spider-Man. There are hints that they might be FWBs, and either way
>Pete is obviously in way over his head dealing with the kind of day in
>the superhero office she attracts. :)
>

My headcanon for the MCU is that Carol hung out with Peter because he knows all the best cheap eateries in NYC.

Peter Eng
--
"I've been in space since before Blockbuster Video closed its doors. You have no idea how good pastrami on rye tastes after all that time."

>My headcanon for the MCU is that Carol hung out with Peter because he
>knows all the best cheap eateries in NYC.

Given how latter-day Marvel had made a running gag out of showing Pete eating basically all the time when he's not actively fighting villains, and some of the time when he is, that's entirely plausible. :)

--G.
I don't know if they carried that joke to the movies, but still
-><-
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LAST EDITED ON Mar-03-23 AT 06:56 PM (EST)
 
>Yeah, they're both originally from that gloriously weird period in the
>'60s/'70s when Marvel had a whole "supernatural" storyline running
>more or less in parallel with the "traditional superheroes" one and
>the "Kirbian cosmic weirdness" one, with occasional crossovers and
>overlaps. Doctor Strange was kind of the bridge between the
>supernatural comics and the superhero ones in those days, since he was
>a wizard but also an Avenger.

Slightly inaccurate. Given my presence in Moon Knight (another product of that era) fandom, I can give a few clarifications:

Ghost Rider, Blade, Son of Satan, & Werewolf by Night (among others) were all a part of the horror boom of the 1970s, derived partly from the popularity of films like THE OMEN and EXORCIST, and also a loosening of the Comics Code in 1971 to allow "classic" monsters. Many of them also appear in black & white stories in magazines that were not covered by the Code.

At the time, Stephen Strange was still pretty niche, and mostly hung around in his own corner with the Defenders, but there was some overlap with the horror books.

The Midnight Sons were a sub-imprint (and in-universe team) created in the 1990s to capitalize on the popularity of that era's Ghost Rider, and was comprised of himself, Blade, Morbius, a mystical construct called Strange, and a bunch of C-Listers, some of whom were indeed female.

Three years later, the entire line was defunct, and all of the books ended up being canceled, including Doctor Strange (after over 20 years of nearly continual publication across three titles) in 1996.

Strange bounced around other people's books for a while, joining the Avengers in 2010.

The Midnight Sons name popped up every once in a while, likely to renew the trademark, but never with much impact.

Midnight SUNS, on the other hand, is an entirely new trademark, used in and by the game.

>Midnight SUNS, on the other hand, is an entirely new trademark, used
>in and by the game.

One is clearly an evolution from the other, though, I mean, the title graphics and edgy-ass art style are practically the same. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>>Midnight SUNS, on the other hand, is an entirely new trademark, used
>>in and by the game.
>
>One is clearly an evolution from the other, though, I mean, the title
>graphics and edgy-ass art style are practically the same. :)

Oh, certainly. I believe the game also uses the Midnight Sons "dagger" symbol.

But based on some of the promo videos I saw, there really isn't much else connecting the two teams.

LAST EDITED ON Mar-04-23 AT 06:09 PM (EST)
 
>Although to be fair, if I get past the
>mind-bogglingly-lagtastic 1 FPS Unreal Engine logo screen

I'm impressed by how completely fucked this logo splash is, given that I would've thought it must be just a prerecorded cinematic, not something the game is trying to render in real time. (And if it is the latter, uh, why?)

--G.
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Wait, Blade has a regular-person name? I don't think I ever knew that.

--G.
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>Wait, Blade has a regular-person name? I don't think I ever knew
>that.

Neither did I, to be honest. There's a lot I didn't know in that game.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

>>Wait, Blade has a regular-person name? I don't think I ever knew
>>that.
>
>Neither did I, to be honest. There's a lot I didn't know in that game.
>

If they are using "Eric Brooks", I think that was invented for the Snipes films.

>If they are using "Eric Brooks", I think that was invented for the
>Snipes films.

It was, but it's been made comic canon, too.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The
Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-
Covered Balls!"

So I'm ... let's go with several... hours in at this point, and I can see where it could be considered 'grindy'. Though, familiar as I am with XCOM mechanics, this doesn't irritate me in the way that, for example, grinding XP in Fire Emblem or any of the Final Fantasy games does.

Like most of these sorts of games, story missions are clearly marked and the world is basically on pause until you choose to advance it the next step. You can do one (1) mission per 'day', during daytime hours; it switches to night after the mission and you do Other Stuff. Aside from having to remember to check the Forge during the day and feed the Artifact Bowl at night -- activities which I liken to remembering to feed Shepard's fish -- it hasn't yet started feeling like a chore. Mostly because the dialog that you overhear as you're wandering around is usually pretty good, and you're not stuck doing any one thing for all that long at a time before you go haring off on the next super-powered smash-up.

Some random observations:
* NPCs had an entire conversation regarding how angrily Caretaker was chopping carrots. Where is the damn kitchen in the Abbey? The designers forgot to include it. Ditto: bathrooms.

* Illyana's method of cleaning the grotto is practical and horrifying at the same time. Entirely because of her offhand comment about "nothing living passes through my portals unless I will it". Yeep!

* I can't decide if the lack of jumping ability irritates me or not. I'm used to it by now but at the same time... at the same time...

* Oh, Firaxis. Your fail states continue to amuse -- but at least in this game none of them have soft-locked me yet! The Hydra goon repeatedly falling down and sliding back, then resetting and doing it all over again, was entertaining, but he was still punchable. So, kudos.

* God. DAMN, Nico. Don't piss off the chick with the Staff of One. That there is some damage.

* Agatha Harkness. Can't decide if nice old (dead) lady or murderous specter plotting revenge.

--sofaspud
--also Sabretooth is just cheap. Jerk.

>* I can't decide if the lack of jumping ability irritates me or not.
>I'm used to it by now but at the same time... at the same time...

Heh, yeah, I noticed early on while wandering around the grounds that white Hunter can't jump. (Presumably black Hunter can't either. :)

>* Oh, Firaxis. Your fail states continue to amuse -- but at least in
>this game none of them have soft-locked me yet! The Hydra goon
>repeatedly falling down and sliding back, then resetting and doing it
>all over again, was entertaining, but he was still punchable. So,
>kudos.

This reminds me of my favorite accidental NPC in City of Heroes, Slidey SWAT Guy. He was a SWAT cop bystander in one of the "bank robbery" missions they added when they started allowing heroes and villains to cross into each other's territory, and he was meant to be running around in terror, but his animation glitched so he was stuck in the "not in the face!!" pose--but still pathing around the map like if he was running.

>* Agatha Harkness. Can't decide if nice old (dead) lady or murderous
>specter plotting revenge.

Oh, that's Agatha. She's both.

>--also Sabretooth is just cheap. Jerk.

Also seems kind of unnecessary in a supernatural-themed game, but Marvel gonna Marvel. (Similarly, I notice Wolverine is prominent in the cover art as well.)

I have an observation of my own, in a similar vein:

- Wait, the new Ghost Rider drives a CAR? That ain't right.

--G.
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Hey now. If we can have a Kamen Rider who drives a car, we can have a Ghost Rider who drives a car.

>- Wait, the new Ghost Rider drives a CAR? That ain't right.

Robbie Reyes? He's been around for a while, actually. Also showed up on AGENTS OF SHIELD. A decent character idea and concept, but would have probably been better accepted if they hadn't tried to force him into the GR mythos.

After all, a "Gost Lowrider" is a bit too on the nose.

>Robbie Reyes? He's been around for a while, actually. Also showed up
>on AGENTS OF SHIELD. A decent character idea and concept, but would
>have probably been better accepted if they hadn't tried to force him
>into the GR mythos.
>

With my lack-of-comics background, I just assumed he was Ghost Rider: The Next Generation. Considering that the movie that is *my* source of 'canon' for Ghost Rider stuff showed that progression already (from horse to motorcycle), I didn't even blink.

I kind of feel bad for ol' Robbie. He feels overlooked by the rest of the team (both teams) in the game, and in-universe my Hunter is reassuring him that he's not, he's an important member of the team, etc...

... and yet, I almost never take him on missions because the way most of his powers work just rub me the wrong way. I've never been a fan of the whole 'cast from hit points' school, and his abilities may hit very hard but they also take *significant* chunks out of his HP.

Hangin' with him and Pete and Tony in Shop Class is pretty entertaining, though.

--sofaspud
--

>With my lack-of-comics background, I just assumed he was Ghost Rider:
>The Next Generation. Considering that the movie that is *my* source
>of 'canon' for Ghost Rider stuff showed that progression already (from
>horse to motorcycle), I didn't even blink.

On a point of order, the horse one was Phantom Rider. ... Retroactively.

Anyway, I just think it speaks to the ancient cultural divide between bikers and cagers. People driving cars don't say they're "riding" them, and "Ghost Driver" just doesn't have a ring to it. :)

>... and yet, I almost never take him on missions because the way most
>of his powers work just rub me the wrong way. I've never been a fan
>of the whole 'cast from hit points' school, and his abilities may hit
>very hard but they also take *significant* chunks out of his HP.

Likeable characters with meh game mechanics are the bane of the RPG experience, aren't they? Like, I get that you're the title character and you're really charming, Luna, but healers just don't do it for me when the pixels are flying.

--G.
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>Anyway, I just think it speaks to the ancient cultural divide between
>bikers and cagers. People driving cars don't say they're "riding"
>them, and "Ghost Driver" just doesn't have a ring to it. :)

I mean, if I'm being totally fair about it, his "Hell Ride" ability where he summons the car and uses it to flatten the baddies, he doesn't actually *drive* it. He's standing on the hood holding flaming chains like they're reins.

That's riding, in my book. :D

--sofaspud
--

>>Anyway, I just think it speaks to the ancient cultural divide between
>>bikers and cagers. People driving cars don't say they're "riding"
>>them, and "Ghost Driver" just doesn't have a ring to it. :)
>
>I mean, if I'm being totally fair about it, his "Hell Ride" ability
>where he summons the car and uses it to flatten the baddies, he
>doesn't actually *drive* it. He's standing on the hood holding
>flaming chains like they're reins.
>
>That's riding, in my book. :D

I... guess I can't argue with that.

--G.
why are all demons such dorks? :)
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>I mean, if I'm being totally fair about it, his "Hell Ride" ability
>where he summons the car and uses it to flatten the baddies, he
>doesn't actually *drive* it. He's standing on the hood holding
>flaming chains like they're reins.
>
>That's riding, in my book. :D

Hehe. Also, look on the bright side. That card doesn't cost any hitpoints.

Just...ignore what it -does- cost. Nothing to see here behind the curtain.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

>
>>- Wait, the new Ghost Rider drives a CAR? That ain't right.
>
>Robbie Reyes? He's been around for a while, actually.

Well, he's new to me. I haven't picked up a new Marvel comic in... jeez... maybe 10 years?

--G.
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>Well, he's new to me. I haven't picked up a new Marvel comic in...
>jeez... maybe 10 years?

Robbie was created in 2014, so you just missed him.

Personally, the only Marvel book I can honestly recommend from the last few years is Jed Mackay's MOON KNIGHT. But I'm finicky. :)

>>>- Wait, the new Ghost Rider drives a CAR? That ain't right.
>>
>>Robbie Reyes? He's been around for a while, actually.
>
>Well, he's new to me.

I have to say I appreciate his explanation of his demon's name. "His real name is like something you'd see written on a cymbal, except with like... 12 apostrophes?"

(I really don't like that head design, though, so I think I'll be playing him with the '90s skin on most of the time.)

--G.
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One other very XCOMian thing I've noticed is the incredibly slow buried-tutorial burn on introducing facilities and stuff around the base. I remember both XCOM EU and XCOM 2 made you walk a long damn way before you actually had everything turned on and doing things.

(In this case the effect may be exaggerated further by all the Mass Effect-y social stuff, which the XCOM games more or less lack apart from checking in with your department heads. It elongates the timescale further.)

--G.
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>One other very XCOMian thing I've noticed is the incredibly slow
>buried-tutorial burn on introducing facilities and stuff around the
>base. I remember both XCOM EU and XCOM 2 made you walk a long damn
>way before you actually had everything turned on and doing things.

Yeah, I can't decide if I appreciate the way they did the tutorial, or if I'd rather have had a traditional "here's all the levers and how they work, get to it" approach.

I also think my habitual urge to Side Quest All The Things! may have led to some sequence breaking. Nothing serious, just a bit on the odd side. I'd already discovered a huge chunk of collectibles before Agatha put in her first appearance and started talking about them, for example. It's like, "Yeah, Ags, I know, Wanda left diary entries all over the place. You don't need to remind me."

Also, that same habit meant I've been grabbing every reagent you can pick up since I was allowed to wander the grounds, so -- so far, at least -- every time an EMO KIDS or Shop Class request comes up, I've just been able to hand them the goods right away.

*Also* also, I'm currently progression-locked, because I've completed Agatha's questline to the point where I'm waiting on Doc Strange but I suspect his epiphany is tied to either story or level progression instead of how far along I am in Agatha's arc.

--sofaspud
--but Magik's birthday was cool, so there's that

It's been a little while, but IIRC Strange's help with the barrier is tied to story progression.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

So...

... and this is not specifically a Midnight Suns question so much as a general "in every Marvel continuity ever produced at any time" one...

... has there ever been a version of the Scarlet Witch who was worth the trouble?

--G.
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>So...
>
>... and this is not specifically a Midnight Suns question so
>much as a general "in every Marvel continuity ever produced at any
>time" one...
>
>... has there ever been a version of the Scarlet Witch who was
>worth the trouble?
>

There was a time when "fucking with Wanda's mental stability" was not an editorial imperative at Marvel. I think that ended in the mid-80s, with the birth of her children, or possibly when Vision was disassembled.

Peter Eng
--
Insert humorous comment here.

>There was a time when "fucking with Wanda's mental stability" was not
>an editorial imperative at Marvel. I think that ended in the mid-80s,
>with the birth of her children, or possibly when Vision was
>disassembled.

Mid 90s to early 2000s was good for her, with her explicitly getting over her past trauma. Then Bendis happened, used her to fuck over two sections of the Marvel Universe at once, and she never recovered.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

>... has there ever been a version of the Scarlet Witch who was
>worth the trouble?
>

X-Men Evolution?

To my knowledge? Maybe that like, four years between her being in the brotherhood of evil mutants (way to shoot your own cause in the foot there, Magneto. Branding is important) and her hooking up with Vision? But I think she’s just always been tossed around like a trauma ball, like most mutants. She’s kinda just much worse to have the amount of trauma she has than, say, Husk, or Marrow.

"K.O." my ass, game. Blade just jumped on that dude from like two stories high and drove a stake through his chest. That motherfucker's dead.

--G.
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"We don't like that word here. They were defeated." -- City of Heroes, more or less

I've discovered a new (minor) peeve. Some enemies, seemingly at random, are available to be interrogated after you KO them. Which honestly I'm fine with. I'm having a hard time keeping my intel stocks topped off. :) And I don't even mind, really, that it burns a card play to do so. Action economy is king, yo.

No, what grinds my gears just a little bit is that you apparently don't get the intel if you finish off other mofo on the map and complete the mission before using your 'get intel' card.

Like, seriously? Way to be a dick, Firaxis.

--sofaspud
--it's most glaringly painful when you multi-KO to finish the map and one of them pops up with intel right before the map closes, grr

Oh that’s dumb, you should totally get intel at the end of a mission...but come to think of it, that sounds like it would make things too easy, doesn’t it... Action economy like you said. Maybe if they had a countdown timer so you needed to finish the mission before that counts down or they escape or something...

>Oh that’s dumb, you should totally get intel at the end of a
>mission...but come to think of it, that sounds like it would make
>things too easy, doesn’t it... Action economy like you said. Maybe
>if they had a countdown timer so you needed to finish the mission
>before that counts down or they escape or something...

The very first time I had an interrogation appear, it was on the last enemy of the map, so I never even got the -option-. I just saw the splash saying an interrogation was available and then another splash for mission complete. Ugh.

That said, it's over and above what you get for finishing the map, so you at least do not -lose- anything for it happening. You just don't gain extra.

------
Authors of our fates
Orchestrate our fall from grace
Poorest players on the stage
Our defiance drives us straight to the edge

LAST EDITED ON May-17-23 AT 05:46 PM (EDT)
 
>Some enemies, seemingly at
>random, are available to be interrogated after you KO them.

For clarification purposes, I should note for those who haven't played the game that this only works on members of Hydra (as funny as it would be to get the "hero intimidates cowering bad guy" animation for, say, a Lilin Guardian), and only if you've built the appropriate widget for the War Room. They last a finite number of plays before they time out and the downed goon flops to the ground (at which points the Interrogate card disappears).

I also noticed recently that there are different colors of Interrogate cards, which match the rarity colors of other stuff in the game and presumably correlate at least vaguely to the value of what you get if you play them. Even so, the rewards you get seem to be random resource drops and are never particularly huge, so they're really not worth bothering with unless you seriously have nothing else you need to do with that card play. I think the devs might have nerfed the system a bit in response to people grumbling about how much FOMO they were getting from the very common circumstances where you get the card but never have a chance to play it because the mission is ending as it spawns.

All that said, I've discovered that one of my favorite things to do with these, especially if they drop from a class of Hydra goon I hold in particular contempt (like, say, Marksmen, or Mystics), is to burn them for redraws or extra-move discards. That causes the kneeling bad guy to immediately "die" and is deeply, maliciously satisfying. It says "I don't even care what you might know enough to keep you alive another ten seconds." :)

(It's even vaguely tactical, because it means you don't have to burn some other card you'd rather keep in your hand, like Guarding Strike.)

--G.
"You should be glad it's me asking. A lot of the others aren't so friendly. Or neighborhood. Or Spider-Man!"
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Another random thing I realized:

While this game feels like it could have a romance arc, I'm not getting the impression that it does. The friendship meter appears to be just that -- friendship, rather than a pathway to snoggin'.

And I'm down for that!

I mean, don't get me wrong, in the right situation I have zero problem with games having romancable characters, but this story doesn't need that drama (it's got plenty of other drama going on :D ) and if it was included it would have felt forced at best, I think. So I'm glad it doesn't look like it's in the cards.

Though I have to admit watching Blade fail miserably w.r.t. Carol is deeply amusing.

--sofaspud
--

>While this game feels like it could have a romance arc, I'm not
>getting the impression that it does. The friendship meter
>appears to be just that -- friendship, rather than a pathway to
>snoggin'.
>
>And I'm down for that!

That is pretty unusual for this type of game, although in this instance I imagine the design decision was influenced by the fact that (most of) these characters already have so much personal history lurking in the background. For example, if The Hunter were able to just swan in out of nowhere and put the moves on Spider-Man, half the nerds in North America would refund the game on Steam in an explosion of rage so shrill and penetrating it would be clearly audible in the Blue Area of the Moon.

That said, some of the potential pairings are hilarious. I mean, can you even imagine Doctor Strange having a romance/sexytimes plot? Steve hasn't gotten laid since that time in med school, c'mon.

>I mean, don't get me wrong, in the right situation I have zero problem
>with games having romancable characters, but this story doesn't
>need that drama (it's got plenty of other drama going on :D ) and if
>it was included it would have felt forced at best, I think. So I'm
>glad it doesn't look like it's in the cards.

It would seem kind of cumbersome, particularly focused on the player character. The Hunter clearly ain't have time for that.

On the other hand, it could be funny if they set some such arcs up between NPCs, for The Hunter to just observe bemusedly, as in...

>Though I have to admit watching Blade fail miserably w.r.t. Carol is
>deeply amusing.

... this. Although in fairness to Blade, "we were not ready for Carol" is a pretty common outcome. :)

--G.
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>That said, some of the potential pairings are hilarious. I mean, can
>you even imagine Doctor Strange having a romance/sexytimes
>plot? Steve hasn't gotten laid since that time in med school, c'mon.

Actually, he's had a fairly consistent love interest (Clea) since the '70s. As of the last issue of the previous run (a new one starts this month) they are together.

>
>>That said, some of the potential pairings are hilarious. I mean, can
>>you even imagine Doctor Strange having a romance/sexytimes
>>plot? Steve hasn't gotten laid since that time in med school, c'mon.
>
>Actually, he's had a fairly consistent love interest (Clea) since the
>'70s.

I'm just going to stop talking about comics, I guess, since all of my intel seems to be either out of date or wrong. :)

--G.
... I still think that's weird, though
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>I'm just going to stop talking about comics, I guess, since all of my
>intel seems to be either out of date or wrong. :)

It's what I do. I'm sort of the official unofficial continuity guy for a Moon Knight podcast. :)

Just started playing this, and one of the most delightful things I never even thought about is Blade forming a book club so he can have an excuse to hang out with Capt Marvel and Steve Rogers crashes the party because he thinks Blade wants to be best buds with him but is just shy.

Hunter just standing by thinking "Things were a lot simpler when I was just a cruise missile shot at demons. Wait, what's a cruise missile?"