I did not want to play Marvel’s Midnight Suns. Having been so thoroughly heartbroken by Sonic Frontiers, I didn’t even want to look at another video game for at least a week, especially one I knew so little about. I told myself I’ll give it one shot, and if it’s boring or otherwise not fun to play, I’ll consign it to the dustbin of 2022’s underwhelming write-offs (right up there with Triangle Strategy). Then I sat down with the game… and had to physically drag myself away from it 10 whole-ass uninterrupted hours later.
It’s hard to put Midnight Suns into any one genre box. During the game’s prelaunch marketing campaign, XCOM developer Firaxis made it clear that Midnight Sunswasn’t going to be the alien strategy RPG with a Marvel palette swap. And it’s not because it’s Fire Emblem: Three Houses with a Marvel palette swap. To be clear, I lovedThree Houses, so to have that with Marvel — especially after I’ve already given a fair chunk of my soul to Marvel Snap — was right on time. Doubly so since I’ve been aching for a strategy game since Triangle Strategy didn’t deliver and Nintendo’s been emotionally (and physically) withholding the Advance Wars remakes. Marvel’s Midnight Suns came at the right time, satisfying my exact craving while also giving me a ton of sweet story-building extras like developing meaningful friendships with Marvel characters, classic and new.
Midnight Suns wasn’t going to be XCOM with a Marvel palette swap… because it’s Fire Emblem: Three Houses with a Marvel palette swap
Midnight Suns starts with an optional tutorial that gets you acquainted with the game’s fairly easy-to-pick-up battle system before launching you into a story where demon monster mother Lilith has been resurrected by Hydra to rain hell upon the world. To combat Lilith, the Midnight Suns, a group of both well-known and relatively unknown heroes, resurrect her child, the Hunter, who perished in a fight against their mother some 300 years ago.
Knowing as little as I did about Midnight Suns, I was pleased to see there was an element of personalization to the game by way of a custom character. I was, however, a little disheartened to see that despite whatever you make your character look like — in my case, a dark-skinned Black woman — the game doesn’t tailor Lilith to resemble you. Even though you can apparently change your dead dad’s appearance to match yours, I laughed really, really hard when the game told me this woman birthed my Black ass.