South of Midnight is sort of a bowl of Southern gumbo served at a series restaurant. It seems to be unbelievable. Smells nice. It’s clearly been plated with love—attractive presentation, a great deal of type. However the second you dig in, one thing’s off. The flavour’s flat. It’s lacking that soul, that secret ingredient handed down by generations in a dusty previous recipe ebook. It’s not dangerous—it’s simply bland. And that, in a nutshell, is South of Midnight: a sport with phenomenal artwork course, killer environment, and a banging soundtrack… however gameplay that feels undercooked.
Hazel Flood, our protagonist, is instantly compelling. She’s pissed off together with her mom—and honest sufficient. Mama took too lengthy serving to different individuals whereas Hazel was left packing up earlier than a storm hit, scared and alone. There’s a transparent love between them, however it’s difficult by Hazel’s frustration at at all times coming second. What Hazel can’t see—not less than at first—is the emotional weight her mom carries. The exhaustion. The quiet sacrifices. The compulsive want to assist others, even when it prices her time together with her daughter.
Accessible On: Xbox, PC
Reviewed On: PC
Developed By: Compulsion Video games
Printed By: Xbox Video games Studio
Then the storm hits. Hazel’s house is swept away by floodwaters, her mom together with it. In a second that’s each tragic and surreal, Hazel sprints after her drifting home, launching herself right into a Southern Gothic fever dream. The sport dives headfirst into folklore and fairytale, portray a world of magic, trauma, and speaking catfish. Some creatures need to assist. Others need Hazel lifeless. Typical Tuesday within the bayou, actually.
Hazel is a “Weaver”, a magical being that may see the “strands” that weave collectively to make our universe. Utilizing these powers she is destined to assist heal damaged souls by unravelling their “Stigmas”—psychic trauma knots with a contact of magical realism. It’s a intelligent idea, one which lets the sport dip into themes like generational ache, forgiveness, and the tales we inform ourselves to outlive.
And hey, generally it works. Hazel’s nice. The voice performing? Glorious throughout the board. Among the characters she meets are equally compelling. However for each sturdy emotional beat, there’s one other subplot that fizzles out like a moist firework. The Benjy and brother arc, for instance, insists Hazel “healed” them… however I used to be left staring on the display questioning how, precisely. Did I miss a scene? A dialogue choice? A facet quest the place I hugged them into emotional wholeness? The catchy musical quantity that narrates Benjy’s tragic life was nearly sufficient to make me breeze again the shortage of actual closure. Virtually.
Graphically, the sport slaps arduous. South of Midnight seems to be stunning and employs an fascinating stop-motion type. In different phrases, it looks as if each few frames is lacking, a visible quirk you may need seen in films like Throughout the Spider-Verse or Puss in Boots: The Final Want. The artwork type seems to be like Southern folklore dropped at life by muddy bayou magic, earthy color pallettes and exaggerated animations. It’s slightly bit Tim Burton, a smidgen Guillermo del Toro, however with its personal twisted allure.
The apparent flaw of stop-motion in a online game is that it might probably come throughout not as a creative alternative, however extra like your body charge deciding to go on a trip. Is my historical Nvidia 1080ti lastly dying? Nah, it’s simply the stop-motion doing its factor. Fortunately, the sport’s efficiency appears steady, which is nice as a result of I’m certain stop-motion and a low FPS could be horrible to take a look at. If something, I truly want the sport had leaned more durable into the stop-motion as a result of I truthfully didn’t discover it more often than not.
Oh, and you’ll decide to show off the stop-motion in order for you. Sadly, you may solely flip it off in gameplay – cutscenes will nonetheless have these lacking frames.
If the visible presentation is killer, then the soundtrack is wonderful fucking homicide (in the easiest way) dedicated by composer Olivier Deriviere. Hand this man an award or 5, as a result of his soulful, catchy tunes abound, from the quieter backing tracks that assist set the temper as you discover swamps to the jazzy tracks which can be distinctive to particular person ranges and encounters. Some tracks even have lyrics tied to particular characters, giving scenes a punch of theatrical aptitude. It’s the form of soundtrack that deserves an award—and doubtless a vinyl launch. The worth I paid for the Premium Version improve was price it simply to get my grubby-ass arms on the OST.
Diving into the gameplay, although? Mid. Generally, even lower than that.
This purely a linear, guided sport and I’m completely okay with that. It’s truthfully refreshing to step again from the infinite parade of open-world adventures that anticipate me to spend 80 hours on nonsense. The managed nature of video games like this could enable for smarter pacing, and for essentially the most half that’s what South of Midnight manages to do because it brings you on a tour of thorny forests, creepy bayous and farmland.
The fight is aggressively mid. Hazel expenses into battle with precisely one assault button and nil regret. You’ll spam it like a ‘Purchase Now’ button on a sneaker drop. That’s it. You’ll be able to unlock some further powers—possessing enemies, yanking them round—however they really feel like seasoning sprinkled on stale meat. They’re boring, and have been carried out much better in quite a few different video games.
The sport tries to ramp up problem by throwing extra enemies at you, however the fight system clearly wasn’t constructed for crowd management. After a number of hours, you’ll have seen each enemy sort, each combo (all certainly one of them), and each equivalent “area” format the sport has to supply. Towards the top, I began sighing each time I stumbled into one other sealed-off combat zone. Not as a result of it was arduous, however as a result of it was predictable. On prime of that, enemies all form of look the identical, and there are points with studying enemy assaults, particularly the fundamental Haint’s strikes. However on the plus facet, I did be taught that “haints” are an precise previous south type of ghost, in order that’s cool.
Platforming fares no higher. It’s the identical primary climb-and-jump setup we’ve had for the reason that Uncharted days. Hazel can summon ghostly objects to climb and zip round a bit like bayou Spider-Man, however the sport by no means asks you to do something intelligent with these instruments. No timing puzzles. No tight motion challenges. Simply “go right here, press button, transfer on.”
Exploration is barely price mentioning. Regardless of some beautiful degree design, it’s principally window dressing. You’ll be able to gather “Floofs” (sure, that’s actually what they’re known as), the sport’s forex for an improve system that basically doesn’t have something price speaking about.
The entire sport adheres to a inflexible construction that turns into repetitive after only a few chapters. A little bit of platforming, one other apparent fight area the place you’re sealed in till every part is lifeless, a bit extra platforming, a brain-numbingly simplistic puzzle, one other area and repeat till the credit score’s roll. All of this at all times results in a barely open space the place you unravel 4 bits of Stigma which helps you to end up the chapter, generally resulting in a boss combat. Then you definately repeat it yet again about ten instances.
Boss fights? A combined bag. Visually and musically, they’re wonderful. Every one seems to be like a fever dream and seems like a Broadway quantity staged in Hell. However mechanically, they’re insultingly easy. Rule of threes is in full, unrelenting drive. Dodge, hit, repeat. The ultimate boss specifically was a story and gameplay moist fart. No pressure. No payoff. Simply… carried out. Though the general narrative wasn’t something wonderful, the sport’s southern vibes, characters and foot-tapping good music did have me desirous to see the top, however when the credit rolled it simply didn’t fairly land.
Look, by their very nature video games are repetitive and have repetitive constructions. They’re constructed round gameplay loops, in any case. However one of the best builders can conceal this reality, utilizing fascinating twists on established gameplay, narrative, presentation and different tips to distract you from the repetition. Or, after all, the gameplay can simply be so good that you simply don’t care concerning the repetition. However for the reason that fight, puzzle fixing and platforming in South of Midnight are weak, the inflexible construction of the sport turns into an increasing number of pronounced as you play.
South of Midnight left a mark. Not as a result of it performs nice—however as a result of it tries to say one thing. About grief, about legacy, about rhythm and soul. It doesn’t at all times hit the mark, however it tries. It’s a disgrace the gameplay couldn’t sustain with the vibe. It simply wanted a bit extra time put into the gameplay and a bit much less into every part else. However then once more, if Compulsion did that, South of Midnight wouldn’t be anyplace close to as fascinating as it’s. But when Compulsion Video games ever make an animated movie? I’m first in line. Ideally with a correct bowl of gumbo.
And to all my southerners on the market, I’m very sorry concerning the horrible gumbo metaphors. However not sorry sufficient to take them out.
