South of Midnight - Review
After getting the chance to play South of Midnight early this year for a preview, I was intrigued by the story, the location, and of course the characters. Now that I have finished the game, I can say that I did enjoy what was on offer, but there are some issues, nothing that should make you avoid the game, as the tale is worth the telling.
South of Midnight tells a story centered around Hazel Flood, who in the opening moments of the game, sees her mama washed down river, as a hurricane causes chaos all around her. While Hazel’s attempt to chase down the house fails, they do cause her to unlock a power, which leads her on a grand adventure in order to find her mama and return home. The story is narrated, at least at the beginning, by Catfish, who is a giant talking fish and he puts some context around events, but most of the tale is discovered as you play. Each area you get to explore often has papers, photos and even mystical notes left behind, that explain what is going on around you. These honestly make the world feel all the richer because of it, because Hazel is about as engaging as a catfish in a tree. As you venture into each area, there are stigmas to remove, these are physical representations of someone’s grief and pain, which often leave them broken. Clearing them up gives you insight into their story and helps them heal, if only a little, but it also opens the way for moving forward.
Honestly, the weakest part of the games story is Hazel, because she is just to self-absorbed at all times. Yes she is a teenager and they are known for that, but it isn’t just her age. Catfish is her only source of information on her newly unlocked abilities and when someone says something else, she opts to ignore Catfish. Later on, she learns something and its heartbreaking, but rather than actually listening to the tale, she ignores it and causes a major problem. There are times when people tell her one thing and she does the opposite, just because she thinks she knows better, even when someone specifically tells her not to do something. The story is quite strong, as long as you take it as a whole, there are times when you can discover story beats in a different order than they were likely meant to be, which undercuts some reveals. As long as you take Hazel to be a means to the stories discoveries and not the focal point of the story, you should have a good time.
In the preview, something that I liked but had concerns about was the gameplay, which I am happy to say is much better here. One of the reasons the gameplay feels better here is that the camera is no longer a force against itself, it is not perfect, but exploring the world feels doable now. Gameplay is broken down into two parts, exploration and combat and its about a 50/50 split. A lot of Hazel’s time in the world has her getting to new destinations and sometimes that is done by following a road, but more often than not it requires climbing, wall running and more than a few leaps of faith. As Hazel is known as a weaver, her abilities to grant her options like double jump and such, which do expand slowly over the course of the game, but you thankfully get most skills in the early stages. The game is linear, often with a single path to follow, but there are a lot of side areas to discover, with some of them taking some time and skill to access. There is a reason for exploring the world and that is you finding strands of power, that you can use to upgrade your combat abilities.
Combat is something you are either going to enjoy or you will just deal with as part of the story. There are a variety of enemies in the world and they do get more challenging as you progress through the game, but that does not mean they start out easy. The first two enemies you encounter are quite different from each other, one is stationary but shoots out little bugs that chase you down, the other can leap across the land. Hazel’s abilities that she can use to explore, are also used in combat, being able to tie up an enemy freezes them in place for a moment, giving you a chance to breath or smashing them to bits. The biggest issue with the combat is that her abilities are used on a cooldown, which makes sense so you can’t spam them, but there are many attacks from enemies that require those abilities to defend from. There is an enemy that spits at you, one of its attacks can be dodged, if you are paying attention but the other one requires you to push it back at it. However, there are times when you will have two or more of that same enemy type and reflecting one attack back leaves you open to the others while the ability cools down. It is just a weird design choice to have such lengthy cooldowns from the outset, when they are required to combat select enemies. You can spend your upgrade points on enhancing your abilities, but if you spend on an ability that is not helpful, then you might be in trouble.
The game does have a number of boss fights and they are mostly battles of attrition, as they all tend to require Hazel to use one of her abilities to fight back. One boss fight is against Two-toed Tom, the giant Alligator that we saw in the gameplay trailer last year and until your ability recharges, there is not much you can do, except dodge the attacks. Perhaps the most annoying part of the gameplay is that, there isn’t much to do in the areas, they are just for getting to the next story beat. Now do not get me wrong, I was not expecting a carnival to be set up in each region or anything crazy, but this is supposed to be a world with people living in it and there is nothing going on. I can understand some regions are going to be impacted by the hurricane and some will be devoid of life, based on their place in the world. Perhaps what makes the lack of things to do is made even more weird when you venture into some burrows, the critters that live there have lives. There are some humans in the world, but they are story beats and not folks you can just talk with at random. The world feels like it should be far more alive than what it is and the result is a complete missed opportunity.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the game is the visuals, the game evokes a stop motion animation look, with characters having a clay look to them. You can even see finger prints on the faces of characters and elements that help build the world and that just makes everything feel more tactile. While the locations are devoid of things to do, they are stunning to look at, there were a number of times that I would just stop and watch the animals scurrying about. The animations are also quite nice, which is again highlighted by that amazing Claymation look, Catfish is a real treat for his looks. The games lighting is great and does help make the locations pop, but even when you enter the more mystical locations, the lighting and effects make things feel otherworldly and I am here for it. It will take a moment for you to get your head around the way things play, the stop motion effects running every 2 frames, but the result is a game that is visually so unique that it stands out as a real highpoint.
On the audio side of things there are great and weird. The great is the voice work, now while I might not like Hazel as a character, she is brought to life wonderfully and her interactions with Catfish and the others of the world emphasis that. Catfish is the highlight, with his Cajun voice providing a real sense of authenticity to the world, but he is not the only one. Where the weird comes in is with the music, there are times when its just perfect, the tempo, the melodies, everything comes together to expand the sense of the world. But there are more times when the music does not fit the world, there was one section where everything was meant to be sombre, where things had not gone well for Hazel and the world was darker than what we had seen, but the music, it would not have been out of place at Mardi Gras. I had to actually bring myself to a stop, because I thought I was going crazy, Hazel is in dire straits, but the music playing felt like there was a party going on, it just made no sense.
South of Midnight is an ok game, the world and characters look amazing, thanks to the games visual style, but the substance does not quite match. Hazel as a character is just frustrating, she often ignores the advice of people who know better, causes untold chaos to the world, without seeming to care. Combat had the potential to be something special, but a reliance on abilities that often have a lengthy cooldown makes it harder to connect with and the fact that you can be swarmed quite often, will make it a challenge for many folks. There is a solid game at the core of South of Midnight, the problem is what is around it is often bland or frustrating and I don’t know if that is enough. If you do give the game a try, you will enjoy the adventure, but if you sleep past midnight, you won’t be missing out to much.
The Score
7.5
Review code provided by Xbox
The Pros
The game looks amazing, with the Claymation effect being used to great effect
Exploring the world can be a fun challenge, though there is little to discover in most areas
The Cons
Combat uses abilities that often require long cooldowns, which are exacerbated in boss fights
Hazel is just a selfish character and her lack of caring about others or listening to them, makes it hard to care about her
