South of Midnight Review (Bumbo)
I really want to like this game but sadly I don't.
South of Midnight looks like a playable Laika movie. The art style is fantastic. More of this please. I'm captivated by the world they created, I like the protagonist, I like the Southern Gothic vibes. I like looking at this world and being in it.
Unfortunately, I don't really think it's all that fun to play.
This is a linear narrative-driven action-platformer in the same vein as Psychonauts, Jak and Daxter, etc., but nothing to make it stand out mechanically. Nothing here is really all that unique which might not matter if it executed its design and gameplay better. The platforming is just so rigid and the environmental puzzles are just so uninteresting. They don't really feel like things I have to figure out and there's no joy in executing some sort of complex maneuver you might find in other games. They're just things in the way you get through mindlessly. Move this box over here. Make this platform appear. Find the button prompt. Find a painted ledge. Get into a locked arena to fight off some enemies. It's all just so very bland and straightforward.
Combat is the worst aspect of this game. Again, nothing unique but that could have been forgiven if it were any fun. If you're going to get this game, I highly recommend knocking the game down to one of its easier difficulties, otherwise they're just damage sponges whose attacks you have to dodge and button-mash your way to victory.
The one "unique" thing about this game is doing a finishing move to take down an enemy permanently (all it is is hitting a thing until its health goes down and hitting a button prompt). However, doing this results in an awkward "world freeze" moment where everything around literally stops moving until you're done. It interrupts any sort of flow in combat you might have had otherwise. It's suppose to give you a bit of health and speed up the cooldowns of your abilities but you're probably not going to be using them very much anyway.
It doesn't take long to see the kind of strict routine South of Midnight has for you: platforming, combat arena, platforming, combat arena, rinse, repeat, beat game. So it's dull gameplay followed by annoying gameplay with some charming cutscenes here and there.
Compulsion Games needs to seriously rethink how they design their gameplay. I don't know if they're afraid to experiment, I don't know if this is just a creative decision, I don't know what, but this marks their third title with the same exact frustrating problem of cool aesthetic but boring gameplay. Contrast suffered from this. We Happy Few suffered from this. Sadly, South of Midnight suffers from this.
TL;DR:
- Fun to look at
- Nice to listen to
- Boring to play