South of Midnight was one of the highlights of Xbox’s summer showcase last year, and it definitely caught my attention with its beautiful world, its stop motion animation, and a fun-looking combat system. Now that the game is here, I didn’t expect it to be representative of so many symbols of oppression and culture, and that’s what easily set the experience as something special despite a tired gameplay loop.
The game stars Hazel Flood, someone that appears to be your typical young adult living in the south. The game begins with her at home helping her mom get ready to evacuate because of an approaching hurricane. During the process, she gets into an argument with her mother and claims that she cares more about random strangers than her daughter herself. As Hazel checks on the neighbors, the storm takes a turn for the worse and takes down her house and as it gets washed away, her home of Prospero she once knew becomes a devastated fantasy setting dealing with not only the aftermath of the hurricane, but the pain of its citizens as well.
South of Midnight is the first game developed by Compulsion Games as a part of Xbox Game Studios, and it’s unlike any of their past two games as far as its look and feel. If you’ve played Contrast or We Happy Few, you’ll definitely see some similarities with its gothic style, but it’s the animation and environments (in addition to its unique take on southern themes) that truly set South of Midnight apart.
South of Midnight is stunning both visually and in its art style.
If you’ve watched or enjoyed any of the Spider-Verse films, you should be right at home with South of Midnight. The game features a dynamic stop motion-style animation reminiscent of those films, and it works well with the game along with its character design. A big highlight for me was the overall look of the downtrodden Prospero. The place has a look that seems very much inspired by Louisiana and other southern territories. From the swampy bayou to the beautifully uneven stone floors of New Orleans, despite the scripted moments of oppression, Prospero is an absolute joy to explore with fun secrets to uncover.
Delving further, what really makes South of Midnight special is the way it blends southern folklore into its story. While I’m hardly a history buff, as someone that grew up as an Asian-American in the bay area, there really isn’t much about the deep south that I know aside from slavery, natural disasters, oppression as a direct result of wars. I don’t know anything about the folk tales in the area, so seeing the game’s takes on characters like Two Toed Tom, The Rougarou, Huggin’ Molly, and a handful of others was definitely an experience, and it encouraged me to look up and research some of these tales. With it being a blind spot for me, I had a fun discussion with Brandon on the Day 0 Update talking about the “real” versions of these characters, so knowing that some of these people actually existed added to what this story was capable of.
On the surface, the game is a third-person action-platformer with brief moments of combat, separated into chapters. While it definitely will draw some comparisons to games like Prince of Persia or Uncharted with all the parkour and action, if I had to make a one-to-one comparison, it would be Enslaved: Odyssey to the West for those who played that underrated gem just because of its emphasis on parkour and melee-style combat. Being fully honest, once you really understand the gameplay loop, longer gameplay sessions felt mundane. I had a lot of fun with the parkour aspect, but as someone that loves platformers, that’s expected. It was the combat that I wasn’t a fan of.
The game’s traversal is fun, but it isn’t anything we haven’t seen before.
Every fight in the game happens in an enclosed arena setting, with the focus just being to kill everything in it. With just a couple hooks at your disposal, most of what you’ll be doing is striking at enemies with X button while dodging or parrying with the abilities you have. I had some difficulty at first as some of the enemy hits are hard to dodge, and your health gauge isn’t all that high at first, but after a few tries I eventually got the hang of it, but from there, it got boring. There are moments when you knock enemies down and finish them off but yanking their living cores out, but aside from that, combat wasn’t anything I got too excited about when I got to these moments. There is a function to actually skip all the fights, but I powered through it–they weren’t difficult anyway.
While typical combat wasn’t a strong suit for me, one thing I have to give credit for are the game’s bosses. They aren’t all winners from a gameplay perspective, but they still offered enough variety to keep me interested. I particularly enjoyed taking out Two Toed Tom and Huggin’ Molly, as they both required some skill in addition to utilizing interactive gimmicks on the battlefield.
Another thing I particularly appreciated was the fact that the length of each o f the game’s 14 chapters is varied. Some chapters can take as little as 15 minutes, while others might take more than an hour depending on how much time you spend off the beaten path. Again, the game is absolutely beautiful, and I enjoyed exploring as much as I could and finding secrets that helped give you points for new combat abilities despite not caring about that aspect. On the note of exploration, I wasn’t a fan of the game not having a map. The game is linear enough for that to not really matter, but there are some points where the world seems really expansive, and when you’re exploring a swamp that looks like like any other swamp, it’s easy to constantly find yourself going in circles.
South of Midnight’s depictions of popular characters in southern folklore are tremendous, including this version of Two-Toed Tom who made for an enjoyable boss fight.
One aspect of the game that won’t get enough credit when it comes to the game’s overall presentation is its music. As beautiful as the game is, the music absolutely enhances it. There are several points in the game toward the end of some chapters where lyrical music will accompany Hazel on her journey, and it really adds to the overall experience. It’s not the same, but I liken it to the end of the modern God of War games where the credits rolled as you were still playing towards the end. It’s a reminder that the game is a scripted experience, and I always love when aspects easily taken for granted make envelop you into the overall experience.
The game is relatively short as it took me around 10 hours to roll credits, so whether you have Game Pass or actually purchase the game, my suggestion would be to play it in chunks as I think binging this game could be pretty taxing.
That said, obviously this review is later than I’d like, but I enjoyed my time with South of Midnight. In addition to your typical themes of familial love, it was great exploring a setting I don’t know much about with the realization that people live in places that seem uninhabited, and their stories are worth hearing. If you’re someone that enjoys exploration and the thought of historical folklore interests you, you’ll find a lot to like about South of Midnight. On the flipside, there’s nothing special happening here from a strictly speaking from a gameplay perspective, but that’s not what makes the game great. South of Midnight succeeds at shedding light on stories not often told and does it by offering unique perspectives, but this is also a situation where the game itself isn’t as interesting as its imposed experience.
South of Midnight was one of the highlights of Xbox’s summer showcase last year, and it definitely caught my attention with its beautiful world, its stop motion animation, and a fun-looking combat system. Now that the game is here, I…
South of Midnight was one of the highlights of Xbox’s summer showcase last year, and it definitely caught my attention with its beautiful world, its stop motion animation, and a fun-looking combat system. Now that the game is here, I didn’t expect it to be representative of so many symbols of oppression and culture, and that’s what easily set the experience as something special despite a tired gameplay loop.
The game stars Hazel Flood, someone that appears to be your typical young adult living in the south. The game begins with her at home helping her mom get ready to evacuate because of an approaching hurricane. During the process, she gets into an argument with her mother and claims that she cares more about random strangers than her daughter herself. As Hazel checks on the neighbors, the storm takes a turn for the worse and takes down her house and as it gets washed away, her home of Prospero she once knew becomes a devastated fantasy setting dealing with not only the aftermath of the hurricane, but the pain of its citizens as well.
South of Midnight is the first game developed by Compulsion Games as a part of Xbox Game Studios, and it’s unlike any of their past two games as far as its look and feel. If you’ve played Contrast or We Happy Few, you’ll definitely see some similarities with its gothic style, but it’s the animation and environments (in addition to its unique take on southern themes) that truly set South of Midnight apart.
South of Midnight is stunning both visually and in its art style.
If you’ve watched or enjoyed any of the Spider-Verse films, you should be right at home with South of Midnight. The game features a dynamic stop motion-style animation reminiscent of those films, and it works well with the game along with its character design. A big highlight for me was the overall look of the downtrodden Prospero. The place has a look that seems very much inspired by Louisiana and other southern territories. From the swampy bayou to the beautifully uneven stone floors of New Orleans, despite the scripted moments of oppression, Prospero is an absolute joy to explore with fun secrets to uncover.
Delving further, what really makes South of Midnight special is the way it blends southern folklore into its story. While I’m hardly a history buff, as someone that grew up as an Asian-American in the bay area, there really isn’t much about the deep south that I know aside from slavery, natural disasters, oppression as a direct result of wars. I don’t know anything about the folk tales in the area, so seeing the game’s takes on characters like Two Toed Tom, The Rougarou, Huggin’ Molly, and a handful of others was definitely an experience, and it encouraged me to look up and research some of these tales. With it being a blind spot for me, I had a fun discussion with Brandon on the Day 0 Update talking about the “real” versions of these characters, so knowing that some of these people actually existed added to what this story was capable of.
On the surface, the game is a third-person action-platformer with brief moments of combat, separated into chapters. While it definitely will draw some comparisons to games like Prince of Persia or Uncharted with all the parkour and action, if I had to make a one-to-one comparison, it would be Enslaved: Odyssey to the West for those who played that underrated gem just because of its emphasis on parkour and melee-style combat. Being fully honest, once you really understand the gameplay loop, longer gameplay sessions felt mundane. I had a lot of fun with the parkour aspect, but as someone that loves platformers, that’s expected. It was the combat that I wasn’t a fan of.
The game’s traversal is fun, but it isn’t anything we haven’t seen before.
Every fight in the game happens in an enclosed arena setting, with the focus just being to kill everything in it. With just a couple hooks at your disposal, most of what you’ll be doing is striking at enemies with X button while dodging or parrying with the abilities you have. I had some difficulty at first as some of the enemy hits are hard to dodge, and your health gauge isn’t all that high at first, but after a few tries I eventually got the hang of it, but from there, it got boring. There are moments when you knock enemies down and finish them off but yanking their living cores out, but aside from that, combat wasn’t anything I got too excited about when I got to these moments. There is a function to actually skip all the fights, but I powered through it–they weren’t difficult anyway.
While typical combat wasn’t a strong suit for me, one thing I have to give credit for are the game’s bosses. They aren’t all winners from a gameplay perspective, but they still offered enough variety to keep me interested. I particularly enjoyed taking out Two Toed Tom and Huggin’ Molly, as they both required some skill in addition to utilizing interactive gimmicks on the battlefield.
Another thing I particularly appreciated was the fact that the length of each o f the game’s 14 chapters is varied. Some chapters can take as little as 15 minutes, while others might take more than an hour depending on how much time you spend off the beaten path. Again, the game is absolutely beautiful, and I enjoyed exploring as much as I could and finding secrets that helped give you points for new combat abilities despite not caring about that aspect. On the note of exploration, I wasn’t a fan of the game not having a map. The game is linear enough for that to not really matter, but there are some points where the world seems really expansive, and when you’re exploring a swamp that looks like like any other swamp, it’s easy to constantly find yourself going in circles.
South of Midnight’s depictions of popular characters in southern folklore are tremendous, including this version of Two-Toed Tom who made for an enjoyable boss fight.
One aspect of the game that won’t get enough credit when it comes to the game’s overall presentation is its music. As beautiful as the game is, the music absolutely enhances it. There are several points in the game toward the end of some chapters where lyrical music will accompany Hazel on her journey, and it really adds to the overall experience. It’s not the same, but I liken it to the end of the modern God of War games where the credits rolled as you were still playing towards the end. It’s a reminder that the game is a scripted experience, and I always love when aspects easily taken for granted make envelop you into the overall experience.
The game is relatively short as it took me around 10 hours to roll credits, so whether you have Game Pass or actually purchase the game, my suggestion would be to play it in chunks as I think binging this game could be pretty taxing.
That said, obviously this review is later than I’d like, but I enjoyed my time with South of Midnight. In addition to your typical themes of familial love, it was great exploring a setting I don’t know much about with the realization that people live in places that seem uninhabited, and their stories are worth hearing. If you’re someone that enjoys exploration and the thought of historical folklore interests you, you’ll find a lot to like about South of Midnight. On the flipside, there’s nothing special happening here from a strictly speaking from a gameplay perspective, but that’s not what makes the game great. South of Midnight succeeds at shedding light on stories not often told and does it by offering unique perspectives, but this is also a situation where the game itself isn’t as interesting as its imposed experience.
by Danreb Victorio
