South of Midnight is South of Greatness
While the majority of the game is absolutely wonderful, its core combat holds it back.
I am a skittish cat. I get scared so damn easily. One thing that scares me a ton is claymation. I learned this really young when I had a fever dream after watching Chicken Run while I was sick with Chickenpox (pretty funny that I had Chickenpox and watched Chicken Run, I know). Which I still have flashbacks to even 25 years later, especially when watching or seeing claymation stuff. I was even scared when I had to do my own claymation in my film program in college. Because, again, I'm an easily scared cat.
When I saw that South of Midnight has an art style that evoked claymation I was very reluctant to try it out, but I heard the game was very good and with the "anti-woke" crowd hating it, I had to give it a shot. So I hope you're happy, yes you reading, I had to face my claymation fears to provide you with a review of a wonderful game that I actually enjoyed a lot, except for the combat. Such a sacrifice.
The Premise
South of Midnight takes place in a world where southern mythological cryptids and creatures are real. You play Hazel, the first Weaver (person who can see the strands connecting the world and who can use them both to their advantage and to help heal people's souls) since, I think, before the Civil War. She's on a journey to find her Mom after their house fell into the river because of a Hurricane. On this journey Hazel discovers that she is a weaver, goes through this new world of mythological beasts making mistakes, believing things she shouldn't, clearing Stigma (black and red growths of corruption that litter the world of the game) and helping people. You meet a lot of people on the way, but Hazel is always driven by her one drive, to find her Mom and go home together.
The Good
There are games that start slowly and then there are games that start with a bang. Within 30 minutes South of Midnight has your checking up on Hazels neighbors during a hurricane, to running off after her mom who was in their mobile home that suddenly became much more mobile by falling into a river, to seeing this freaky spider, but with less legs, monster off in the distance, to running through town as it collapses around you, to facing the most freaky looking character in the game, Hazels Grandma Bunny. The game has this tremendous ability to give you buy in quickly with the events that happen so that when there are small lulls you will be wondering when the next thing will be coming around the corner to pick up the action.
Speaking of buy in. The characters have a depth to them that some games really struggle to provide. Hazel and her Grandma are two incredibly interesting characters. Hazel has a really good goal, to save her mom, that drives her to always push forward. Meanwhile, Grandma Bunny has an immediate mystery to her when you learn she might be able to see the strands just like Hazel, and that maybe she's jealous of Hazel and that maybe she would hold it against her. The claymation-like effects in the game do provide extra depth to the characters in the game that I feel like would feel very different if it didn't have that effect. The characters are just really well formed and written.
A small thing that's really important. You know how claymation freaks me out? Well, at least for gameplay, I can turn it off. It really helps me play the game without being incredibly uncomfortable with every action just in the world. The cutscenes are unaffected by this setting but compared to other claymation stuff, it's easier to handle. Probably because it's not actually claymation.
The music in this game is just stunning. Basically each level has its own song to it where the lyrics are about the enemy you are fighting and talks about their backstory. They're all incredibly well done and provide a really interesting amount of depth to the enemy you are fighting. I particularly enjoyed the Hugging Molly song because just...damn...just so good. South of Midnight shows that you can use songs to communicate backstory of a person or creature to the player without interrupting gameplay; even enhancing gameplay, I would say. It's a truly wonderful experience that really made the game feel very special and much deeper, despite the world already having such substantial depth.
The Bad
Combat is meant to be varied. You're meant to feel powerful even if you have to strategize. In some of my favorite games the basic enemies are easy to deal with and die quickly which is satisfying. When I'm hacking away at an enemy I don't want it to last too long. Unfortunately, the combat in South of Midnight is an absolutely middling experience. I feel like I don't have enough power in the battlefield, my powers don't do enough damage, and the enemies take way too long to kill. The most basic of basic enemies, on easy difficulty, take around 10 hits with my weapon to kill with my weapon being fully upgraded. That's too many hits. One of the things Destiny got right is that low tier enemies should die in 2, maybe 3, hits. That should be standard in all videogames with any kind of combat. It felt like they were trying to make the game difficult enough that you wouldn't just run through it super quickly. But that's not an excuse for making the combat so much of a slog that I dread the next time I have to fight them.
At least in the boss fights I feel the little damage makes more sense. Normal combat though, that's insane and needs to be sped up in order to be more fun and for it to feel more satisfying. Plus, your abilities have pretty slow cool downs and, even worse, the weaken ability barely feels like it does more damage. It's basically one or two less hits to kill the enemy. That's it. The power is basically useless, especially without upgrades. Combat is not the only thing you do in this game but it's the main thing aside from just running around and doing some story stuff. The developers made such an interesting world with an interesting cast of characters, but couldn't manage to make the combat feel good to play. I do think it's important that in the later third of the game, this all gets much better and combat becomes a bit quicker, but that doesn't excuse making the first two-thirds more of a slog. It just shows they made the upgrades not to make you feel legitimately more powerful but to make the combat just go faster. Incredibly disappointing.
I'm really getting tired of talking about this one in my reviews, it feels like every fucking game I play has it: slow walking for "cinematic" moments. Fucking get rid of that. Stop it. It's stupid, it's not fun, and it's just annoying and makes me fucking pissed off. STOP IT!
The Ending
The game ends in characteristic fashion, you defeat the bad guy, Kooma, and save Hazels' mom. The last chapter has you going through a disconnected almost New Orleans like landscape that you have to do a bunch of jumping and shit to get through.
After Kooma is dead, or I guess satiated because it wasn't actually Kooma you killed, just his hunger. As Roux says, you can't kill the King of Dreams and Nightmares. Anyway, back in Roux's camper....thing he tells you to give a hairbrush to Bunny, saying it's his favor he asked for from earlier. Hazel agrees and she's sent back to town.
Cut to outside the Flood mansion, you meet your mom in the graveyard, but, instead of leaving together, Hazel says she's got one more thing to do and tells her mom to go home. Hazel runs up to the Stigma covered Flood mansion to find Bunny sitting in a chair in front of the fireplace, with the heart of Molly on the ground. Hazel confronts her, says that she needs to pay for what she's done. Then gives her the hairbrush, which turned out to be Cherie's (Bunny's dead daughter) hairbrush. Roux pops up, as he does, and gives her the opportunity to be in one of his illusions where she'll never be able to tell the difference from the real Cherie and the illusion one. Bunny takes him up on his offer.
Hazel flees the Flood mansion as it collapses from the Stigma being cleared, and finds her mom driving up to her. They get out, do a little bit of a "It's a long story" and then the "I've got time" thing. And credits.
After credits there's a small thing where Hazel was telling some animals and Benjy about the whole story. As if the game was simply her recounting it to them. It was a sweet little moment.
The ending was actually pretty good. I liked that we got to see Hazels' mom use the bottle to help her defeat Kooma. The final boss fight was great and not frustrating although I do wish I had actually fought Kooma directly instead of just fighting normal enemies and each time they died some of his health went away. But it was still a satisfying experience.
What I think that was mildly frustrating was the introduction of Kooma so late in the plot. In chapter 13 we find out what that thing in the chase sequences is, that it's Kooma's Hunger because Hazel is disrupting his food supply essentially when she helps people. I wish there was more hinting because honestly the Kooma reveal just felt out of nowhere. It was good to get info about what the fuck those chase sequences were about, but it still was confusing why I didn't know this earlier. I know, I know, it's all about the dramatic reveal near the end. That's cool. Yet, what if we had found out Kooma was a thing earlier in the game, but that he was, I dunno, gone or dead or some shit. And then, actually he's alive. I don't know, I'm not a story writer. I just think Kooma's reveal could have been better handled.
Besides that, great ending with great gameplay, satisfying conclusions, and feels like it tied up all loose ends for the game while still leaving the door open for more stories to be told if the game gets a sequel. Really well done.
The Conclusion
I wanted to score South of Midnight higher. I enjoyed it immensely, yet the longer the game went on, the more combat I experienced, the more difficult it became to go through the combat sections. It sucked how that was what I was feeling, especially since the game was only 9 hours. The game has so many positives in it that made it deserve a high score, but one of the things that matters the most to me is game feel and this game has a first half or so that is just such a slog with combat, even on the easiest difficulty, that it's just a frustrating experience to get through and makes the game feel tiring.
If you're looking for a third person hack-and-slash-like game, where you play in a world where mythological beasts from the Deep South exist and are terrorizing residents after a Hurricane and then you go around healing levels of poison, which leads to you healing people of their deep trauma, using your magic powers that allow you to dispell it and you get to have a really engaging and interesting story, and you're willing to look past combat being kind of a slog for the first two-thirds of the game, then this will be something you enjoy. But if combat being a slog for any amount of time in a game makes you hate them, this one isn't for you, unless you do some cheating to fix that. If you can look past the combat issues, this game is a wonderful experience and you should definitely play it.
Meow,
Cat