I haven’t had a chance to play it yet (it’s still downloading) but they seem nothing alike. Ultimate Alliance is an Action RPG (like the Diablo series). Midnight Suns is a tactical RPG.
It’s like comparing Baldur’s Gate and Legend of Zelda.
I think it is different enough. It was made by the same people who did X-COM and, while this is definitely different from X-COM (and not as good IMHO) it is still a fun and interesting turn-based game. That said, I certainly have not played all the Marvel games but I suspect this is different enough to be at least worth a try.
It’s not even that. Midnight Suns is a turn-based, deck building game with tactical elements. It’s solidly in the same genre as games like Slay the Spire, Griftlands, or Fights in Tight Spaces. It’s got very few similarities to the Ultimate Alliance games except at the most superficial level.
Ah, okay. I saw the “deck of abilities” being described for the game, but I wasn’t sure how critical that was to the game.
The game also has a lot of DLC they’d like to sell you. Most is cosmetic (new outfits) but there will be new heroes introduced over time as well.
It’s the entire game. You have a roster of heroes, each of which has their own ~10 card deck. You pick three of them for a mission, and shuffle their decks together. Each card represents an attack or super power for that hero. If you don’t draw any Spider-Man cards in a turn, Spider-Man doesn’t get any actions. There’s also a tactical battlefield, where you can move your heroes around and position them to use cards more effectively, or trigger environmental effects that can damage enemies. As you play, your heroes level up, getting more HP, and you can earn new cards for their decks, or upgrade cards you have to be more powerful.
Also, there’s no monetezation on the cards. You don’t buy booster packs like Hearthstone or M:TG, all cards are earned in-game as quest rewards.
Had my eye on that and just picked it up.
Played a couple tutorial missions; seems like it will be a lot of fun.
Don’t want to think about it that much now, but looking forward to going deeper this weekend.
I haven’t played the last of those, but I absolutely wouldn’t put it the same genre as classic deckbuilding games. Games like Slay the Spire and Griftlands are roguelikes which require you to construct a single deck around random additions.
Card acquisition in Midnight Suns is random at first, but it’s not at all difficult to get every single one. Choosing which ten cards you bring with each of your heroes is pretty similar to choosing equipment loadouts fight by fight, just like in XCOM.
The combat in Midnight Suns is also much closer to XCOM, except it doesn’t have a cover system because the developers thought it would feel silly to have superheroes ducking behind stuff all the time. Tactical movement, carefully planning your loadouts mission by mission, and creating team synergy is essential to winning at more difficult levels. You don’t do any of that in Slay the Spire.
I’d put all those games under the same broad genre of “deck builders.” StS and Griftlands (and Fights in Tight Spaces, which you should absolutely check out if you like the other two games) are rogue-like deck builders, which Midnight Suns is not. What makes these games similar, to me, is the idea of controlling an avatar based on which cards you play, instead of direct input. Playing FiTS might make this categorization more obvious, since it’s a rogue-like like StS, but with a grid-based tactical element that’s way more reminiscent of X-Com than Suns.
Genre definitions get fuzzy when you start combining elements, but I’d describe Midnight Suns as “a tactical combat game with deckbuilder elements” rather than as “a deckbuilder with tactical combat elements.”
The core elements of deckbuilding games, going back to Dominion (the progenitor of the genre) are:
- You have a single deck which you use for the entire game.
- You have limited control over which cards are added to or removed from your deck.
- The challenge lays in mitigating the random elements and creating a workable engine.
None of that applies to Midnight Suns, where:
- You have something like a dozen individual decks which you freely swap between.
- You have full control over which cards you choose to use.
- The challenge is in combining your cards and decks to create powerful synergies.
Can’t agree with that. The tactical elements are way too light. I’ve heard MS described as “X-Com, but Marvel,” and if I’d got the game based off that description, I’d be pretty disappointed in it. It’s a card game first and foremost, and card play drives 80% of the action in the game.
I’d say the core element of a deck building game is it involves you building a deck. Stuff like how often/easy it is to change your deck is just playing with the parameters.
I’ve played the game and I don’t hate it, but it feels like a mobile game. It doesn’t feel like something I’m interested in playing on my PC or console. If I could play it on my phone or tablet, that would be better. It comes across as a game that’s easy to play at your own pace and you can stop at any time (you can even save each round in combat).
It’s not what I was expecting from a hyped-up AAA Marvel title. I’m glad I didn’t buy it before playing it. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s a neat game. The card strategies are interesting enough and I like the graphics (even though it has a cartoony style that reminds me of Disney Infinity).
I’ll play some more this weekend but I don’t see myself buying it even on discount.
Now on GOG
in the comments, its said that it’s not the original as they changed a few things to "modernize "it
reminds me of a game called “void bastards” …
AFK Fishing simulator and pretty girl generator Black Desert Online is currently free on Steam. In April 2022, last time it was free, I said:
Also cute looking and “Mostly Positive” action-adventure game Figment is currently free on Steam. Never heard of it before now but 1,594 people can’t be wrong.
I can honestly say I never expected to see those two phrases together in the same sentence in a computer game description.