Netflix ” Devil May Cry ‘meets a bloody bullseye with light basts, brutal battles & Buffoonery (review)

In recent years, Microsoft has made some interesting studio purchase, but the one who surprised me the most has always been forced. The most remarkable of his two previous publications was We have only a few happyA game with a breathtaking art style, which, according to reviews, was drawn down by moderate survival and boring use of the procedural generation. Although the consensus was disappointing, it was clear that this was a talented studio that had the potential for creating interesting worlds.

Now as part of Microsoft it feels like they finally have all the parts together with South of midnight.

South of midnight I immediately noticed from the first revelation trailer. Similar to We have only a few happyIt has a strong visual hook, this time a beautiful picture of the American deep south with a very unique stop-motion-inspired animation style. The game throws her as a hazel, a young woman who becomes a weaver and enables her strength to repair broken spirits after her mother and home were washed away in a flood. What follows in the ten to twelve -hour campaign is a magical realistic, dark imagination -folktale, which associated great mythical creatures to a deeply personal family drama.

I can’t emphasize enough how much personality this game shows directly from the bat. The appearance of the game is so unique and shows part of America that you don’t see in video games that you have never seen before. It is a game that is characterized by both technical and art direction and for one of the best -looking games that I have seen for some time. The character models see and move like something from a stop -motion animation film and constantly reminds me of the fantastic worlds created by Laika’s films, which is a great thing in my book. Regardless of whether it is made in a classic Bayou, which is made casual surreal with huge fruits in the background or leads through a fantastic New Orleans-like city road, it always feels lively and full of life.

It not only looks phenomenal, but also the storytelling corresponds to the efforts that are inserted into the graphic. From the first interaction between Hazel and her mother, her relationship feels connected and lived in it. The drama in her immediate family is casually written without feeling like a forced representation and investing them in the characters before we even get into fantastic elements. In the introduction, the mythology of the game is as committed as the family drama, and the game effortlessly connects them. As a weaver, they fight against meeting points, shadowy creatures that threaten the large wall rug that connects all life. During your trips you will find Stigma, the physical manifestation of a trauma that the country has scarred. This stigma is often related to one of the many mythological beasts that you go in the fictional county of Prospero. A croc with islands on the back, an owl man and a spider -like monster, which is known as a “hug -up Molly”, are among the many colorful creatures and characters on which they are used and are falsified by well -implemented background stories of tragedies.

The gameplay itself does not feel as fresh or personal as the narrative, but it ensures a snappy and exciting way to deal with the world. South of midnight Has a fairly familiar action adventure formula, mixing platform, source and combat areas between narrative beats. Strangely enough, the gameplay reminded me of another Microsoft hit. Hi-fi rushOnly without the focus on rhythm. To move the world, rarely requires a lot of exploration, but movement mechanics has a certain joy that satisfies the traversal sections, if not always challenging. Wall runs, grip hooks, timing -based traps and double jump are all elements that, together with some with funny trips, provide with some Unclear-Aser climbing sections. You even have a small creature called Crouton, which you can magically control to be too small in places for hazel. It feels refreshing in a way that feels refreshing in a way that almost feels like a relapse into an older generation of consoles. Sometimes the platforming can feel a bit relaxed, the jump always felt a bit more vertical than I expected, but when everything clicks on the spot, it works really well.

The fight has a few wrinkles and feels crisp, if not unique. Hasel offers some special battles in fights, all of which have a part of cooldown times that have to be managed during the fights. These give the standard fight a little variety on a melee basis and offer you options for pushing, pulling, stunning and even their enemies. These skills are slowly switched off in the first chapters, which gives them time to get used to the fight, but it also takes a while to take a while for the encounters to become interesting.

At the end of the game there is about half a dozen enemy types that are mixed and coordinated in the arenas, each with a clear appearance and a specific purpose in the struggle with which you can assess and prioritize during your encounters. Every time you kill a monster, it leaves a small knot that you have to ‘blurred’ (all combat verbs are addressed after fiber chores such as weaving or turning), which gives you a little health. Overall, the fight feels as if it were just good enough to be satisfied for the amount you do, but it never really gets something excessive in the corner that challenges me in a clever way.

South of midnight Device in a convincing structure that drives the overall count and at the same time tells large small short stories. In your search for your mother, you will come across these massive mythological beasts that block your way in a way. To pass you by, you have to remove the stigma from the area and return the country to a more natural state. They alternate between the crossing of the environment and carrying out arena fights on each of these Stigma website to clear their way.

Every time they dissolve stigma, they give a ghostly recovery of the past that slowly reveals the past of the monster. Some of these stories are really tragic and go to dark places when they get empathy for these monsters on their way. After deleting the whole stigma, make a short chase in which a dark fog follows you until you reach safety. In these sections, the movement mechanics really shine and give you funny small obstacle courses that you hold out to keep you on your toes and you have to get in motion quickly so as not to be caught.

Then confront the monster and it gives you the opportunity to repair your broken spirits. It is a remarkably sensitive game that she teaches to look beyond what you feel as “evil” and focus more on healing than on the destruction. In addition to the big narrative blows, the boss fights are funny glasses that change the fight in an entertaining way. Between the chapters there are some beautiful storybook animations that summarize the events in an extremely thematic way and contribute to the folktale of the story told. This whole structure makes the game feel like a good episodic TV show, which gives them a self-contained story that is completed, at the same time captures the overarching most important narrative and progresses.

One thing I loved on the boss fights was that many of them came with beautiful songs that sang the character when they fought against them. These songs, like all music in the South of midnightAre incredibly well composed and are worth listening to alone outside the game. It is just another layer of charm that improves the mood of the world of Prospero and ensures one of the most artistic experiences in a long time.

The Level design is largely linear, with some small offshoots that offer you the chance to collect more upgrade materials that can be used to improve your core fighting skills, or to collect small notes that give the world texture. Occasionally, these little offshoots have nice little passages, but they never feel like a hidden secret that they find. There is a Dead room-Like guidelines that you can record to ensure that you are always on the critical way, and I often used it on a route on the street so that I knew how the way of the “wrong” was gone so that I could grab the upgrade materials away from the stringed paths. In view of how lavish the world is, I wish that it feels more like the actual exploration, but that’s just not the kind of game South of midnight The goal is to be, so it is difficult to keep it against them.

In view of the focus of the game on narrative, South of midnight A lot feels like a game that wants you to beat it. The fight drives the right amount back without being super challenging (I think I only died a few times), the design of the linear level is made very clear by using the path finding option, and there are several difficulty options with which you can use the challenge as you want. It also has the habit of always showing a small tooltip to remind you of your skills if you may have to use it, and display the button to press when you blow away some debris or you have to remind you which button summarizes crouton to explore a tiny tree cavity. It never feels condescending, but it feels as if the developers want to make sure that they remove friction points for them to move them smoothly through the narrative.

In a medium in which so many stories about power or revenge are told, it is so refreshing to have a story that focuses on empathy and mercy. South of midnight Feels like a timeless people who weaves a narrative in which the exaggerated high history influences as well as the down -to -earth character drama. The world feels really alive, mixes Magical and The Alltan and shows part of America that is not often depicted in video games. Each character bursts in front of charm and fills the world with a complex network of relationships. The traversal and the struggle of the game are narrow and snappy when a bit unambiguous and defeated it from Beat at a satisfactory way. This is the kind of game that Microsoft needs in your Xbox library, and I expect to cook the next thing it is to cook next.

Check code provided by the publisher. South of midnight starts on April 8 with Steam and the Xbox series as well as Xbox Game Pass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Z-8Y8R5SS