South of Midnight

Finished South of Midnight a couple days ago, as part of my quest, not to be weird about this, to play every game starring a cute black girl. Which, unfortunately, means I have to play stuff like Forspoken (which was some of the dullest ♥♥♥♥ I've ever seen) or Dustborn (which was really quite bad, but at least kind of interestingly so. I've been meaning to write about it one of these days.) South of Midnight ist better than either, low bar as that might be. So, South of Midnight is an action platformer set in swampy Louisiana, starring one Hazel Flood. Hazel is a normal girl living in the Bayou with her mum, when one day their house gets carried away in a... well, flood, and the mum along with it. Hazel embarks on a journey to rescue her, where she learns about her own magical power, meets a bunch of quirky creatures based on local folklore and explores a magical version of her home. South of Midnight was made by a studio called Compulsion Games, incidentally one of the studios recently cut off from Microsoft as part of their ongoing purges. They were responsible for We Happy Few, a janky but kind of interesting Action RPG set in a dystopian Britain. Much like We Happy Few, South of Midnight tries to sell itself on the atmosphere of its setting by drawing from its real life culture. Which is quite funny, considering Compulsion Games is, in fact, neither from Britain, nor Louisiana (they're Canadian, for the record) so in both cases, they're very much taking the perspective of an outsider looking in. Which suits me just fine, because, obviously, so am I. The only thing connecting me to the Deep American South is having seen Oh Brother Where Art Thou a lot, being able to cook a pretty decent Jambalaya, and liking the song "Jambalaya". So what I can say is, South of Midnight's primary selling point is its atmosphere and rather unique setting. The gameplay is... functional. It plays rather like Psychonauts 2, I guess, it's mostly relatively simple platforming, some very minor puzzle solving and a combat system that, I can almost promise you, you will be sick of by the end. It's... functional, but boring. Got your attack. Got your couple of magic spells with cooldown timers. Got your designated combat arenas. Yeah. The story meanwhile is, to a fault, that of a teen (or, I suppose, we call them Young Adult) fantasy novel. "[Protagonist With Meaningful Name] thought she was an Average Teen living in [Boring Small Town, USA, With Meaningful Name], but one day she finds out she's [Special Magical Person], last in the line of [Special Magical People], chosen to fight [Supernatural Threat] with the help of [Whimsical Creature]! Insert "Hazel Flood", "Prospero, Louisiana", "Weaver", "Weavers" and "Corruption" and "Talking Giant Catfish" and you got SoM's plot, with just about all the plot beats you'd expect. There are thinly veiled metaphors for the struggles of a young person trying to find their place in the world and a reckoning with her family's history and personal growth being represented by fancy outfit changes (The Hunger Games series really liked that trope), you get the drill. Now, as you, with the exaggerated swagger of a black teen, make your way across the enchanted Bayou, South of Midnight touches upon the regions sordid history of slavery, racial segregation, institutional neglect, wealth disparity and many cases of personal tragedy but it touches upon them the way something clearly meant for a younger audience would, in a way that's not quite euphemistic, but definitely giving you the family friendly version. The focus lies more on the whimsy of local mythology and folklore, which it brings to life very effectively. The games artstyle, designs and character animations invoke sort of a gothic stop motion look, clearly going for kind of a Studio Laika-y, Henry Sellick-y, Tim Burton-y feel and no doubt, South of Midnight looks really nice. The swamps and mountains and farmlands ooze with atmosphere and I love the lighting! The other standout is the voice acting, which really makes the setting and characters come to life. The Cajun accents all sound very authentic (I mean, to me, at least) and they all sound very distinctive, the way in which you'd expect the characters in an animated movie to. Particularly Hazel herself, played by Adriyan Rae, who's sassy and witty and confident and pretty and would totally be my girlfriend if she were real and... sorry, what was I talking about? Anyhow, it's a good performance that really carries the game, along with Walt Roberts who plays Catfish, her companion and narrator of most of the game, with a smooth Cajun accent that's just pleasant to listen to. Most of the supporting cast is also quite good, but never quite feels like it gets enough screentime to shine, which is a shame. South of Midnight is a pretty decent game. Not a great one, it's kind of a 6/10 that rises to a 7/10 if you vibe with its setting and art direction. I played this not expecting to be blown away by it, and I wasn't, for one because it feels a tad longer than it aught to be, but it's a decent game of modest scale. The definition of a AA production, which seems to be exactly what the western studios and Microsoft in particular seems to have mostly given up on. I don't know if this game made money, I reckon it didn't, but there's something to be said for the fact that this sort of thing seems to be relegated to the indie market at this point. If Microsoft and Sony want to solely focus on massive juggernaut projects that take hundreds of millions to make and 10 years to come out, smaller studios will have to pick up the slack for everything coming out in the meantime, and it's a shame the big console manufacturers seem to be actively disinterested in supporting them. I hope Compulsion Games will land on their feet, because South of Midnight is a pretty decent game and a pretty significant net improvement on We Happy Few. It would be a pity if that's where their work as a studio ended. There's room for improvement but there's obviously a solid foundation there and, I suppose, potential to turn South of Midnight into a franchise, if that's where they want to go. Would be a shame if they couldn't recover.

South of Midnight: a beautiful game with terrific heart from start to finish. We don't get too many games about the Deep South from any perspective, let alone a Black one, so it's most welcome. I say this as a 52 year old white man who's lived most of his life here in the South. Racism has no place in our world. The game is a mix of 3rd person platforming, combat and collectibles, where you guide Hazel to solve various paranormal mysteries in her community Prospero. The formula is nothing new, but the execution is top notch and the world building is cohesive and complete. Hazel is an excellent protagonist, and her journey has a satisfying conclusion that isn't an emotional gotcha or an attempt to oh-so-cleverly subvert expectations and stifle joy. It's a journey worth taking alongside Hazel, who comes of age and comes into an understanding of her power by the end. The crossroads with Orisha names in Ch. 12 was an excellent and authentic touch. Props to the original system of magic & cosmology that's firmly rooted in Southern magickal traditions. That Roux is one smooth talker... couldn't believe it's the same voice behind Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best) but it's true. Respect, Mr. Best. The Magician's plans all come to fruition in the end, and everything weaves together. We travel through grief to reach peace and a happy ending.

South of Midnight is an excellent story action platformer. The story is interesting with great writing and voice acting. The artistic direction is fantastic. The combat is fine. You will be engaging in combat semi-regularly but it's secondary to the story, platforming, and exploration. Other than boss fights, combat is done in a series of arenas, similar to Devil May Cry or games of that nature. The music and ambient sound is interesting and engaging. The game is pretty linear but there are small side paths to explore for skill points and minor collectables. On a technical level, the game does have frame pacing issues which can be very annoying. I tried at a variety of quality and DLSS levels and was never able to fully resolve it. This happens even with the stop motion effect turned off. I even tried putting all graphics settings on Medium on DLSS performance mode and the fps swings in some areas are drastic to the point where it's headache inducing. For example in Chapter 12 I'm just navigating through the level with these settings and I'm swinging wildly between 60-160 fps depending on where I'm looking with my GPU at 50-60% utilization. Also happens with DLSS off. This doesn't consistently happen everywhere but it happens often enough to be worth pointing out. Fortunately, all the elements of the game come together very well to make an experience that was fun and doesn't overstay it's welcome, even with the technical issues.