South of Midnight Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: South of Midnight Review – April 3, 2025

Hosts: Tim Gettys, Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Blessing Adeoye Jr., Roger Piccor

Podcast Information:

• Title: Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast
• Episode: South of Midnight Review
• Release Date: April 3, 2025
• Description: Weekly video game reviews, previews, and analysis covering the latest in PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, and more. Hosted by Tim Gettys, Greg Miller, Blessing Adeoye Jr., and Roger Piccor.

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Introduction and Context

The episode kicks off with Tim Gettys welcoming listeners and introducing the co-hosts: Blessing Adeoye Jr., Greg Miller, and Roger Piccor. Tim briefly touches on upcoming content, including potential announcements at CinemaCon, such as "Spiderverse 3" and "Spider-Man 4," and teases coverage of the Nintendo Switch 2. The team humorously discusses their recording in the past due to embargoes and personal commitments, setting a lighthearted tone for the episode.

Tim Gettys [00:00]: "What is up, y'all? Very excited to have all of you here today."

Overview of Current Gaming Events

Before diving into the game review, the hosts mention various gaming events and releases. Tim emphasizes the importance of their Nintendo Switch 2 coverage, which is set to go live shortly after the embargo lifts at 6 AM. Roger expresses skepticism about the channel's sudden surge in activity, reflecting on the unpredictable nature of live broadcasts.

Tim Gettys [01:05]: "We should have a ton of mini games caster. We'll see. We don't know what we get to or we have nothing."

South of Midnight: Comprehensive Review

General Impressions and Scores

The central focus of the episode is the review of "South of Midnight" by Compulsion Games. All five hosts have completed the game, providing a well-rounded perspective on its strengths and weaknesses.

Paris Lilly’s Perspective:

Paris leads the review, highlighting the game's impressive music, art direction, sound effects, and voice acting. However, she criticizes the gameplay for being repetitive and lacking depth, particularly in combat mechanics and story development.

Paris Lilly [06:56]: "The music in this game is incredible. It's really, really good... I want more from the gameplay that we got."

She assigns a score of 7.5 out of 10, appreciating the cultural representation but wishing for more engaging gameplay and a more cohesive story conclusion.

Greg Miller’s Perspective:

Greg offers a contrasting view, rating the game 9 out of 10. He praises the game's storytelling, art, and voice acting, drawing parallels to titles like "Jedi Survivor" and "Uncharted." Despite acknowledging the simplistic combat, Greg believes the overall experience and production values elevate the game beyond its mechanical flaws.

Greg Miller [12:03]: "This is amazing... I think this is something that people should experience."

Tim Gettys’ Perspective:

Tim aligns more with Greg's enthusiasm, awarding "South of Midnight" a 9 out of 10. He commends the game’s narrative integration with combat and praises the audio design, particularly the immersive soundscapes and expressive character animations. However, he acknowledges the need for improved combat mechanics and more varied abilities.

Tim Gettys [12:18]: "Everything Paris said... I think this game is amazing. Like, I think this game is a 9 out of 10."

Roger Piccor’s Perspective:

Roger presents a balanced view, giving the game a 7.5 out of 10. He lauds the game's emotional depth, character design, and storytelling but criticizes the repetitive gameplay and lack of enemy diversity. Roger emphasizes the strong narrative and art but feels the mechanics hinder the overall experience.

Roger Piccor [27:51]: "I think this is a really good game. This is a game that I would recommend to everybody that has game pass..."

Detailed Analysis

Story and Characters: The hosts unanimously agree that "South of Midnight" excels in storytelling and character development. The game features a Black female protagonist, Hazel, navigating the Deep American South, rich in folklore and cultural elements. The narrative delves into themes of abandonment, trauma, and betrayal, resonating emotionally with players.

Roger Piccor [25:11]: "The story is so emotional... I need to explain this to you right now."

Art and Audio: Paris and Tim commend the game's art direction and sound design, noting the seamless integration of music with gameplay moments. The jazz-influenced soundtrack and expressive animations create an immersive atmosphere.

Paris Lilly [07:54]: "The music is fantastic... the sound effects, the ambiance is amazing."

Gameplay and Combat: The primary critique revolves around the gameplay mechanics. Despite the game’s aesthetic strengths, the combat is seen as repetitive and uninspiring. The skill tree lacks depth, and enemy variety is minimal, leading to a repetitive experience. Some hosts experimented with skipping combat to enhance enjoyment, revealing inherent flaws in the design.

Greg Miller [08:43]: "The combat in south of Midnight just like I did in the preview... It's just rinse and repeat."

Technical Performance: Most hosts experienced smooth gameplay across various platforms, though a few encountered minor bugs and performance issues, particularly on the Xbox Series S. Overall, the game is praised as a technical marvel with minimal glitches.

Tim Gettys [56:08]: "The audio... was flawless, except for a couple of bugs."

Final Thoughts and Recommendations

Overall Impression: The hosts collectively appreciate "South of Midnight" for its compelling story, rich cultural depiction, and outstanding audiovisual presentation. However, they acknowledge that the gameplay mechanics require refinement to match the game's narrative strengths fully.

Recommendation: "South of Midnight" is recommended for players who value strong storytelling and artistic presentation over complex gameplay mechanics. It is particularly praised as a worthy addition to the Game Pass library, offering an engaging narrative experience for a reasonable price.

Greg Miller [62:35]: "I highly recommend it especially as a game pass title... adjust to your own specifications."

Community and Replayability: While the game excels in narrative and presentation, the lack of side missions and varied gameplay elements limits its replayability. Hosts suggest that future iterations could benefit from more diverse combat mechanics, additional puzzles, and side quests to enhance the overall experience.

Paris Lilly [32:30]: "I want optional side missions so we can explore some of these other characters."

Conclusion

"South of Midnight" by Compulsion Games emerges as a standout title for its narrative depth and artistic brilliance, despite its repetitive gameplay. The Kinda Funny Gamescast hosts offer a multifaceted review, blending critical analysis with genuine appreciation for the game's strengths. They conclude that "South of Midnight" is a commendable effort that holds promise for future developments, urging listeners to experience its rich storytelling and immersive world.

Blessing Adeoye Jr. [62:01]: "This is one that I think might have more of the staying power than at least those games."

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Notable Quotes:

• Tim Gettys [12:18]: "This game is amazing... I think this game is a 9 out of 10."
• Paris Lilly [07:54]: "The music is fantastic... the sound effects, the ambiance is amazing."
• Greg Miller [08:43]: "The combat in south of Midnight just like I did in the preview... It's just rinse and repeat."
• Roger Piccor [25:11]: "The story is so emotional... I need to explain this to you right now."
• Tim Gettys [56:08]: "The audio... was flawless, except for a couple of bugs."

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Final Rating Summary:

• Paris Lilly: 7.5/10
• Greg Miller: 9/10
• Tim Gettys: 9/10
• Roger Piccor: 7.5/10

Average Score: Approximately 8.5/10

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Recommendation: "South of Midnight" is a must-play for fans of narrative-driven games and those interested in immersive cultural experiences. While it may fall short in gameplay variety and combat complexity, its strengths in storytelling, art, and audio make it a valuable addition to any gamer’s library.

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For more detailed discussions and additional content, tune into the full episode of Kinda Funny Gamescast on YouTube, Twitch, or your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

[Tim Gettys]

Foreign what's up? And welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Thursday, April 3, 2025. Of course, I'm your host, Tim Gettys. I'm joined today by Blessing. Adio. Yeah, Junior.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Good day, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Greg Miller.

[Greg Miller]

Hello, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Roger Piccor.

[Greg Miller]

Hi.

[Tim Gettys]

And Paris Lilly.

[Paris Lilly]

What's up, Tim?

[Tim Gettys]

What is up, y'all? Very excited to have all of you here today. For those of you that are wondering, we are recording this in the past. This is a thing that we are recording on Monday, multiple days before this airing. For all of you, we had to hit it for embargoes, but also me, Roger and Bless are going to be in New York. We can't even officially say that right now. We're going to be seeing the Nintendo Switch 2. A lot of information, a lot of games, a lot of movies, a lot of videos, a lot of things dropping in the last couple days. All right, Cinemacon happening. A lot of Internet buzz happening. All right, bless.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I didn't know about CinemaCon.

[Tim Gettys]

Spiderverse 3 might be announced. Spider Man 4 might get a title.

[Greg Miller]

I might have three more stars from Cashing in. Stars.

[Tim Gettys]

We don't know exactly what's going to happen but I say all of this to just real quick get ahead of it all. Obviously this is our south of midnight review but we're going to have a ton of Nintendo Switch coverage that should already be live as of this morning. The embargo was 6am today as of you hearing this. So stay tuned. We we should have a ton ton of mini games. Caster. We'll see. We don't know what we get to or we have nothing.

[Roger Piccor]

You know what I mean? You look at the channel, everything exploded. Nothing happened.

[Tim Gettys]

Who knows. But the plan is for me, blessed Raj to to get to hands on play the Nintendo Switch 2 and talk all about everything we saw. So if that actually happens the way we think it's going to, there should be multiple games cast up both in video and podcast form. So please check all of those out. But hey, enough about that now I want to get into it. This is the Gamescast. Each and every weekday we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please support us with the kind at funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcast to get all of our shows ad free, watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive. Greg way Greg, let's just get into it now. What's the Greg way going to be about. You don't even know yet because we haven't recorded yet.

[Greg Miller]

It's going to be like on Thursday what it's like to have three additional stars and game show. And I got the cash in stars in the bed.

[Tim Gettys]

Mike, I really hope, I really just hope that doesn't work the way that you think it's going to. For a chance to be part of the show. You can't do that. So not live. No super chats today everybody. A little housekeeping for you. Remember we are an 11 person business all about live talk shows. Sometimes though we can't be live, we gotta just pre record them like our like we're doing right now. Although this is live for people. Yeah, I'm getting confusing here.

[Greg Miller]

But if you're in the live chat right now, we just can't respond to you.

[Tim Gettys]

Exactly.

[Greg Miller]

I am live and at work so I might be looking at the chat at which point I'll be here to celebrate my three stars.

[Tim Gettys]

Exactly. But the Nintendo stuff we're doing just won't be live. That's just like a VOD that you can go click on check out. It's going to be.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I just don't know how he thinks is going to happen. What do you mean of you catching the stuff? We're in New York.

[Tim Gettys]

We're in a weird.

[Greg Miller]

We're a weird thing. There's a weird kayfabe thing going on.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

People by this point know committing to.

[Greg Miller]

This bit that I would have them. That's how I came into this show.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roger Piccor]

I like you might have a plane ticket. You never know.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, exactly.

[Tim Gettys]

Who knows what's going on?

[Greg Miller]

What if that's the pilot's like and.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Dragon sitting behind us? We're like what the fuck?

[Tim Gettys]

My God. Well, like I was saying, should have a ton of videos in podcast immediately.

[Greg Miller]

Lose six hour flight to New York, six hour flight home.

[Tim Gettys]

In addition to that, you have already gotten to kind of Funny Games Daily today running you through all the biggest video game news that you need to know about in the wake of the Nintendo Switch 2 announcement. Of course you can also check out the live reactions that the boys did here at Boys and Girls. Yeah, Bailey's here as well so you can check that out. And you can also check out all the other content that we made yesterday which Paris is getting involved in. I don't remember exactly where.

[Greg Miller]

Paris is doing kind of Funny Games Daily. Paris is lead hosting Games Daily with the one and only Gary.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, that'll be fun.

[Paris Lilly]

Guess what I did not know that. So let's see how that turns out.

[Greg Miller]

We like to have the meetings live on the show.

[Tim Gettys]

We're in the past, we're in the future. We still.

[Greg Miller]

I definitely not letting Gary lead Games Daily Paris. That should have been your first tip off.

[Tim Gettys]

And then a little housekeeping for you. It's been 1200 days since we dropped how into what? I don't understand what's happening here. All right, they're playing War Zone on Friday. Like, I'm saying a bunch of words that Mike wrote and I can't. I can't understand. But Friday at noon, Mike, Nick, Andy, and Chris Anka will be in studio returning to the game that brought them all together and also tore them apart for one mega marathon stream of laughter, frustration, and friendship. Hang out on Friday. Watch the boys play Call of Duty. See what happens if you're kind of funny. Member. Today's Greg Way is all about Greg having all my stars from Game Showdown. We'll see about that.

[Greg Miller]

It'll be more probably about the fallout.

[Roger Piccor]

How?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, well, because the. See that? My favorite thing about this is the setup to it. It'll be how much I enjoy that. On Wednesday, we're not allowed to say where you guys are yet. So Wednesday I just get to dog all three of you for being cowards and dodging me. That's all. Every. Every chance I get, you know what I mean? And I'm gonna ruin your reputations, you know what I mean? I'll have Lianza. You'll still be packed when you get home. Like, I can't believe you played him that way.

[Tim Gettys]

Thank you to our Patreon producers. Anatoly asked Delaney Twining, Carl Jacobs, and Omega Buster. Anatoly, please write in your. The pronunciation of this. I would like to. To get this right, so I want to make sure we get that. Uh, today we're brought to you by lost guys Monaco 2 and Rocket Money. But we'll tell you all about that later. For now, let's begin with what is and forever will be the topic of the show. South of Midnight, our review. All five of us have completed the game. Is that correct?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Completed the game too?

[Tim Gettys]

Yes.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Oh, yes, I have.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, yeah.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Oh, I didn't realize.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, yeah. The developer has to bear. It has to. Oh, Barrett has to. Six of us, everybody. The developer, Compulsion Games. In 2013, they released Contrast that had a Metacritic of 59.

[Paris Lilly]

Wow.

[Roger Piccor]

PS4 launch title.

[Tim Gettys]

Wow. Lower than I would have expected.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I'm the one who pulled that information for you. You figure we're so far removed. How many of reviews came in later? I don't know. I don't remember contrast being dogged that much a lot in this episode for someone who never said like before this episode zero.

[Tim Gettys]

Now it's like 2018 they put out We Happy Few that's at a 62 Metacritic and then they were acquired by Xbox in 2018. They announced south of Midnight in 2023 and here we are seeing the fruits of all of that labor. So where should we start for south of Midnight? Paris? Lily, we're going to start with you.

[Paris Lilly]

Of course you start with me.

[Greg Miller]

And hey, you're been the most hyped. You mean previewed it and like even I'd already played it and your preview is making me hyped about it. You've been out there for this game.

[Paris Lilly]

So actually that, that's kind of a great way to start this off is the preview. If you've played the preview, if you've listened to the feedback that people have had during the preview then you know what south of Midnight is. I. There's a lot of good here with south of Midnight but there's definitely some head scratching disappointments as well. And I kind of want to start with the, with the good. Let's, let's, let's kick this off on a good note. The music in this game is incredible. It's really, really good. There's a certain. I won't spoil anything but there's a certain boss theme that I was humming all night after I played it. The music is fantastic. The sound effects, the ambiance is amazing. The art in this is like top notch. Everything that they're doing to depict the Deep American south compulsion games is absolutely nailing the voice acting in. This is very inspired. Void for Hazel. Fantastic job. Ahmed Best AKA Jar Jar Binks, he was a voice director for the whole thing. He did a fantastic job leading this cast of characters that were introduced to. But there was for sure some bad and we kind of talked about it during the preview and that's the gameplay. It's. It's not that good. I mean it's just pretty cookie cutter standard. You're. You go. You hop from arena to arena essentially fighting the same enemies. There's a small amount of a skill tree there. You know it's not very complex or robust but there's a skill tree that you can upgrade and is it looms or flumes.

[Tim Gettys]

I'm.

[Paris Lilly]

I'm misquoting that you have to kind of find. Yeah that you find in the, in the world, even the traversal through the world is pretty straightforward. Sure, you can go off the beaten path and that's where you're gonna find, you know, some of. Some of the looms or whatever to. To do some of the upgrades, but you can essentially just mainline this game. I don't know about you guys, but I probably about 12 hours it took me from start to finish on this. I enjoyed the story for telling of being introduced to Hazel, to where Hazel ends up by the end. But there were things about the story that this. And. And I get. They're. They're doing this gothic look. We're looking at, you know, these fables and. And legends of the deep South. But it was. It was kind of a Debbie Downer with a lot of the stuff that. That you did in the game. Like, I. I didn't. There was definitely some. Yeah, there were some humorous moments, but they were few far in between. I also felt that we're missing a chapter or two here, especially towards the end where I definitely thought there was some character development I was expecting that I did not get. And all of a sudden we're rolling credits. I was like, wait a minute. Really? I will say for me personally, the resolution, I understand it, but I was disappointed by it for what essentially was the main villain of the game. I didn't think there was enough accountability and consequence there. But a lot of this is a very. This is. There's a lot of tragedy in this story. You know, there's a lot of. You know, I was joking before we even started. There's a lot of. My own personal trauma was kind of triggered by a couple things that. That the story talked about in here. You know, abandonment. You know, again, I don't want to spoil too much, but there was like, abandonment in the game. There was literal murder in the game. You know, betrayal. There's. There's these things that came out of the story that I think I expected. Even though it somewhat was a happy ending at the end, I think I was expecting something a little different from a story standpoint. And. And I know I'm sounding kind of negative, Nancy, with this, because I think it's very important for anyone that does pick up south of Midnight to understand that you're not getting this complex gameplay from this. You essentially go into a chapter. There's about 4 renas of of attack that you'll do against the enemies. There some story progression in that. Some chapters you'll have a boss at the end, some you won't. I would say even the Boss battles themselves. I was able to kind of quickly figure out the patterns with those. So even playing on standard difficulty, I didn't feel, really feel that big of a challenge coming out of that. But with all that said, I think the positives of it, with the music, with the art, this representation of the Deep south that you rarely see in video games was very well done.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

And.

[Paris Lilly]

And I give compulsion kudos for doing that. I just wanted more from the gameplay that we got. I wanted a little more from the story. Like I said, I almost feel like it ended abruptly.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Sure.

[Paris Lilly]

Like, there definitely could have been a little bit more there. So if I was going to put a score, which you are, on the.

[Greg Miller]

Kind of funny scale. It's right there.

[Paris Lilly]

Stop. I'm going to give this a 7.5.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay, 7.5 from Paris.

[Greg Miller]

Lily, I want you next. I'm calling the ball. Yeah. Because you.

[Tim Gettys]

I don't know that I'm the best to go next.

[Greg Miller]

Tim Gettys, though.

[Tim Gettys]

I will.

[Greg Miller]

Tim Gettys is another one who was, like, champing at the bit for this. When I went to New York to go play it, you were like, I really want to go. You almost move things around so you could go do it.

[Tim Gettys]

I, I. The moment we saw this game, I fell in love with it. That the Xbox showcase, everything that they had there. I was like, this looks so damn good. Then we saw gameplay the next year. I'm like, I'm pretty, pretty stoked for this because I sit at this desk with y'all so often, and we talk about, I just want a smaller game. I just want something that's, like, that's focusing on a great story and then, like, all that stuff. And to me, this delivers that in all of those ways, good and bad. I think that, like, everything Paris said, the reason I kind of wanted to go last year is I wanted to hear what y'all have to say, because I don't fully know where y'all are at with it, but I imagine you might be more similar to. To where Paris is on this. And I was going to say, I, I get all of the criticism and everything that you're talking about, but I. All weekend, I've been thinking about this game, playing this game, and thinking about my score and thinking about the words and all of it. And I keep going back to, I think this game is amazing. Like, I think this game is a 9 out of 10. Despite the fact that it is very simple combat and a lot of the platforming and getting around is not the most advanced things I feel like there's a lot of similarities to Jedi Survivor. Just take away any of the depth when it comes to combat or the parkour and all that stuff. But I don't think about this game in comparison to those. I think about this as like the jump up superstar of Mario Odyssey, but like the uncharted version but like with the story that is worth telling. Like every big set piece of this game had gave me that same level of like I am so into this as that jump up superstar moment of just like the music coming together with the. The motions of you playing. And the added thing though is we're not talking about Mario. We're talking about very well directed characters with incredible writing I think. And I, from beginning to end didn't want it to end. I was very, very excited about playing this game, getting back to it, seeing where it's going. I think the chapter system works perfectly. It reminds me of what I love most about the simple combat of the PlayStation 2 games of Prince of Persia Warrior within of just like yeah, there's only a couple buttons you can mash around here and there's not too many enemy types. You're doing a lot of the stuff over and over but. And the upgrade tree isn't the deepest thing ever. That is all music to my ears. Like I. There's. There's so many better games than this that I don't like as much. And I think that that's. That's kind of the best way I could put this is at the end of the day when I think about this game years from now I'm not going to think about how the, the combat is because I still don't think it's bad. I just don't think that it's anything to write home about. But I think that the, the production value of this is so much to write home about that like it pushes it up to me that I think I'm gonna be an outlier on this and like I don't care because like I truly stand by it that personally like this is an amazing game to me. It being $40, it being available on game pass. Like I think that that's a steal. I think this is something that people should experience. Oftentimes I, I'm playing games and then G will walk in the room or something and I had this level like of light embarrassment of like, you know what I mean? And it's not like I'm a gamer. I don't really care. At the end of the day I'm still playing it. But there are times where just like watching an anime or listening to certain music or whatever, you kind of feel like, what, what is this person going to think about what I'm doing right now? You know, and then you have your like a friend's over, I'm going to put different music on, that type of thing. This is the type of game I'm not embarrassed at all about. This is the type of game that I kept wanting to talk to her about where I'm just like, you should see this. This is so freaking cool. There's something special there. And again, lot could be worked on. But I say hats off to compulsion games. I think that they, they pulled this one off. I want more again, I think that they can do better, but that's what it tends for.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, I like that one. Let me jump in then. Because I think I have a similar vibe of like playing this game and thinking about reviewing this and what I'm going to do or what am I going to say on this gamescast? And you know, I think we were at Kevin's 10 year anniversary lunch and me and Bless started talking. And one of the things I said is that I think if I was at IG and I would, I would review this game very differently than I am here at. Kind of funny, right? Because of who we are and how we get to talk about games and what we get to do. I think I agree with a lot of what Paris said. I agree with a lot of what Tim said. For me, I think you talk about this game and there's that question of style over substance. And I think if I'm sitting there talking to gamers and talking about this, gameplay is such a big part of that. And combat is usually such a big part of that. I find the combat in south of Midnight just like I did in the preview, which is totally, totally serviceable. Not bad, not annoying. Just like, oh, this isn't engaging. I'm not having a great time. I'm not looking forward to battles. And so I did something I never have done in a video game before where when I was inaccessibility looking for something else, just seeing what they had, I think it was, they had a setting. They were like, yo, you can skip combat if you want to. And I was like, okay. And I turned that on and what would happen is I would go into these arenas with monsters and I would hit the not burger button on the Xbox and it would say, do you want to skip this? And I said, yes, I do. And then everybody Would be dead and I would do the thing and move on. And so as I played through this game and mind you, this was not. Because this was difficult. This was not like, oh man, I'm running my, I'm dying over and over. I never died. It was just going through. It's like, I get it. You know, after the first few fights, I'm like, I get it. And so I would go in and see, is there a new enemy here? Oh, there is. Usually there wasn't. Okay, see what the new enemy is about. And they'd be like, okay, I get it, and skip it. This increased my enjoyment, I think of the game where it was like, once that was done, I was like, man, it would have been a better game if they just would have said no. Because I think, I'm assuming again in this weird embargo time phantom zone we're in, right? Of like, I assume again, if I was at ign, I would have left it on. It would have been more annoying to me that I was in this combat that I didn't necessarily enjoy. And I would have maybe docked it and knocked it down points because of that. Right. And I still think that's a worthy review. But what I'm telling you is for Greg Miller and the kind of games I enjoy, turning that off, still did the boss fights. I just turned off the arena things, still did the boss fights every time. Enjoyed those. I still explored like you're getting the floofs to upgrade your skill tree so fights are easier and you have different moves. I still was finding everything. I was still, I was still expanding my entire skill tree or whatever. I enjoyed the game so much that way. Taking out that friction point for me going on, I think for me, south of Midnight Nights in eight. I think this is a great game and I think it's a great experience. I think it's a great storybook. You know, talking out there earlier today, we started joking around about some of the not plot holes, but like, well, this or that or that. And I'm like, I hear all you and I know this is an out answer that we'll talk about here in a little bit. This is totally an out, a cop out. But it is like, it is a storybook and that's how they set it up. So when I was playing it, I was never worried about that. And I think another, you know, pat on the back to this game is when I put it down, I was excited to get back to it. At no point was I ever, did I ever forget about it. I Still want to play Monster Hunter. But I was like, I was still excited to sit down and play south of Midnight every night. And, you know, whether it was on the giant TV looking gorgeous, whether it was on remote play via the Steam deck, like, I was into this game. I think everything Paris said, voice acting, awesome. Tim writing, awesome. Like, again, in a storybook fashion of getting to these, you know, twisted grotesque creatures, scary creatures, and then being like, well, what's going on underneath the hood? What created you? I enjoy that storytelling. I enjoyed that set, that setting, the art, everything about it. I think so much of this, again, if I was going to the IGN brain is nine. Like, you know, this is a nine on sound. Nine, five on sound. This is a nine on graphics. Is this that performances and like. And then it's like, well, combat is what, six, six, five, you know, somewhere in there. Again, not bad. But now. But again, just being able to say, you know what? This is an option to ignore it. And I'm going to ignore it. And then that becomes my review of the game. I had a great time with this game. I couldn't get enough.

[Roger Piccor]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Blessing.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah. I think this is a very fascinating one because for me, I think I'm gonna come at it from a similar but much different way than Greg, where if I were to review this for a website, which is kind of the way I'm gonna do it, right? Like, if I'm gonna do the Greg thing of I'm gonna review this from how I enjoyed it versus what I think it is on paper, I think I would review it a lot lower. Cause I did dread playing this a.

[Greg Miller]

Lot of the time.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

For me, it was a thing of like. Like, all right, we're doing the review on Monday. I really want to have the game finished. And so I'm like playing this game during my weekend. And the whole time I'm like, man, I wish I could be playing something else, right? Like, I have other games that I have downloaded on my Steam deck. I have other games that I have on my PlayStation. I have shows I'm watching the studio right now, and I'm like, man, I'd much rather be doing any more, any one of these things more so than playing south of Midnight. And I think that comes down on, I think how the experience is combined as a whole where I didn't turn off the combat, right? Like, I went through every single combat experience. I kind of dreaded the moment to moment thing of, man. It is kind of tough for me to stay awake while playing this game. At points. Because I think the game design of it is so kind of like been there, done that. If you've played an action adventure game in a way that brought it real down. For me, that said, on paper, when I go through the elements of this game, I think this game is so heavily brought up by the art direction, by the presentation, by the story and by the music of it to where like, I can't give this game anything lower than a seven. I think for me, a seven is what I'm going to give. Give this one. Because I think it is a solid, good game. When you look at it overall, I think the best compliment I can give it even would be that I have this game downloaded at my desk on my Razer laptop that I have on my desk. And I also have this game downloaded on my Xbox series X at home. And at times while I'm playing this at my desk, I'm like, I should just pause this and wait until I get home to play it on my big tv. Because the way that this game presents is so like, it's so pretty, it's so beautiful to look at. It runs so smooth. And I think that's where it shines the most when you play it in a setting that I think can do justice by the art they're representing in this thing. It is such a masterclass, I think, in presentations so much of the time. But then when we talk about combat and you talk about gameplay, I think it is even more than just the combat. I think the moment to moment gameplay is just not really inspired. I think when you're going from point A to point B of any of the things, like it really is the thing of. All right, press. I think it's R3 to follow the line that they draw for you of where the objective is. And then when you get to a path, go down the other path so you can get the floof and then come back and then follow the main line, get into combat. Combat. It's not going to be fun. All right, finish that. Okay, cool. Go on to the next thing. Sometimes you'll have climbing, sometimes you have puzzles. But that stuff I think is like when I'm doing the climbing, I can't help but to think of so many other games that have climbing and so many other games that do it better. When I talk about the combat, right, it is the multi. Like it's the multiple hit thing of. I think the abilities are not that great. You know, like you have abilities that are tied to all your shoulder buttons.

[Greg Miller]

And what is just for an audio or somebody who hasn't done it before. Right. There's push, there's pull, there's tie the guy up.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah. And then there's possess the guy.

[Paris Lilly]

Right.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Like, those are the four abilities, I think. Two of them, or maybe fun, right? I don't like the push. The push doesn't feel great. Granted, I never got to the place where I fully upgraded it. I'm sure once I. If I got there.

[Paris Lilly]

If you do, it's cool.

[Tim Gettys]

That's why I thought, come on.

[Greg Miller]

That deep into this short of a game, like, that was my thing where I was like, oh, when I unlocked the ability to possess a guy, I was like, oh, when? And I'm like, oh, this is cool. I have somebody on my side fighting Skip. But you know what I mean? Like, I'm not. This doesn't fix the problem.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

That's the thing is, like, I was more of a fan of the possessed, so I was like, I'm gonna put my level in my. My XP more into the possessed thing than the other thing. But, yeah, like, because I had the art, the push ability at the bottom, I was like, okay, well, this almost feels basically useless at points. Okay, I'll do the pull. But the pull works on some enemies better than it works on other ones. All right, cool. I'm going to tie this guy up with lb. All right, cool. Now, every combat system has kind of felt the same to me, right? Like, that's kind of how the bulk of my experience went until I got toward the end and I started kind of getting into, like, a little bit of a flow with the combat once I had certain things leveled up all the way. But then the game ended and I was like, like, all right, cool. That was that.

[Greg Miller]

Right?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

And, like, you know, when we talk about the collectibles, you know, Paris talked about the floofs, which upgrade your skill tree, which is kind of small, but it's fun, right? And then you have, like, storybook pages that you collect. I wish there was a way we could have done an audio log situation, because this was one of those games where I didn't really like the flow of. All right, now I'm gonna stop and read this thing about this thing that is, like, kind of kind of specific to this chapter that I'm in, because you're kind of telling me these small stories within the story, right? Like.

[Roger Piccor]

Like, I don't know.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Overall, it just didn't come together for me in, like, a gameplay experience that had me excited to come back session after session.

[Greg Miller]

There's so much to talk about, but, like, for me, the pages worked. I was like, again, like, I loved this world and what was going on around it. And so finding them, even though I would have preferred, obviously, voice acting, something else, I was a full stop read about this side story that's kind of related to whatever monster I'm going after. I was like, I like this.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I do want to say the monsters. Incredible.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

My favorite part of the game, we get. We're seeing the, like, when we talk about the art design and the direction, all that stuff, right? I think the best part of those are getting to those big boss fights, getting to those creatures where it is. Oh, y'all put in a lot of effort into making these things cool. And I did, like, the boss fights. I think the boss fights broke out from, like, some of the monotony of the combat for me.

[Tim Gettys]

Roger Piccorni.

[Roger Piccor]

This is a story of highs and lows for me, right? Where the art direction, the design, the voice acting, the story is like, so high for me. Like, to the point where in the very beginning of this game, maybe an hour, two hours in, I was like, I looked at Lianza like, this might be generational. Like, this might be one of the best video games, like, ever made. Like, this is insane. Like, it is. It hits so well. And like, for me personally, the story is so emotional. Like, there. There was a moment where as I'm playing with Lianza, she's watching, she just kind of like nods off and she walks away, right? She's like, I don't want to. It seems like too much walking around too much, right? I want the story. I don't want to see you running around doing whatever. And then I come to her, like, maybe a day later, after I'm like halfway through the game, like, the tears in my eyes, like, explaining apart. I'm like, you don't understand. Like, this was such an incredible moment. I need to explain this to you right now. Like, that's how deep this game goes for me. Like, there's so many. The music is so gorgeous. But then there's always the low, right? Like, there's always a low with that high. And that is, of course, the gameplay that is the traversal. And I think I'm even more negative about the gameplay than all of you. You right? Like, I. I don't think this was just, like, serviceable. I think it, like, points, it's bad. I. I don't think it is responsive. I never found a flow. And I. I did end up getting to the point where you got to Greg, where I was skipping a few, I think maybe three battles towards the ending. Because looking through the accessibility, I was like, oh shit. Finally I can't get to get to the good stuff. But I was waiting for those moments. Like I was, I was going everywhere. I was trying to upgrade this, this skill tree. I was trying to find the fun in the gameplay. I just never found it. And there was that moment when you get the possess and like, like maybe this is the moment I'm having a good time. And it just kept on getting worse and worse and worse. And we get to the, the boss battles and I found them very uninspired. I love the design of it and I love the idea behind some of the boss battles. But the like, it felt like, hey, just do the same thing again. Do the same thing. Exactly. And then I, I was like, okay, this is. I have to take the good with the bad. I really, really love this game so much. Like in terms of the story, in terms of the acting, maybe a 9.5. We're doing the whole IGN stuff, right? Like 9.9.5. I love this so much. And I don't like the gameplay. I think that's maybe a six or a five. Okay, maybe an eight. But then the game ended and I was like, you didn't wrap up everything. Like you, you have the storybook and it feels like there is a missing chapter as you said, Paris, it felt so apparent and I was, I was in like full denial stage where I like, I closed the game and I reopened it. And I was like, there has to be something went wrong.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, exactly.

[Roger Piccor]

There has to be another chapter that I'm missing. There has to be something. And there wasn't. It just kind of ends. So for me, weighing everything, I think is a really good game. This is a game that I would recommend to everybody that has game pass, that wants a short experience on the weekend and wants to experience a really great story. I would give this 7.5 out of.

[Paris Lilly]

10, Paris, if I could. But before we can continue on, because I do want to jump on that point again of what Roger just said about. It just feels like a chapter or two is missing.

[Roger Piccor]

Yeah.

[Paris Lilly]

And again, I'm not going to spoil anything. There is a key character in this game that I kept waiting to get his story, to get his background. How did you end up this way? And it never happened. So that just. I'm like, wait, that's it? And we don't find out about this guy again.

[Roger Piccor]

Not to spoil anything. But the whole idea of the game, it is very disjointed, right. You're dealing with a lot of different people's stories, but those stories don't come together in any meaningful way. They are just disagree so much, man.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, my God.

[Roger Piccor]

In my opinion, they're. They're. They have a purpose, right? And that is to build up the main character and her story. But at the ending of it, I'm like, okay, this is a book. This is. This is the story of all these characters together. I want to see some of these. These threads that we've. We've flagged here, and they just. They don't come together, in my opinion.

[Tim Gettys]

Barrett. Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

Just to jump off of that, I'm a mix of all of you, or.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Unknown Speaker]

Like, I adored the story. A lot of the big themes and kind of big story things with the main character and her mom, like, hit emotionally for me in a way that I wasn't expecting. My grandfather was a social worker, and some stuff came up in there that hit me in a way. But, yeah, the gameplay feeling very uninspired. All this stuff, it feels. In terms of what we're talking about, it feels very inspired by Psychonauts, but not coming together in a way that's graceful. Like Psychonauts, where Psychonauts is so much about helping people heal and not coming up with a solution for them, but to give them their first steps and to. To finding a better path for them. And none of that comes together here for the people that you're kind of walking through the kind of traumas of these, like, Southern folklore stories, right? Which I think was really cool, set up really cool, like, stories. But then, yeah, each of them ended in such a way where it was like, we're gonna come back to this, right? And it's like, ah, why? Why did we never do that? I think I was saying this to Roger earlier, and this is. Is the last thought I thought I'll share is, you know, the emotion of this game. Like Tim was saying in terms of the big set piece moments where music is rising up and you're, you know, climbing a big thing and the story is coming together. It's, like, so beautiful and it hits you, and then it also, at the same time, feels so clunky because, you know, the platforming is kind of off. The gameplay feels kind of off. Like, there's so much to love about this game, and the game is constantly getting in the way of making you, like, fall in love with this game. It's a. It's A weird one. I'm. It's a 7.5 for me, but one that I love. Like an 8.5 to steal. You know, a classic Blessing quote.

[Tim Gettys]

Paris, you about to jump in there.

[Paris Lilly]

I, I'll again go back to what Roger was talking about with the gameplay, because I think we're all in agreement that was the weakest part of the game. And it just really comes back to the fact that it, there wasn't a lot of enemy diversity as far as the way they attacked you or did things to keep you on your toes. So that as you are going through your skill tree and you're upgrading it, it feels like you're, it's paying off. Like it's rewarding because I think one of you even said it isn't even really till you get to the very end and the game, the game's about to be over. Did I feel anything significant about my, my skill tree upgrades? Right? We're like, oh yeah, I really can benefit from this. But ultimately the way the enemies attacked me in chapter one was the same way they were attacking me in chapter 14. You know what I mean?

[Greg Miller]

Every time I pop back into to test one of these rooms, I was like, oh, it feels the exact same. I'm not missing something. I'm not screwing this up by skipping.

[Paris Lilly]

And, and they, and they didn't, they didn't change the, the flow of a chapter, of how you attacked it. Because Blessing, you even touched on it that, okay, you can follow the, the breadcrumb trail and you know that's going to take you to the end. Well, if that's telling me go left, I'm gonna go right because there's going to be an upgrade over here if I go right. And sure enough, that's exactly what it was then you would do what I like to call once you do all, all the, the four beats of the story. You do the Kessel Run and then you have to go through that and then you get to the end and there's a boss or there's a big story beat or something like that. And that was, that was, it was just rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

[Tim Gettys]

And I appreciate, I think, I think that's my thing is like that worked for me because none of those beats lasted longer than I wanted them to. I feel like the combat encounters were so quick and short to allow you to then move on to the next bit. And I really enjoyed the. Okay, now I'm about to get to a walk around bit where I can read all the things and then you get to a section where there's going to be a story bit that looks a little bit different. I don't want to spoil anything of, like, how they do it, but of course, I really liked the, like, you're gonna do this and you're gonna do that, and it's just like, I. I never sat with anything long enough to, like, dislike what's going on. I feel like when all things come together is when I liked it best. And, like, the things coming together. A lot of that was the music and the story. And in this game, the music and story are completely intertwined. And when those do intertwine with the gameplay and with the arena combat, I think that is. Those are some of my favorite moments. I wish that there were more of those in terms of the arena combat, but towards the end, that really started ratcheting up, like, I'd say the last third of the game. I enjoyed the combat so much more just because of the story elements involved with it and the amount of enemy variety that they're throwing in there in comparison to earlier because it's a lot more just like, here's all the different ones you've been that have been introduced.

[Greg Miller]

To Chime back in again. Thinking about this and organizing my thoughts, it was the idea for me of, like, okay, cool. And then, well, there is a lot of rinse and repeat here. There is repetition, right? Of, okay, you come in, there's the enemies either fighting or skipping. Like me. There's exploration. There's the, okay, now we need to fill this bottle to go fight the boss kind of thing. We do that. You fight the boss. Three waves. Great. Okay, now I've got to run from this thing. Okay, great. Like. But even as I laid that out and I was thinking of all these instances where the levels had the similar feel in the moment. I didn't mind it, nor did it stand out. And so I can't fault it in the end, right, Because I was so excited to get to the next thing for the bottle. I was so excited to find the next piece of paper. I loved the world so much that I. I loved the. I mean, it's not revolutionary, it's not whatever, but totally vibed with the platforming. It felt chill. It reminded me of Concrete Genie. I'm just vibing in this space, going down this beaten path, going over there, doing things out of order.

[Roger Piccor]

Interesting. Yeah. I mean, for me, it was so apparent, the formula aspect of it. And like, Tim, I agree, like, there's moments of it where I'M like, I'm fine with it. I'm fine with getting chased by the thing. Like, there's no issues there. It's just more of like the high. Again, the highs are so high that you see all the formulas, the formulaic elements of this because the game has so much finesse everywhere else. Right. Like, the character design is so gorgeous. The way that they design these worlds is amazing. So when you have, like, okay, just do the same thing over and over again, it just. It just feels like a missed opportunity there, at least for me.

[Tim Gettys]

When they break that format, though, I think that's some of the stronger moments in the game. And I feel like they only hit that strong because it wasn't what you expected.

[Paris Lilly]

See, that's the thing, Tim, that. That's the thing about it. And. And again, I know we're kind of talking about the flaws that the games has, but, man, when they freaking hit it, they hit it.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Paris Lilly]

At such a high level. So then when you come back down to earth, you're not. You're like, well, damn, I want to stay there. Because there's a later chapter, which I like. Again, when we talk about the. The music in the game that is heavily jazz influence. Like, again, the music overall, jazz, blues, country, even some. Some rock in there. And I think very inspired the composer here. And just all the different tracks that they use, really, really good song choices they had in this. And man, there was. There was that jazz level towards the end where I was loving it. I was loving every minute of that. And you got me to the point where I was like, I want more of this. I know the game's over. God damn. You know what I mean? That is probably my thing. That compulsion did such a great job building this world. And then they unfortunately weren't able to 100% execute in the combat beats of it because, again, this is a video game at the. At the end of the day, this isn't like, what am I thinking of as Dust falls, Right. It's not just a slightly interactive story, you know, it's something where you're being a active participant in everything that's going on. And this felt like, gameplay wise, like something we would have got 15 years ago, maybe right, versus what you would expect today. And again, I don't want to just keep harping on all the negative stuff, but I think, Tim, to your very point, when they nail it, they absolutely knock it out of the park. And you, you have a dumb grin on your face and you're excited to see what's around, around the corner and then we go back to rinse and repeat with the stuff. And that's just where my disappointment comes in.

[Roger Piccor]

I mean the good side of this is that they did the thing like this is not too far off. Like the next game, the next south of Midnight two, whatever it is. Like I, I hope, I hope, first of all, I hope we get a sequel. Second of all, like they have the ground floor for something really incredible here. It is not even though I have has bad moments in my opinion, especially the gameplay, I don't think it's, you know, too far off. Right. Just give me a block button. Give me a dedicated block button. That's all I need.

[Tim Gettys]

Or just don't. You know what I mean? Every game has to do that. I think that's again going back to.

[Roger Piccor]

I think this what they had here.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Didn'T work though, like for combat. I think if you did add a block button or you did add a parry or you did add like I think the flow of all right, dodge out the way. All right, cool. Like maybe you have a last second dodge which barely works sometimes. Right. Like having the enemies barely telegraph the moves for they swipe at you like I think, I don't know, you need to.

[Tim Gettys]

You needed to mix some such a different experience. That's crazy.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I don't.

[Greg Miller]

You're getting ready. I'm assuming you would ads right. Well so give me a question for when we come back if you want. Yeah, but I would be say it's like, yeah, what would you want out of south at midnight 2? Would you want them to do combat or not do combat at all?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

See out.

[Tim Gettys]

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[Greg Miller]

Greg, you're asking if we're talking about South Midnight too. We started well. You're like, oh, put a block button in. You're like oh, it's fine. And I'm like, I don't. Don't do it at all. Like, I'd love to hear a conversation of like what you'd want out of that aspect of the game. Because again, as somebody who skipped it, I want you all to Know, like, I didn't miss it. Like, I really feel like the haints, the creatures, you're just drop them. Like, just drop them and focus on boss battles and then make exploration even more fun. Make those audio diaries there. Make more.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I mean, honestly, one of the thoughts I kept having while playing this game, and this is honestly maybe more of a me thing than even the game thing, but I kept asking myself, does this need to be an action adventure game? Like, could this game have gotten farther if it wasn't an action adventure? And I think because a lot of my fatigue while playing this game came from the fact that, like, it goes back to the been there, done that sort of thing of I've played this type of game a million times, it feels like. And I think if we had, like, figured out either a different lane or stuck to a specific thing, got really good at it on the gameplay side, you could have elevated this experience further, as opposed to having me go down a path, fight some people into a combat system I don't really like. All right, we're gonna climb now. Like, I've. I've played that game a lot. So, like, I'm kind of with the idea of, like, what could you have done? Or could. Or, like, would it be worth it to have figured out, like, how to take out the combat or figure out a different genre that could have told the story?

[Greg Miller]

Dropping the combat, again changed my chemistry of the game. Right? So it's hard for me to do, but, like, running around and having the little guy you control. Right, Those. I. I enjoyed that. It was fun. I was like, again, I could have gone for more of those crouton. Crouton. Her climbing around and doing all this different stuff. Like, I enjoy that, finding the notes. So it's like. Like, I enjoyed the experience. I got. Removing that spice from it, removing that avocado from the dish or whatever. Like, I wonder the best part of the dish sometimes. I love avocado, but I'm just looking for something that people remove. All right, everybody. Ben hates it. I have to take avocado out of everything. I do hate beans.

[Roger Piccor]

That's good.

[Greg Miller]

So, yeah, I was wondering, what would you want as somebody who enjoy. Engage with it more and then. Tim, I know you're talking.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, for me, I. I definitely. I just want more story in the gameplay in the combat. Sorry, not gameplay in the combat specifically, because I feel like when we get the story elements in the combat, that's when it's at its best. And I feel like that's only like 1/4. And that's being generous of the. The fights that we get from it. But I do think that the, the how much the combat breaks up what you're doing otherwise. Like, I think that that's needed because if we're just like walking around reading things and then doing some light platforming, like, I don't think that that's enough. Like, I do think that the combat is necessary. And I just feel like, I think if anything what I would do is change up what the abilities are and get you cooler things faster. Because it wasn't until the very end of the game that I'm like, I finally have the whole kit that I'd like to have and the enemy variety that I would like to have. But I do think that given some different abilities, like, maybe even like more varied in terms of motion and combat, like, like the parkour and combat together, I think would, would go a long way. But I, I definitely think the game needs combat.

[Roger Piccor]

Yeah, I agree with you too. I honestly, my thought process behind this is to make more enemies, but just easier to kill. Like, I would rather that. I would just rather just keep on going through like almost Yakuza style. Like I'm just beating up a bunch of people go through, okay, next area. But also talking about what you're saying. I want to meld the gameplay and the story a bit more, right. I want to have it so it's not just arena. Fuck. Okay, well, why am I. Why are we hard stopping the gameplay with the story, with the gameplay? I want it to feel organic and natural. So I guess like, I don't know the next one when we're looking at it, it's a $40 release. This is a smaller type experience. Even though if you look at the cutscenes and everything, you wouldn't think that, right? You think it's a $70 experience. I wonder if the next one is a $70 experience. I wonder if it is a bigger, better situation.

[Greg Miller]

I think that's the wrong way to go.

[Roger Piccor]

I mean, to me, I look at this as a. I finished this game. I was like, if this was $70, I'd be fine with that. Like, I would truly. I would still give it a 7.5. Like my 7.5 is not associated with the fact that it's $40. It is whatever this is. If this was a full price release, I would be totally fine with it.

[Tim Gettys]

Paris.

[Paris Lilly]

So a few things on that, and I agree with everything that you guys have already been talking about, but first and foremost, I would like to see more. More side missions or not more. I want side missions, period in the game because everything was mainline. So I would love optional side missions so we can explore some of these other characters. Because again, part of what Hazel is doing is she's healing the world and the people around her. Right. I would like to. I already talked about this being more of a tragic story that we're seeing for the most part. I would like to spend some time during the active game and happier times as well. Let's. Let's explore the fact from a story standpoint. This Tuto Tom, as an example, I healed two Toe Tom. I meet two Toed Tom later in the game after he's been healed and the ramifications of that. And I understand the good that I'm doing in the world. I would say for a combat standpoint to what Roger just said, give me more enemy variety, add them into the actual world itself. I would love to see, you know, they don't have to be hard to kill, but it mixes it up so that I'm not just going to the arena doing the same things that I was doing every time. I would say, even from a traversal, just world standpoint, lack of a better term game I can think of on top of my head right now. Give me more puzzle elements. Give me something like Cocoon, right, Where, sure, I may not be fighting enemies during that time, but you're challenging me in a. In a unique way that I have to use Hazel's, you know, unique abilities to solve a puzzle or get to a location or whatever. They did it a little tiny bit in one. One chapter where it felt more puzzly. But I want more of that and I want it to be more challenging. I think that would take it a long way because again, the bones of this is great. The story's great, the art's great, the music's great. I think you've established characters in this world that I would like to hear more from. But in its current rendition, this is pretty much just a one and done. There's no replayability, in my opinion, to this. I don't. I wouldn't see a reason to go back and play the way it is. But if you mix it up with side missions and you do different puzzle things, maybe that's something like, oh, man, I didn't meet this character before. I'll go back and play it and see where this. This takes me down this fork in a row world. Oh, this boss battle was totally optional because I made this choice, I think, to Roger's point, again, if this was a 70 AAA experience, these are things that you could add into the game that I think it would make worthwhile.

[Tim Gettys]

And that's interesting. I mean, look, at the end of the day, I don't disagree with anything you're saying because I. I think you are right for a $70 title of this game being bigger. The thing I love most about this is it there aren't side quests. It. The whole thing is what matters. Everything you're doing. It's one linear story. I love this game. I love Cannon Bridge of Spirits. I love hi Fi Rush. Like, these are all games that just cut a lot of the. Because of that. They also are lacking a little bit in other ways. But I feel like what makes this game so great to me is that it is different than those other experiences and doesn't have a lot of the like, checklists. We have to fill all this stuff out. Still think it could be better in a lot of ways. But I do think that there, there's something about the balls to be like, we're not going to just add a bunch of extra stuff for replayability. Like. Like, I would prefer this to be like my one and done, I'm happy with it type story.

[Roger Piccor]

But man, the. The game that Paris just pitched, that's. That's the game I want. Like, like the. The side. Side missions and the puzzles. Like, I didn't even think about that. Like that.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

That.

[Roger Piccor]

That to me is what this game is missing.

[Paris Lilly]

And Tim just said something which kind of goes into the argument. Even at. At A$40 double A level you just mentioned hi Fi Rush. I will go back and play hi Fi Rush. You want to know why? Because it challenged me in those combat scenarios, especially the boss battles where if I'm not on my P's and Q, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna, you know, get defeated and have to go back. So even. Even that comparing it to something like hi Fi Rush, which again is a $40 triple A game, it did combat better to make it more replayable to want me to go play it again. Whereas I think the reason I would go back to play south of Midnight, honestly would be for the freaking music right now. That'd be the reason I'd want to go back and play. Just.

[Greg Miller]

I can't wait for the soundtrack.

[Paris Lilly]

That's going to be amazing. Amazing.

[Tim Gettys]

Not to go too down, too far down the path here about the hi Fi Rush thing, but it's like hi Fi Rush. It's about the combat Right. Whereas this is not about the combat. I do think this is way more about the story and I think that the story set piece, set piece beats in this which are the main focus of this game in my opinion are better than any sequence besides one in hi Fi Rush. And that is a game that is literally about music as well. So I just think that there's like. Like again when you are talking about these smaller experiences, I think that you have to like just choose the path and go down it in a certain way. And I, I think that what this game does, the paths it chooses to go down to me story wise, I think was very relatable resonance like this. These stories are going to sit with me. So why I may not want to replay the game once a year. I'm going to be thinking about these stories for a long time.

[Greg Miller]

Agreed.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I think I do disagree on this game isn't about combat because like that's the main thing you're doing right. As far as interaction in the game. You're running around the world and you're getting into combat sequences. And for me, like I'm. I agree with you guys for the most part I think the story didn't hit for me on that level. But I still think the story is good and I enjoyed it. If we're talking about the story in the presentation being the main good things here, then I think we're getting back into the Hellblade conversation of could this have been a film? Could this have been a different thing, A Broadway musical? Yeah, like if you ripped out the gameplay and then the game becomes good, then like I think that's a core problem with the way that this thing is presented.

[Greg Miller]

My one pushback on that because I've thought a lot about that, on how I played it right. Is that again, this is a me thing. Even though there's been a million different platforms and I enjoyed platforming, I enjoyed. I enjoyed getting topic. Can I get to that thing this way? Jumping and gliding and getting there and yeah, normally I could or whatever. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the boss fights. Even though, okay, yeah, it's gonna be three waves. Like that's. For me it was just this arena thing where I was like, I've seen all this and I don't need to do it again. Where for me I think there was still gameplay in this game even though I took that part out.

[Tim Gettys]

Out. Yeah, totally. One thing about the combat that I really wish they went further with is I really like kill confirm type arena combat where it's like after you beat them, you need to go to them and get them or else they come back. I wish that they took that a little further, though. It didn't feel like it was ever a threat to me. Like, I felt like I could always just deal with whoever else and then get back to them whenever I wanted to. But I. I feel like that was a. A very cool thing. I think that another thing that I love about this game is, is the animations and, like, how varied they are. And even the ones that you see over and over again are so freaking dope. And I think in the arena situations, like, a lot of that stuff really shined. And seeing Hazel kind of like, move around was, like, very impressive. And it stayed impressive to me the.

[Paris Lilly]

Entire time, like you mentioned that, Tim, because I kept thinking, because when you defeat an enemy, you. You unravel them, right? It's part of the healing thing. I was thinking maybe as you got later into it, that if you. You didn't unravel them, they'd regenerate and become an enemy again to add to the difficulty. But that, in my opinion, that was a missed opportunity.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, they didn't.

[Roger Piccor]

I was just doing it. I thought they would come back. God damn it.

[Paris Lilly]

Yeah.

[Roger Piccor]

I was so focused on it.

[Tim Gettys]

We talked a lot about the music, but the sound design in this game is on another. On another level. Man, it is so damn good. It feels like you are in these swampy areas. Like, there's every places feels right. The hurricane is insane. And there's a whole bunch of areas I don't even want to talk about. Like, alluded to one of them later. But, like, there's like, towards the end of the game, some of my favorite stuff and the way that it sounds is so damn good. And it, I think, goes so far. Like, that is the design of this whole thing. The experience of, like, video games can use sound in ways that no other medium can because you are in control of. Of how close you are or far you are where the camera spins in relation to the sounds. And shout out to the team of audio designers. I watched the credits and like, it was only like five people. And I'm like, how is that possible? Because there is so much going on here. And again, I know we've talked a lot about story and characters and stuff. Like, I really, really, really loved the performances in this and the. The way that was written and the way the lines are delivered felt like, like, so just right to me. Like, there's it.

[Paris Lilly]

You.

[Tim Gettys]

You are in that fantasy book realm of like, this isn't real life. Like, this is obviously magic shit's happening, and you got to just suspend disbelief in pretty much every way. Like the game starts off with a hurricane pulling a house away and all. It's very wizard of Oz, you know. But I think that the like, line to line, moment to moment character stuff is like, I. I can't think of other games that I felt this way about since Final Fantasy VII remake. I'll even say, like, not even Rebirth remake specifically. And I'm blanked on the other one I had. But yeah.

[Roger Piccor]

You'Re so right. Yeah, I was hanging on every word that was said. I think a lot of that is the way that they animate the characters, right? I mean, this is claymation, essentially. Like, that's the. The vibe that they're going for. Very Leica stop motion. And it's gorgeous. And it's. It's the best. It's the best. I mean, Harold Halibut came out last year and I don't think that was very successful at all. But this, this feels like you're there with these characters. The. The way that they animate them, they're so expressive. The way that I was describing it to Lands, it feels like, you know, you see like concept art of a bad movie and you're like, man, I wish that concert was like, oh, the real movie. That's what this is. This is the concept art, the entire game, and it's awesome.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I definitely want to shout out the human character design because earlier I was. I was talking about the monsters, right? But like, like, yeah, when you're talking about Hazel, when you're talking about Hazel's mom, when you're talking about, like the villain. Ish character that Paris was talking about earlier, right? Like, all of the human characters look so unique and they all look super cool to me, and I think they absolutely nailed that.

[Greg Miller]

We talked about the top of the show, but I haven't personally said something about it. I do want to once again shout out the voice actors too. Like, I think the performances are so on another level here where nobody, Nobody missed for me. Nobody fell flat. Everybody, I thought, was really just crushing it. And in. In delivering a hell of a performance.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Shout out my guy Crouton. We talked, we mentioned Crouton earlier. But like, I. I'm such a big fan of like, tackling unique puzzles. Oh, little freaks too.

[Roger Piccor]

Salads.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

But Crouton is essentially a kid. Did you say? Oh, yeah, Salads. I like. Crouton's like a little buddy that you get and you can, like, take control of him to, like, solve specific puzzles, and you can also throw them across things. And I. I like that functionality. I think that always helps to break things up in an action adventure of, like, all right, now I'm gonna throw this guy over here, and he's gonna do a little cool puzzle. He does.

[Tim Gettys]

Very Ratchet and Clank.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, very Ratchet and clank.

[Tim Gettys]

Right?

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah. And he'll go into, like, a little hole and then, like, you know, have a thing that he has to get to. Right. Those puzzles always thought were a cool way to break it up. I also wish that they were a bit more inspired as well, because after a while, I was like, all right, cool. I just need to dodge the ants and dodge the spiky plants, and then I'm good. But I like it in idea. I wish the execution was a bit more involved.

[Roger Piccor]

Yeah. I also want to talk about the technical aspect of the game and how it ran. I played it on Series S, and it ran beautifully. I believe it was 60fps. I mean, maybe my eyes are broken, but it was gorgeous. And it ran really well. And I played it on PC, and it was also flawless, too. This game is a technical marvel.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I agree.

[Paris Lilly]

Yeah. I played it across four devices on the Series X, the S PC, and then on the Rog ally handheld as well. Yeah. I mean, no issues. Ironically enough, the only bug that I did see in the game was a bug that I saw when I was in Compulsion back in November. But other than that, it was flawless.

[Unknown Speaker]

I did not have the same story as you two. I. I only have the Series S, and I was going back and forth between my living room TV, which is smaller, and then my TV that actually, like, supports, like, 120 hertz and all this stuff. When I was playing with, like, a basic HDMI. If, like, people at home don't have 4K setups or only have basic HDMIs, I was seeing a lot of frame drops when I wasn't on my 120Hz, like, setup, I think. I don't know if the Series s supports full 60 frames per second. I'm not entirely sure, but I was seeing a lot of hitching in terms of camera, not just, like, character animation. Like, obviously they're like that, but seeing.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

A lot of that.

[Unknown Speaker]

I had a lot of crashes, too. And not crashes like. Like, the game froze in terms of, like, it was obvious that it was loading either a combat scenario or a cutscene, and it would just freeze. And Xbox. The Xbox wouldn't even detect, like, hey, something's wrong with your game. I'd have to go in or like, close out of the game and then hope to God that, like, it. Auto saved recently. Thankfully, the auto save feature is like, pretty frequent in this. But yeah, I had a lot of, like, performance issues like that that hopefully is kind of a. A rare one for people out there.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

I didn't have too many bugs. I had one bug where I got toward the end of a combat sequence and one of the guys was like, left with like, one hit on him. And for some reason I couldn't hit him, but I could like, leave and go to the next thing. And so I just went along and like, just left him behind legitimately. It was like that. And then I got to the next combat sequence and like, the arena, like, you know, solidified and none of the enemies were spawning. And then I look and I see that enemy outside of the arena, like.

[Roger Piccor]

Banging on the wall.

[Greg Miller]

And I was like, not finished yet.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Inside to reload the game. But that. That fixed it.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I played on Series X and my experience was closer to. To Rogers. Again, I want to say technically, the audio. Like, I am very lucky that I have a full home theater system that has full. Like, I am designed for the top end of these audio things. And not every game sounds this good and has this much love and care and performance technically when it comes to audio. And this game definitely did. I didn't have any issues with stuttering or freezing or any of that stuff. But I did have two. And they were both in different. It was both in a phase three of a boss. I would have some clear bug that, like, me over and I had to like, restart the. The battle, which wasn't great. Like, one time I got kicked out of the arena and I couldn't get back in and I was like, this sucks. And then another time, like, the weapons that I needed to kill the enemy just weren't spawning no matter what I did. But yeah, just a quick reset and then I was right back in action.

[Roger Piccor]

Hell yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Right back.

[Paris Lilly]

One other thing for me, because I'm assuming we're gonna wrap it up soon. I want to make sure I get.

[Tim Gettys]

This in final thoughts.

[Paris Lilly]

I do. I do want to give kudos to compulsion games because I feel like there was a lot of There, there. There was a lot of respect, love, and care with this game. And. And when I say that is because they are touching on a subject that you don't see in video games a lot. Obviously, black female protagonist. You're in the deep American south, you're talking about a lot of the folklore and legends that come from that area, that, the dialects that come from that area, the sounds, the art, just everything about it. I felt, I felt very respected by that because I am from the south. So I know what the south looks like. And this felt like a very good representation of that. You know, being lucky enough to have actually met some of the dev team and hear them talk about this game. I know that they were very respectful of this and they put all their love and care into making this game what it was. Of course, you know, we're critics, we're going to point out the good and the bad, but the overall experience that I got from this, I'm. I'm happy that I played south of Midnight. And I highly suggest anyone that has a chance play south of Midnight. There is so much good here that you're going to enjoy. And I think people that aren't from the south that don't know the folklore and the culture and the art of, of the Deep south, this will be educational for them. I think that lore tab, which is something that you, you'll have access to, use it, take your time. Obviously this is a 12 hour experience, so you don't need to rush through it. Take your time, take in the lore. When you come across one of these bosses or these characters and you see the lore tab pop up, read up on it and understand where this legend came from, the folklore to it, all that. Because again, I, I thought they did a fantastic job with that. And sure, we might criticize the gameplay, but even with that it is worth your time to place out the midnight. And again, scudos the compulsion, man.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Yeah, I think to echo that, if, if there's anything that kept me in the game, it was the setting, it was the characters, it was like what they're doing here culturally. And I think that's one of those things where I want to see more games tackle different types of themes. Different, like, like I. To the Deep south thing. Right. Like, as I'm playing through the game, I am thinking about family that I have that live in like Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And I'm like, man, this is really cool that we're hearkening to an area that I usually don't see as represented in video games as much. And so shout out that. And also, yeah, shout out to compulsion. Right. Like I'm some. Not somebody who played War of the Games. Contrast. And then we have with you. I didn't play either of those games, right. But I remember those Kind of coming and going and this is one that I think might have. Have will probably have more of the staying power than at least those games. And I think with it you're seeing the studio take steps and steps and steps to get into a place of okay, cool. They're one of those ones, right? And I think like if it's not this one then it will be south of Midnight too or whatever like their next game is. That'll really put them on the map because they're only getting better with every iteration.

[Tim Gettys]

True north of noon we'll take. He wants some positive. Do you have any final thoughts, Greg?

[Greg Miller]

Roger, again I think this is a great experience. Great game. I had a great time with this and I highly recommend it especially as a game pass title of jumping in and doing. I think we've talked. We talk a lot about the perfect game pass title. Like I think this is again the benefits of that system of being like hey, here is a game that's varying opinions on what people liked and what they didn't like. And again, I think it's worth going in there and adjusting to your own specifications.

[Roger Piccor]

Yeah, I think this is a huge win for a compulsion. Even though again the gameplay, the traversal set to death, the. The world here is something special. And that to me is the hardest part of game of games. Right. The amount of games that I've played that have pretty good combat but I do not give a about the world are a dime a dozen. So many games. But the fact that they created a world that I want to live in, that I want to be in, that I wanted more out of that I was disappointed when the game didn't have an epilogue and didn't have more chapters. That's a huge win right there. And I'm fucking. They better make south of Midnight too. Like if they just like drop this like we're moving on to another thing like God fucking support this game. I want another one. This is a really good game again.

[Greg Miller]

And to harking back to what we were talking about here in terms of progression as a studio, right? This is. They're a great example and of course you hope nothing bad happens but they're a great example of hey, here's a small studio that's getting these at bats so the games are getting progressively better and they take this feedback and they go and again that's the hope of these acquisitions. When you see Phil and team bringing people into the Xbox fold is that you can make a game that is smaller. That is this. That is A great game, pass game. And then you can continue on making those kind of games. Turn them quickly, learn these lessons and. And really have something special. Special.

[Unknown Speaker]

My final thought is that you should play Psychonauts too. You specifically?

[Roger Piccor]

Me?

[Unknown Speaker]

No, Timothy.

[Greg Miller]

Oh.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, I tried. It didn't stick with me. I'll try again for you.

[Unknown Speaker]

A lot of the things that you with in this game, I think I know, like Psychonauts 2 does it, but much better.

[Tim Gettys]

I. I don't like how they do it though. And again, I think it's just different strokes, different folks, all that stuff. But I. I do pray we get more games like this.

[Roger Piccor]

It's crazy. I was gonna play Psycho Knots too, but then he didn't talk to me, so I'm not playing that.

[Unknown Speaker]

Roger, finally Monster Hunter.

[Tim Gettys]

Why?

[Unknown Speaker]

Roger used to play Saginaw too.

[Greg Miller]

There's a boy, he doesn't know how to get home. Can you help him get home?

[Tim Gettys]

And I ain't talking about Saginaus, by the way. Like, I. I love that these level games exist. I want so much more of them and I. I feel like it's good that we're starting to. To see more and more and I do think it's very interesting that this game was announced in 2023 and we're playing it now. Like this is way earlier than I expected to see it. And to Greg's point, like, I hope that they can kind of keep some of these things, who knows how long they were developing it, but like keep some of these cycles a little shorter and like actually get more at bats and try different things. Because I think that there's. There's something here for most people, but I think that there's potential for there to be something here for everybody. So.

[Greg Miller]

Well said.

[Tim Gettys]

Let's know in the comments below if you're interested in trying out south of Midnight. Hopefully you also can check out all of our Nintendo Switch coverage. Check that stuff out and just hang out and. And I am so happy that Gray doesn't have my stars.

[Greg Miller]

Well, I mean, don't remember though. You're not off the hook. Hey, you only prolonged by making a.

[Blessing Adioye Jr.]

Mockery of my show.