3/5 ★ – DanteHR's review of South of Midnight.

2025 came with a tornado of good games from all possible genres, we had a ton of very important releases for this industry, and many come directly from the publisher from whom we had 0 expectations.. XBOX Games Studios. Having a new release every month, XGS gave us a smaller scale game that we can digest until the 'elephant in the room of this month', namely.. "Clair Obscur: Expedition 33". Not being such a big fan of the studio, I tried to treat the game with esteem and respect, because I had no idea what to expect. I find the art style and music very brilliant, but from the beginning of the game, I had some doubts about the gameplay. I spent a lot of time playing with the settings, because they felt absolutely devastating, especially the movement, you could see that it runs in small ticks, and that turned me off.. at least until I started using the mouse DPI to have a somewhat okay experience. (Spoiler Alert: over time I got used to it) I've reached the part from which I had the lowest expectations, but which ended up completely disappointing me, even with my modesty. The gameplay of this game is overall very simple, it has nothing complex, it has no haxes, it has no cheese, it is a casual game for chill players. It is made in such a way that you don't struggle at all, you can skip all the combat in the game and just solve the puzzles, which are, most of the time, very cheap. You unlock your abilities throughout the game, only to realize that you don't really need them, they will help you with some puzzles, but in combat.. useless. The combat system is similar to that of Devil May Cry, you walk as far as you can and you have a very small closed area, where a few enemies gather.. and to escape the area, you just have to defeat them all. Easy to understand, right? I was disappointed by the clunkyness I encountered, and the lack of artistic vision when it came to the enemies themselves. However, I was quite satisfied with the first boss in the game, it was very ingeniously done and I can say that it kept me hooked for more than half the game.. only to find out that he is the only one where the "budget" went into. You have 14 chapters, in which you go from one area to another to fulfill your goal of saving your family. You have parkour areas, very simple, wall climbing, wall running, double jump and glide, however, I didn't feel any suspense there. Probably the category where the developers put the most work is GRAPHICS. Eye candy in total, with an artistic style distinct from other games, which can give you a very pleasant vibe and integrate you into the same world as the game. However, it is not a category where I can stick my nose in too much, because I didn't spend that much time exploring all the landscapes.. or I could say that I was limited in that. The fidelity is not the greatest, considering that it runs in Unreal Engine 4. As for optimization, I didn't encounter any major problems, only some stutters when the areas weren't rendered. I really liked the character designs, especially the mythical ones, being animals that are not extinct, but on a much larger scale. As for the enemy design, the only comparison I could make would be Kena: Bridge of Spirits, except it's a little more Disney-ish there.. they're mostly the same thing. As for the sound, South of Midnight delivered a very solid soundtrack, especially for a game made by so few developers. The ambient sounds were just right and perfectly matched the artistic vision they had for the game. Music, the same fish food, a sub-category that can change your whole experience.. in this case, a very good one. Right after I finished the game and watched the credits, the first thing I did.. was to search for the entire soundtrack on Youtube and listen to it from beginning to end.. that's how good the role of music in this game was. Another very important category for the game, which managed to please me for the most part, is the story.. it pleased me with the dialogue and the characters, but otherwise, it left me speechless, if I may say so. No character development, no emotional moments, no cliffhangers and twists that I would not expect. The protagonist of the game is Hazel Flood, a teenager who lives with her mother in a small town called Prospero.. that is until a tornado takes their entire house. The main plot was for Hazel to find her mother, knowing that she is alive only because she saw a certain creature when the tornado appeared. Being a gothic reality from the South, with some creatures from that folklore, especially spirits.. Hazel has to defeat everything that stands in her way, to achieve her goal. I hope I made myself understood in the "development of creativity" that I shared with you above, a decent plot, which I can respect, but.. and that's a big gift, they could have developed the story a little more, especially with some emotional moments. With excellent music, an acceptable story and embarrassing combat, you can't make an IP with great success, but only a short-lived experience, with the help of the Game Pass subscription, which we all love. Jokes aside, I was really disappointed with South of Midnight, the hype I had before the release was much greater than the hours I spent in it. Overall, I can't regret wasting about 12 hours of my life on this game, but I can't recommend it to anyone other than beginners... who have only been playing for a few months. It can teach you some things for other titles, where it's really worth investing dozens of hours. 6.3/10 Made by DanteHR