Recent reviews by JakeAO

Really very good. The perfect length, didn't overstay its welcome. Plenty of customization and upgrade options that are optional but fun to unlock and use.

A very solid start spoiled by a horribly drawn-out endgame. Overall not a terribly unique game in the sea of great JRPGs we have access to, but I would still recommend it to anyone looking specifically for a Suikoden-like.

Total Playtime - 55 hours
Character Art & Animations - Fantastic. 10/10.
Environment Art - Good
Voice Acting (English) - Overall very good, though the script is often lacking.
Story - Decent JRPG story. Nothing gamechanging, and does drag quite a lot.
Core Gameplay - Basic JRPG, doesn't add anything to the genre.
Difficulty - Easy. Rarely do you ever have to worry about element/type advantage in combat. Money starts pouring in after a few chapters and you can buy an infinite stock of the highest tier healing items.
Minigames - Mixed bag, pulled down primarily by a severe lack of user input or skill required. Card game is incredibly easy but at least there's user input. Spinning top minigame is terrible in every way. Racing minigame is at least cute, but takes too long to resolve. War minigame takes so long and doesn't require any skill.

The first 10 hours of my playthrough were fantastic. The game has all the classic charm of a Suikoden-like: you recruit the people, you get the town/castle, you upgrade the buildings, etc. The plot started out interesting enough to keep engaged, though it is your basic "bad guy empire" story.
The next 20 hours of the playthrough were fine. Recruit more and more unique NPCs, upgrade more and more facilities at the base, unlock more and more areas as the story progresses. A decent loop of plot->explore->upgrade->plot that kept me engaged.
The final 25 hours of the playthrough were abysmal. Aside from a few comedic interactions between some of the more lovable recruited NPCs, the final half of my playthrough felt both rushed and drawn out. There's a 50/50 chance that each next plot point will either thrust you into a 2 hour block of dialog (maybe broken up with a war minigame, which is just dialog with animations) or a dungeon that takes 2 hours to complete because it's a series of long, long, long hallways with a thousand random encounters.

tl;dr: This game is incredibly fun and beautiful, but god if it isn't a frustrating mess. Hands down worth a buy if you get a good discount.

Pros:
- Beautiful world, scenery, and vistas to discover.
- Excellent exploration and adventuring.
- Dense world full of monsters, caves, and little interactions.
- Classes/vocations are incredibly interesting and fun, especially the 'advanced' vocations unlocked later.

Cons:
- Buggy as all get out.
- Main plot might as well not exist. Things just happen, cutscenes trigger at seemingly random moments, none of the 'main' characters are memorable at all.
- Game mechanics encourage and reward exploration, but plot and bugs mean that if you explore too hard you might totally skip half the plot and have to go back later to figure out what's happening.

If you like Marvel, you'll like Midnight Suns. If you like XCOM, you'll like Midnight Suns. It takes the XCOM formula and amps up pretty much every element, then adds a fun cast of characters written and acted unexpectedly well.

Hell yes. Great, fun characters. Good gameplay loop. Go and befriend some weapons.

Great game with a great story. Beat it in ~60 hrs and totally felt like playing through again with a different build and going with different plot choices.

What else is there to say, it's Monster Prom. It's great.

Really, really solid game. I would highly recommend it to anyone that is fond of action-platformers and/or 'metroidvania' type games. It has a lot of great elements to it that should keep anyone entertained for the game's 6-8 hr playtime. There are some truly comedic moments, and some fairly dark themes overall, so play it and enjoy.