Brawlers and Beatemups
User avatar
Raging Justice
Next-Gen
 
Posts: 1289
Joined: Sun May 30, 2021 2:11 pm

Midnight Fight Express

by Raging Justice Wed Aug 24, 2022 12:24 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEjJKTpaSsw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAAG5ramERM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAHNn1ZzYqU

Image

This one's interesting. Sort of reminds me of Hotline Miami a bit, but this game is a proper brawler while HM was a weird mix between brawler, stealth game, and twin stick shooter. I don't even know how to really categorize HM honestly. Midnight Fight Express has the top down perspective like HM as well as a pretty banging soundtrack that is conducive to violence (also like Hotline Miami), but it's much more of a straight up beat 'em up.

The combat borrows some elements from games like Batman: Arkham Asylum, Shadow of Mordor, etc., if you're familiar with the style of combat in those games, mixed with some more traditional stuff like combos, grapples, etc. There's a heavy emphasis on weapon use and there's some fun environmental kills you can do. There's tons of stuff in the environment you can throw at enemies and weapons feel distinct. For example, a bladed weapon will do a hell of a lot more damage than a blunt object. I was getting annoyed with a boss, then on a second playthrough of that same stage I got to him with a butcher knife and couldn't believe how fast I shredded apart his health bar.

The enemies are tough and you can't get hit too many times, which gives it an arcade game feel while also reminding me again of Hotline Miami. It's not a one hit kill game like Hotline Miami, but your health can go down fast so the action can feel intense. There are no health items, but if you can keep from dying long enough, your health will regenerate. The game seems manageable if you fight smart. Smart use of weapons seems to make a big difference. You have to be somewhat defensive too. I find myself dodge rolling around a lot, but there's also a block and parry system. The parry system being like the Batman games but with much stricter timing. I've been mostly avoiding using it because I hate that timing based, parry crap that is all the rage in action games now. I just find the timing on these things too strict. You can also unlock new abilities with skill points to help you fight better so that gives me something to look forward to as I play through the levels. You also earn cash to spend on clothing items and skins if you care about that kind of nonsense.

Levels have collectibles, challenges, and rankings (S rank being the highest), and there's different difficulty settings. The reviews for this have been pretty good and I'm having a good time with it. It's not too pricey at 20 bucks. Lot of beat 'em ups in 2022. Shredder's Revenge, River City Saga: Three Kingdoms, this, and upcoming stuff like the Cowabunga collection next week. It kind of feels like a bit of renewed interest in the genre from developers of late
Return to Fighters

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests