SENSEs: Midnight

Midnight Miss.

Developed by Suzaku Games, SENSEs: Midnight is the next in the series of SENSE titles. 2021's SENSE: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story (Switch) was an interesting title with fantastic art and atmosphere but had a few design issues that prevented me from really engaging with it. Still, for a game made by just a few people, it certainly had the potential for a sequel. Well, SENSEs: Midnight is that sequel, and while it is far more ambitious than its predecessor, its reliance on frustrating controls and excessive backtracking, drains the soul out of this paranormal mystery. 

While unconnected to the previous game, but taking place within its cyberpunk world, SENSEs: Midnight takes place two years following the events of SENSE: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story featuring a whole new protagonist in Uesugi Kaho. During a trip to Ikebukuro, Japan, Kaho breaks into a nearby park to track down the Midnight Door, a paranormal object of legend. This premise is intriguing, providing a solid premise to explore, but SENSEs: Midnight's entire plot is largely given to you within the game's first few minutes, leaving nothing but crumbs after you encounter this door. Neither Kaho or the game's demonic antagonist are explored in any meaningful way, or really at all for that matter. 

While Kaho is physically alone in the park, she's joined alongside a few friends via a line chat program, making comments and providing helpful tips throughout the roughly 2-3 hour playthrough. While it's unclear how they are aware of her every move, it's a nice addition as it tends to solve the "protagonist talking to themselves" trope that is present across thousands of games. That said, had Kaho been talkative, it might have given her something of a personality.

Not everything is well-written, with plenty of spelling errors, but this occult club at least kept me partially engaged, especially as Kaho herself is largely bland and unexplored as a character. And, as Kaho approaches the door, a mysterious addition to the chat warns her to leave the door alone or face the consequences. So of course Kaho attempts to open the door.

The majority of the story going forward is through conversations with this cast, this mysterious figure who had infiltrated their chat, and reading through the notes you'll find across the park. While I'll be vague in regards to where the story goes, the ending itself was massively disappointing and had me wonder why the events that transpired were even considered. While there is a new game+ to provide a better ending, I cannot imagine feeling the need to replay this anytime soon, and instead opting to wait to view that second ending online instead. 

SENSEs: Midnight takes place entirely in its gloomy park. While its cyberpunk elements are reserved for the backdrop of the city outside the park's walls, in much the same way as the previous game’s location was a dark and moody apartment, devoid of its cyberpunk namesake, the atmosphere here is nonetheless fairly impressive, creating a moody and fitting location for a horror game. However, saying that, SENSEs: Midnight is rarely scary and is often far more frustrating than anything haunting. There are moments where the game could have delivered on its horror elements, but it largely falls on its face every chance it gets.

SENSE: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story was a 2D side-scrolling horror game that had a strong visual aesthetic that really performed a lot of the heavy lifting to create a somewhat satisfying game that at least featured some sort of personality to it. It certainly had its own host of issues, namely its excessive backtracking and sluggish pacing, but it was a title that certainly had promise and showed considerable potential should the team capitalize on it. However, I don't feel that same sensation in Midnight whatsoever as the title feels like a substantial step back, regardless of its attempt to expand into a fully 3D environment to match its inspirations more closely, almost to a fault. And with the change to this 3D world, any of the original game’s personality is simply gone, leaving this as a bland title that is devoid of anything that grants this game an identity.

While the openness of the park is the game's best quality, the fact Kaho can only hold four items at once creates a situation where backtracking is your constant companion, especially if you've left an item on the far side of the park and then have to suffer through the controls and spirits to go track it down. And, should you want to unlock her bikini outfit, you'll need to hold onto special tokens that require you to backtrack to the costume machine at the entrance to the park. These coins, as well as a few random items, could have benefitted from a second inventory screen for such non-critical items.

While you can freely drop items and come to snag them later, I strongly suggest making one zone in the park a place to drop those items, especially as some uneven ground throughout the park can hide the sparkling effect that shows where your dropped items are. And, I also suggest it be an area where the camera is rather close to the player.

To fill up some of the game's playtime, you'll have a camera that you'll use to primarily examine paranormal activities such as spirits that are set in certain locations. Pointing the camera in a general direction and moving it around until the focus point is red, you'll snap the spirit and see its true form. I'll also add that you cannot move while operating the camera, making the general framing of the shot to be a lot of trial and error and repositioning with the game's lacking controls. You'll do this activity for about two dozen spirits throughout the game, with no real reason to take on this task. Now, the game mentions that to track down these spirits you’ll need to listen for a sound to indicate they are near. To be honest, I never once heard the sound and eventually gave up on looking for them.

It's a shame the camera doesn't serve any other purpose in the game, such as possibly discovering why these spirits still linger, or even becoming an asset for defense or a means to escape encounters. While it's clearly inspired by the Fatal Frame series, those games used their camera to great effect, making them an essential tool you came to rely on. Here, it feels more inspired by the likes of Pokemon Snap, with somehow even less depth.

While those photogenic spirits are passive entities that won't disturb you, the other spirits you'll encounter border on slightly annoying to damn near game-breaking. Once the Midnight Door is opened near the start of the game, the central antagonist will be unleashed upon the park, a demonic hag that hobbles along at a pretty decent pace when following you. While you can attempt to zig-zag out of her way, both control schemes make that feat a bigger chore than it should have ever been, especially when your character is so far away due to the angle that it makes it next to impossible to gauge whether or not she is going to touch you. This is where SENSEs: Midnight absolutely lost my interest and became something I had to force myself to continue with.

As SENSEs: Midnight is a slave to its inspirations, its standard method of movement is through the use of era-specific tank controls. Now, I'm no stranger to such things, but several games around that era were smart enough to provide both, such as 2001's Fatal Frame, a game that is clearly part of this title's influences. The other method to move Kaho around are dubbed Pov controls. And while they do make controlling Kaho marginally better, they still suffer from the frequent camera changes and can make proper positioning to be a nightmare, especially when you are being stalked by several of the game's spirits or simply trying to pick up an item that is literally at Kaho's feet. And should you let go of the analog stick during a camera change, you’ll need to reposition how you’re controlling Kaho. It’s simply not fun.

Apart from the main spirit, there are a small handful of other spiritual threats that you will have to deal with. These are less threatening, but can still be a bit of an annoyance. As you attempt to hide from many of them, you can find Talisman Spots around the map indicated by butterflies. These areas then come with a very easy mini-game of holding your breath. This mini-game is just far too easy and removes all tension from such an act. It's a shame that Kaho doesn't have any real options against these evil forces as it would have benefitted by giving you real options to deal with them.

Thankfully; however, these enemies cannot instantly kill you, but Kaho can only take a few hits before she dies. While it is possible to outrun these spirits, taking an initial hit will cause Kaho to limp, decreasing her speed just enough that once her health has regenerated back to full, you are likely to get hit again, restarting the process all over again. Kaho can also rely on one-use items called Magatamas that aid in repelling the spirits, so make sure to track these down as they do help. 

As you move around the park, you'll encounter a few puzzles to solve. While a few are as simple as looking around for a code written on a piece of paper, others like the water valves and security device can often be clever with a very old school approach that does work here. It's a shame we didn't get more like these and less of the former, which just feel a bit too lazy in their effort.

The presentation here is somewhat of a mixed bag. While the park itself is a well put-together location that certainly sets the mood, almost becoming a character in and of itself, Kaho herself lacks any real emotion to being there and comes off as fairly boring, despite having a pretty decent character model. There are moments where she is peril and the lack of emotion here doesn't help sell the horrors she is going through.

The menus themselves are also pretty clunky and stiff and sadly don't flow together that well at all. I also was disappointed at how tiny the font is to read on the Switch's screen, especially with how fast some of the messages come in. While you can go into the menu to read what was said it's the same tiny font that is barely readable here. How this was approved is beyond me. 

I really wanted to like SENSEs: Midnight, especially after playing the previous game. It had its issues, sure, but the potential to create a vastly more engaging experience was something I had really hoped for. Sadly, with so many options for survival horror out there, from the smallest indie to the biggest AAA studios, SENSEs: Midnight just doesn't offer a compelling reason to dive in, and that's the biggest frustration the title brings with it.

Developer - Suzaku Games. Publisher - Eastasiasoft. Released - June 7th, 2023. Available On - Xbox One, Series X/S, PS4/PS5, PC. Switch. Rated - (T) Mild Blood, Mild Language, Violence. Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.