For the past few years, there’s been a lot of beat ’em up games released such as River City Girls, TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, and more. You are gonna ask how can another game of that genre can differentiate itself from others in that category. I believe the solution to that is bringing in your own flair, and twists and building upon that foundation and this is what Midnight Fight Express does to cement itself as one of the best beat ’em up games in recent years.
Midnight Fight Express is a modern beat ’em up with lots of over-the-top animations that bring its frantic combat to life with satisfaction, it’s also the most retro feeling but also a modern-looking game at the same time.
The story of the game isn’t something new or revolutionary. The plot has you play as Babyface, an amnesiac ex-gang member and one-man army who loves the feeling of bone breaking against their knuckles, that has been lured back into old gangster life by a mysterious drone. Your mission is to fight your way across the city before sunrise to prevent a citywide criminal takeover. Like I’ve said before, the game’s story itself isn’t that special, it can be borrowed from any 90’s movie with rather lengthy dialogue and cheesy pop culture references.
While the story is mediocre at best, the gameplay and combat system are something that should be praised. For those that have previously played the Batman: Arkham series, you’ll likely find a lot of similarities. You’re often surrounded by combatants, but your fighting skill allows you to quickly move from one enemy to the next with rapid combinations and counter-attacks when an attacker lunges at you. You can dodge to avoid those wielding baseball bats, and knives.
For the most part, your fists are your best friends in fights, it’s here where the game shines. Each punch or kick has a “punch” or a feeling of weight with enemies reacting as if they have just been smacked very hard, and the same goes for guns. While the game is not a shooter, you can pick up all types of guns and use them before throwing the empty gun at an enemy’s head and knocking them out. The fighting ranges from basic punches and blocks to special moves which can be unlocked from a large skill tree that can let you parry, back flip, and smash heads into tables, chain more punches, kicks, and special moves together in lengthy score-busting combos and even flashy finishers like those in Doom: Eternal.
There are a hundred items that can be used as weapons, from knives and tire irons to toilet plungers, and you can also pick up many of the items in the level and throw them. The enemies themselves are your standard grunts, brutes, and ninjas, but almost every level brings a reskin of an enemy type to keep things feeling fresh. As the game progresses they get more fantastical with toxic enemies spewing vomit green vomit, and of course, there are boss battles, some with multiple stages.
The biggest glaring issue with the combat is initially a lot of it is locked behind upgrades. Let’s take parrying as an example, it’s weird and unintuitive to able to parry someone when they are unarmed but not when they are carrying a weapon until of course, you unlock that particular ability. You can never parry everything, which it does make sense from a logical standpoint, but to have some of it merely locked away ino fun.
The skills also range from indispensable to detrimental. Finishers, for example, allow you to stylishly take down stunned foes. However, I stopped using throws quickly because they can be easily interrupted and sometimes feel like they won’t wore how it’s supposed to on some foes. Enemies back off while you perform a finisher, but grappling leaves you wide open. It doesn’t feel worth it and can end your good streak.
There are a total of 41 levels in the game, which may sounds like a lot, but each lasts around five minutes or so. The locations are your typical city fighting spots, like subway tunnels and an airport, but they’re diverse such as a police station filled with bunny strippers, sleazy nightclubs, high-rise buildings, and a game studio where you can pummel developers with pillows and nerf guns.
Each level has high-scorere leaderboard, some secrets, and unlocks to be discovered so there are plenty of reasons to go back, replay the game and to also obtain that sweet S-ranking. When the going gets tough and you die A LOT, the game restarts almost instantly to a well-placed mid-levecheckpointnt, keeping that “one more try” going on.
Occasionally, you’ll hop on a jet ski or motorbike to break away from the norm, and some of the levels feel wildly different because of the spaces you’re fighting in. Fighting against enemies on a construction site where there’s room to dodge and a chance to throw people off a half-completebuildingin, isn’t the same as fighting within the cramped confines of an elevator. Gangs are swapped out as you dive deeper into the game, you go from fighting normal thugsand , beat cops to corrupted priests. Some levels get a bit creative, and then some others get a bit annoying.
Midnight Fight Express does a really good job of making you feel like a heavyboxer that happens to be John Wick at the same time. You are given plenty of tools to take down enemies including some creative uses of level elements. The fighting offers lots of depth, variety and especially satisfaciton that it doesn’t really need anythign else. Repetition starts to creep in as you approach the credits, yet the various mo-capped animations ensures that you’re still seeing new ways to batter enemies unconscious.
Score: 8 of 10
Review on PC