64hoops South of Midnight Review

This is a tale of two games: One on hand: This is one the best storytelling games on Xbox. I don't think there's others out there with a better story, art style, and soundtrack. It feels like a unique experience that only animated movies studios like Disney Pixar could achieve. And even though this isn't meant to look like a realistic game, the story is incredibly deep, moving, and powerful at times. The struggle of grief and regret is on full display in a masterful way that I could totally see this being adapted into a motion picture one day. It's so cool that we finally get a game that really focuses on a setting like the deep south and uses the area's folklore and beautiful scenery to it's strengths. You could tell that the developers really took their time with these parts, as they're done fantastically well. On the other hand: The gameplay and level design is not good. Like... really not good. The combat sections are totally the weakest portions. They're repetitive, uninspiring, and boring to slog through. Every combat section feels the same, there's no creativity within them. Thank goodness you can skip them optionally. And the combat itself feels sluggish and a tiny bit delayed where I feel like some button presses feel unresponsive. The parkour/platforming sections are okay (And sometimes great! The clock tower sequences stands out) but I find that gets really repetitive as well and sometimes can be sluggish to control. There's just so much repetitiveness with some of these chapters in terms of level design to where I could literally predict how most of these chapters were going to go gameplay perspective wise.... Most of the boss battles are pretty fun (Albeit the controls and some dodge timings felt kind of sus). The last boss is so disappointing. It's mostly just a gauntlet of fighting regular enemies that you've fought throughout the entire game. What a letdown. Overall, it's a cinematic experience that would rival most big budget animated movies. But the repetitive, boring, uninspiring gameplay and combat bogs this down so much! However, since you have the option of skipping boss battles, combat sequences, and chase scenes, I think this can be recommended to people who want a beautiful, short, linear experience. This is basically a Game Pass game at its finest lol. Recommended at half its price (50 to $25) 7.5/10