There are a lot of cool concepts, ideas and mechanics packed into this game. In many respects, MFE feels a lot like a more involved, stylised version of My Friend Pedro except with a focus on hand-to-hand combat and a drone instead of a banana. The gameplay loop is very simple, as is the case with most beat/shoot ‘em ups: you get a ton of (usually short) levels that you have to make your way through using not only your hands but everything you can get them on: melee weapons, guns, random objects, enemies, etc. One of the best things in MFE is how it expertly uses its environment as an active part of combat, and there are always a ton of tools at your disposal at any given time (I particularly love how you can take advantage of enemies to kill other enemies, be it via gang wars or just letting them accidentally drop each other). This is added on top of quite a varied move set and a ton of skill upgrades that keep changing your experience and giving it some freshness, and even if this particular aspect is far from perfectly tuned, there is way more diversity in gameplay options than I had initially thought.
All of the above gets weaved into an incredible art and sound design - with the game featuring a really awesome-looking cyberpunk aesthetic that seeps into everything from visuals, story and soundtrack - and a nice humorous tone, typical of a game that knows how cool it can be without ever taking itself too seriously. The fact that all of this was conceived of by two people is nothing short of impressive, and when everything clicks and flows as intended, few games are able to convey such a feel-good power fantasy where you go about John Wicking the shit out of everyone who stands in your way.
The problem is what this game doesn’t do right, which at times becomes beyond annoying and almost puzzling, even for an indie title. The biggest offender is by far its incomprehensible difficulty spikes. For how good some levels feel to play, a few others are almost insultingly bad (levels 23 and 35 are particularly egregious in this regard). No vehicle section feels great. Not one. They are riddled one-hit deaths stemming from moments you can’t even anticipate (e.g. cars showing up in front of you giving you no time to evade them before thew blow you up, too many things being thrown your way at the same time, etc). In a game that will likely take you about 5 hours to beat, the fair amount of levels where difficulty is so poorly designed is enough to put a damper on your fun. The John Wick power fantasy I mentioned before feels a lot less like a power fantasy and a lot more like an exercise in frustration when these moments show up. It wasn’t enough to make me quit the game, but a couple of those sections were so irritating that I came pretty close.
There are other things MFE struggles with. The game tries to do too much at once, which whilst speaks of a creative mind, it also highlights a lack of direction in deciding what is important and what is filler. This often makes the gameplay mechanics feel like they're getting in the way of themselves, and even with the choice of unassigning skills as you progress, the whole system still seems fairly flawed. It also doesn’t help that a couple of abilities straight up don't seem to work (I could never get the rope electrocution to trigger, for example), or that the static isometric camera can be a bit annoying at times, depending on where you are on the screen. Having this much stuff going on also affects the kinetic experience, and from start to finish I got stuck with the impression that controls could’ve felt a bit better. The skills and upgrades are definitely a nice addition, but ultimately you get them all before you finish the game, so the notion of a specific build doesn't make sense here, which of course impacts replayability. Due to this I also feel the game goes on for longer than it needed to, and perhaps an experience shorter than 40 levels (even though some of those are quite short) would've made a lot more sense to address both these issues (different builds and replay value). Especially because the story, which is as silly as it comes, definitely didn’t need that many sections.
Overall I’d say Midnight Fight Express is definitely worth a playthrough, especially for brawler fans. Creatively and artistically, there is absolutely enough in here to be enjoyed despite its obvious shortcomings, and this is still a very laudable first effort from such a small team. I just hope the less impressive aspects of the game are taken into consideration in upcoming titles, as I think these devs might have a solid future ahead of them. 7/10
