Fairytales and folklore, the stories we’re told as children and then share as adults, feature some of the darkest and most mysterious characters in history. Passed down through generations, what makes these myths particularly compelling is how cultures treat them with reverence and how different subcultures each have their own legends and traditions that set them apart. South of Midnight, the new action-adventure title from Compulsion Games, tackles the folklore of the Deep South, a setting that oozes with as much style as it does alligator-filled swamp water. While combat can get a little repetitive, the setting manages to turn the experience into something really special.

In South of Midnight, you play as Hazel, a young and plucky track athlete who gets yanked into a whirlwind adventure when a hurricane tears through Prospero, taking her mother and her family home away in a dramatic flood. She then finds herself pulled deep into a Southern Gothic world where the lines between fantasy and reality are truly blurred. Rescuing Hazel’s mother is only part of the challenge; there are ancient creatures and haunting family secrets for you to uncover along the way. Oh, and a giant talking catfish serves as your main narrator and ally, one of the more charming characters you’ll come across as you explore the world, as he guides you through a literal storybook of chapters on Hazel’s journey.

Gothic fairytale fantasy

South of Midnight features a truly captivating setting and one that gets a lot of mileage. The decayed county of Prospero is a joy to explore, with beautifully creepy swamplands, desolate, drowned shacks to comb through, wildlife zipping around and a lot of visual flair. To give it even more of a distinct feel, the animation is inspired by traditional stop-motion puppets, giving the whole adventure a frame-dropping style that permeates through cutscenes and movement. 

The Deep South setting brings its own unique flavour, which accentuates the dark storytelling. Folklore and fairytales, after all, can be bloody horrific, and South of Midnight isn’t afraid to tell some really heartbreaking stories. Some of them have a neat supernatural twist, like an alligator who eats so much he becomes a giant, but they’re grounded in a sad human story that plays out in front of Hazel in the form of spirit-like echoes.

It’s all backed by one of the most memorable video game soundtracks you’ll come across. Composer Olivier Deriviere truly brings the Deep South to life with character-driven lyrical music, using a wide variety of instruments and vocalists. Boss Fights have their own theme song, and the vocals add a particularly menacing vibe to proceedings. One late level in particular is set in the city of what must be New Orleans, the town broken into literal pieces, with jazz bars on every corner and the symphony of saxophones, trumpets, pianos and drums spilling out into the streets.

By the book… mostly

Where South of Midnight loses some steam is with its gameplay systems, which are satisfying but nowhere near as inventive as its swampy premise. Hazel quickly learns several traversal abilities that make navigating the various platforming challenges interesting enough; you’ll be able to double-jump, use a grappling hook to zip across dangerous areas, and even glide to safety where needed. Wall running is another useful tool in your belt, and it’s a nice touch that you can reposition yourself up or down mid-wall run, allowing you to make minor adjustments on the fly or avoid obstacles.

Chapters are relatively linear, and there isn’t a lot of reason to stray off the main path, except to collect Floofs, the in-game currency that’s used for upgrading your abilities. Usually, they’re just out of reach, requiring you to cleverly use your traversal abilities to grab them or solve a brief environmental puzzle, like pushing/pulling a crate. You’re rewarded with Floofs – and potentially some extra readable lore – for looking a bit deeper, but they’re mostly just hidden around corners or slightly off-centre.

That said, there are some clever uses of the setting that elevate sections of South of Midnight, like scaling the inside of a massive clock tower, maneuvering between giant cogs along the way, or climbing a tree that’s also a person, knocking his branch-like limbs out of the way as you ascend. It’s moments like these, where the storytelling and the environment combine to create inspired reasons to progress, where South of Midnight is truly at its best.

We’ve read this chapter before

Less thrilling is the combat arenas, which appear a little too frequently and are too repetitive for my taste. Combat gameplay itself is decent, sure; you’ll combine light and heavy attacks, plus a handful of magical Weaver abilities to take down creepy marionette-like foes called Haints. When you’ve depleted their health, you’ll need to unravel them with a button prompt, or they’ll simply resurrect. It’s a satisfying enough rhythm of knocking around enemies, unravelling to vanquish, and moving on to the next target.

You can use your Weave ability to temporarily freeze them in place, allowing you to cause extra damage, and other upgrades provide decent perks; for example, my favourite has to be the Strand Blast, which sends a shockwave of damage out from an enemy whenever you unravel them, causing damage, pushing them back and, with upgrades, weaving them into place as well. Skills like this are super useful for crowd control and for when stronger, spongier enemies are introduced later on.

Thankfully, any monotony I felt with the battles against grunts was completely removed when encountering South of Midnight’s boss battles. They’re all quite different from one another, forcing you to use your abilities in different ways that the smaller skirmishes just don’t require. Usually multi-stage, and with each section broken up by some traversal or platforming challenges, they feel epic in scale, and paired with the custom theme song, feel like extremely important events to further along the story. These make up some of the more noteworthy moments of the campaign.

Your childhood stuffed toy, Crouton, also comes to life as your partner-in-crime, and you can use him to enter into small burrows to find Floofs, remove stigma, or find key items. These moments serve as delightful distractions as you explore hidey-holes, finding adorable critters in each, often having dinner parties, reading books or engaging in other cute pastimes, like a hidden animal world. Crouton can also be used to access new areas, as you can throw him a long distance and then control him, but that’s only really used during specific key moments. More handy is the fact that he can be a useful ally in combat, possessing an enemy temporarily so that it fights alongside you. Crouton, overall, is another nice way to switch things up, and I enjoyed every opportunity to inhabit the lovable plushie during the adventure.

Especially when compared with Compulsion Games’ previous effort, We Happy Few, which disappointed when it was released, South of Midnight feels like a triumph. Hazel herself is a protagonist that’s easy to root for, and I found myself intrigued by her family’s skeletons in the closet. What begins as a mission to track down your mother evolves into a celebration of the Deep South setting, with fantastical folklore and heartfelt characters that lend themselves well to some emotional moments. I do wish that the combat was able to stand on its own more, but it’s hard not to get lost in the wonderful setting, regardless. It’s a focused tale that leads you down some truly interesting pathways, and despite a satisfying resolution, I hope it’s not the last we see of Hazel and her new Weaver ways.