Out of the many Xbox exclusives released on Gamepass over the last few years, I’ll admit that South of Midnight wasn’t one I paid too much attention to when it first came out. Maybe it was the fact I wasn’t a big fan of Compulsion Games’ previous work, We Happy Few, or the fact I was probably playing something else at the same time. I did hear good things about it, and kept adding it to my never-ending backlog of games I’d love to play, but would rarely have time to. But then, from out of nowhere, a Nintendo Switch 2 port was announced, so it felt like a good opportunity to kill two birds with one blues-tinged stone.

Mom, don’t you use Bryan Adams’ lyrics on me.

South of Midnight is a game set in a fantastic representation of the Louisiana bayou, a place that combines Southern mysticism, voodoo, African American music and culture, and a bit of fairytale elements such as Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. In fact, I think it’s the first time since 1999’s Shadow Man where the bayous and its culture were a setting for a mainstream game. In it, you play as Hazel, an athletic girl who’s set on looking for her stranded mother, after her house got dragged down a river due to a massive storm. 

What makes this story more fantastical than a simple search for a missing person is that, well, this bayou is chock-full of mystical creatures: talking catfish, representations of one’s sorrows taking the physical shape of monsters, an island-sized alligator, and so on. Hazel herself is imbued with a handful of powers, stemming from her newfound role as a Weaver: she controls spiritual threads scattered in the air to defeat enemies and solve puzzles around her. Hazel is able to momentarily conjure platforms, a big piece of cloth to help her glide, a gappling hook, and so on. Finally, with the help of a magical bottle, her most important role is to literally bottle up people’s sorrows scattered through the land, helping them heal in the process.

South of Midnight doesn’t feature a flashy combat system, but it is efficient.

This is South of Midnight‘s main loop, and one of its most interesting selling points. Despite being a somewhat by-the-books action-platformer in terms of level design, exploration and combat (nothing about those aspects is bad, but it’s just safe and competent enough), I loved solving some major characters’ issues by basically hearing their backstory, understanding what was hurting them, and solving the issue by basically fighting a boss, or solving a puzzle at the end of the chapter. Again, it is not overly innovative, but it is well-written. And the characters are, for the most part, very charming. One major exception, however, is the protagonist.

I’ll be honest and say that I really disliked Hazel as a protagonist. In true Joseph Campbell-esque fashion, she starts off as a nobody just minding her business with her mom. The problem is, she is immediately unlikeable, being whiny, arrogant, annoying, and every other adjective you usually label a teenager with. The transformation of her character into a stoic hero is just too sudden. In a world full of fantasy and wonder, she doesn’t look very excited with the happenings around her. She usually scoffs at them with a quip or a snarky remark, Marvel-style. Add in a ton of Horizon-esque inner monologues, and I was simply unable to take her seriously as a person. I also don’t think her voice performance was very good. Everyone else’s was.

This guy. I love this guy. I wanna hang out and have a beer with this guy.

The best thing South of Midnight has to offer is its soundtrack. Being a game set in the Deep South, in the bayous, you know what to expect: a lot of soul, a lot of blues, some banjos, and gospel-esque choirs. It’s simply beautiful. The combination of fantastical swamplands, pseudo stop-motion animation, and a bunch of impactful songs that wouldn’t feel out of place in the Sinners soundtrack results in a game that almost nails its presentation. Keyword here: almost. There is a major flaw with this game, but I am pretty sure this is a consequence of the quality of this Switch 2 port.

Simply put, the framerate is really bad. It’s not bad in the sense that it’s low at all times, but it’s bad in the sense that it fluctuates constantly. It never feels stable, even at 30 frames per second. Depending on the action surrounding you, the framerate can tank a few notches, with its pacing feeling even more egregious. Thankfully, the combat never feels too precise that a drop in performance results in an unfair, but it felt really annoying, especially since the game itself was noticeably downgraded from the Xbox Series S/X counterpart.

He’s a sweetheart once you get to know him better.

There were noticeable downgrades in textural quality, and a few pop-ins. Nothing that made the art style feel hideous, but I just know the system can handle things in a much better state. I don’t think this is a case of the Switch 2 just not being powerful enough to handle a game like South of Midnight. I’ve already seen cases of better results being delivered elsewhere, with games like Cyberpunk 2077 or Resident Evil Requiem, my new go-to standard as to how a third party port of AAA game should run on the Switch 2. I honestly think Compulsion Games was able to optimize things a bit more, in order to, at the very least, reach a stable 30 frames per second.

South of Midnight’s level design is good, but I feel like it could have had a bit more platforming.

All in all, I love every almost single aspect about South of Midnight… in theory. I loved its setting, I thought its story was captivating and really well-written, its gameplay was decent enough to never annoy me, and boy oh boy, this soundtrack is a thing of beauty. I gotta say, I also appreciate the fact Microsoft even bothered porting a AAA game from one of their first-party studios into Nintendo’s new machine. That being said, this particular port is plagued with performance issues. None of them felt like dealbreakers individually, but the sheer (and constant) amount of them frustrated me. Given how the Switch 2 is akin to power as a Series S, at least in theory, I know Compulsion could have done a slightly more optimized job with it. And I hope a patch is in the works. This game is actually quite special.

South of Midnight is available now on PS5, Xbox Series S/X, PC and Switch 2.

Reviewed on Switch 2.