Midnight Deluxe review for PS4, PS Vita, Switch

Even though Midnight Deluxe looks just like 36 Fragments of Midnight, the two games don?t actually have much in common beyond the fact that both games star a little, white, light-emitting block, presumably named Midnight, if the titles are any indication. 36 Fragments of Midnight, after all, was a platformer, whereas Midnight Deluxe is essentially Angry Birds (or whatever other physics-based puzzler you prefer) crossed with golf.

I wrote “don?t have much in common” rather than “nothing in common” for a reason, though. Like 36 Fragments of Midnight before it, Midnight Deluxe is one of the easiest platinum trophies you could ever hope to get. In fact, it?s arguably even easier: whereas 36 Fragments expected you to beat the game in a variety of ways, you can earn all of Midnight Deluxe?s trophies just by passing level 40 — which is a little odd when you take into account the game actually features 70+ levels, none of which are that long.

Still, because Midnight Deluxe draws some inspiration from (insert your physics-based puzzler of choice here), it has some replayability that goes beyond mere trophies. Each level features a fairly transparent star system: three stars for getting your little block into the hole under par, two stars for par, and 1 star for taking a little (or a lot) too long. However, where some games of this ilk prefer to lock content away behind certain star levels, Midnight Deluxe allows you to finish one level and move on to the next — no grinding through the same level over and over again, hoping to find a shortcut to reach one more star. It?s a good balance of giving players reason to play certain levels just one more time, while also recognizing that some people have no desire to do that.

Chances are, though, that if you play one level of Midnight Deluxe, you?ll want to play one more…and one more after that, and one more after that, and so on — at least, assuming you?re playing on PS4. On Vita, the game requires a little more precision than the little thumbsticks allow, which means that it?s more challenging than perhaps was intended, if the PS4 version is any indication.

But on PS4 alone, you could do a lot worse than picking this up. Midnight Deluxe hits all the right targets for a casual game — short levels, low price, addictive — which means that checking it out is kind of a no-brainer.

Ratalaika Games provided us with a Midnight Deluxe PS4 code for review purposes.