SENSEs: Midnight (Nintendo Switch) Review

Say what you will about Sense but it looked mighty fine. SENSEs: Midnight looks anything but fine. The head-scratching choice to transition from 2D to 3D has led to a world that's bland, and mostly hidden because of the excessive darkness. The character models are janky, and lack any expression, making the main character especially emotionless. Generally, one would be right to expect an improvement over the original, but that's not the case here. The short length makes it extra hard to stomach how much worse this is compared to the already mediocre Sense.

Oh, by the way, the two and something hours you'll need to reach the end will mostly spend on tedious backtracking, courtesy of the heroine's two speed modes: painfully slow, and slightly faster walking. Beyond that, you'll need to solve puzzles, and confront enemies. The puzzles are nothing special. When it comes to the enemies, don't expect any decent challenge or exciting thrills. The main ghost, a centipede-like girl, is mainly an annoying rather a frightening pursuer. As for the "cannon fodder" ghosts, these are basically zombie like enemies that won't pose much of a threat.

The final and quite serious problem is the lack of a compelling story. The whole thing begins with an intriguing setup about a mysterious door in a park, that supposedly lead to "the other side," but it fails delivering anything meaningful beyond the first few minutes. There's no resolution, no exploration of the antagonist, and no depth to the lore. It's a real shame considering the much more enjoyable story and world-building of the previous game. Also expect many a bug, as if nothing has changed from the original PC release…