Compulsion Games has a small lineup of titles to their name, but each one is unique in its own way. Contrast is a story about a girl dealing with her somewhat dysfunctional family while also being friends with an older woman who travels the world via light and shadow. We Happy Few is a game about an English town hopped up on drugs that hides something sinister. Both games had fascinating tales to tell but also had the potential to rub some players the wrong way, whether it was because of the finicky platforming in Contrast or the survival elements of We Happy Few bogging down the pacing. The third game in its lineup, South of Midnight, seems to follow that same trajectory of excellent tales surrounded by less-pleasing gameplay, but there's enough improvement in the latter to make this title stand out more than its predecessors.

The story is set in the small town of Prospero, which is located in an undisclosed state in the Deep South of the U.S. You play the role of Hazel, a track star on her way to college who's is preparing to evacuate her home before a big hurricane hits the town. After an argument with her mother, Hazel checks in on her neighbors, and she witnesses the river beneath her house swell and take away the house — with her mother still in it. After an unsuccessful attempt to get her grandmother to help with a search, Hazel discovers that she is a Weaver, a special woman with the power to heal the world around her by releasing spirits from their troubled states.

Compulsion Games has always been good at telling interesting stories, and South of Midnight is no exception. The main story of Hazel wanting to rescue her mom is at the forefront, as is the discovery of her Weaver powers as they further manifest, but all of the side stories are equally as fascinating. The specter of slavery is alluded to early on, when the game is teaching you about some newfound gameplay mechanics, but the game goes further. You may get a story about a brother tired of being burdened with a younger brother with special needs and the bullying from the other people in town. You'll also get a story of betrayal and loss and misunderstood ways of fighting for good that give both the characters and area more depth than most stories attempt. Overall, the story is gripping from start to end without anything that feels like the game is dragging its way to a conclusion.

There was never any doubt that the narrative would be excellent, given the developer's past works. The real question is whether the gameplay quality would match up. The good news is that the gameplay loop is better than it was in previous games. In platforming, you've got the basics down, such as running, jumping, and climbing up ledges, but your Weaver powers elevate those greatly. Regular jumps now become double jumps, and you can do wall-runs without a significant drop in elevation. You can also glide to cover more space while your Weaver powers let you push and pull objects with relative ease, making the process go faster.

The platforming feels tighter and more well implemented compared to the likes of Contrast. It's easy to judge the distance of objects in the world, so jumps aren't missed due to miscalculations. The controls are responsive, and moves are easy to pull off. Sections that might have you being chased don't result in you missing a gap or a wall run, as the game is generous when it comes to giving you an execution window for these moves. It feels right, so the only way you'll miss a ledge or gap is entirely your own fault. The same goes for the sections where you control your doll Crouton, and while they may be brief, they feel good to control while also giving you a more fairytale-like view of the world at that height and situation.

The combat is easy to comprehend. You have a lock-on ability that helps in dealing with crowds, and your ethereal hooks give you a chance to deal some light combos. Your Weaver powers let you do things like bind an enemy in place for a bit or throw some smaller items as projectiles. Don't expect to button-mash your way through every fight, as enemies tend to hit hard enough to fell you with a few good strikes. Instead, you'll rely on balancing out dodge rolls to get out of the way and then counter with a combo, making this feel like a number of modern adventure titles, minus the ability to perform a parry to make enemies vulnerable.

One surprise in South of Midnight is the option to skip boss fights. Just like the difficulty level, this option is available at any time, and the only penalty for using this is the inability to collect the Achievement for beating the boss until you go back and conclude the fight. The option is an interesting one, since it's rarely implemented in games but is a good accessibility feature for those who play at the game's easiest difficulty setting yet still can't come to grips with the combat. This allows them to finish the story instead of dropping the game due to getting stuck.

While the general gameplay loop is better than before, the combat loop runs into the issue of being predictable. Fights are restricted to walled-off arenas, and you know one is coming up when you see a healing totem in the area. Fights happen often, and while the game tries to spice things up by introducing new enemies, it does so at a pace that is slow enough that fights can feel repetitive when you lock into a specific strategy to beat each enemy type. It doesn't take long before the game gets into a pattern of exploration prior to a small fight, followed by a larger bit of exploration before the process repeats again. This is still a much better combat experience when compared to the studio's past works, but there's some room for improvement in the pacing.

If there's any other complaint one can levy against South of Midnight, it would be in its linearity with the environments. Each place you go to offers up an opportunity for some freeform exploration, but you're only given enough room to go outside of the beaten path by a few feet. Even then, the only reward for doing this is more floofs, which is great if you're aiming to completely max out the skill tree, but that's about it. The lack of exploration does mean that the game can keep a tight rein on telling the main story without distractions, but it does feel like an opportunity lost when the environments look inviting enough that you want to pore over them.

Graphically, South of Midnight looks very fetching. The environments are absolutely gorgeous, as it presents various aspects of the area in a good light. There's loads of detail present, and the lighting makes the places look picturesque during all times of the day. The characters are a tad stylized, as almost everyone looks angular yet slender, but the big standout has to do with the animation style. It isn't smooth, but it looks fetching since it's done in a stop-motion style, and it accentuates the angular character styles to give the game a more prominent visual identity. The only graphical issue has to do with consistency. The staccato-style animation for the characters appears fine in cut scenes, but that doesn't always stick during gameplay. There is an option to turn this off during gameplay, but even with it on, the game sometimes decides on a whim that characters need to move more fluidly.

While the graphics have a few issues, the sound package is absolutely solid. This is especially true of the music, which transitions nicely from an adventurous style perfect for platforming to full-on vocal ballads that summarize the story of the torment you're trying to bottle up. Each track is near perfect, making this a game where you'll want to play at a good volume to soak it all in. Meanwhile, the voice acting is almost perfect thanks to performances that give the minor characters some importance and keep the story engaging.

South of Midnight is a game that shows growth in Compulsion Games' titles. Even though the combat is predictable, it still feels good thanks to the usefulness of the powers at your disposal, and you won't shy away from a fight. The platforming is also well done, which makes it a shame that you can't explore more of the world. While the gameplay is better, the studio still knows how to tell a captivating story using a backdrop of Southern Gothic that isn't used too often in games. This is a solid adventure game and a trip well worth taking if you're a fan of the genre and narratives.