Review: Midnight Fight Express

destructoid.com:

Violence in video games gets better and better as the years go on. I thought it was cool when you could shoot the hats off of enemies in GoldenEye and the guns out of their hands in Perfect Dark but now… wait, those things are still cool. Why aren’t they done more often?

Anyway, video games have done ballistic violence well for decades, but physical violence only seems to have gotten enjoyable around the time of Batman: Arkham Asylum. Or was it Assassin’s Creed? It’s that punch-parry-throw combat that makes you feel powerful and helps the action flow more cinematically. Maybe you’re just smashing buttons when the game prompts you to, but it feels impactful.

Midnight Fight Express is, concisely, that. It’s a beat-’em-up that features a similar combat system while adding a few twists of its own.

Midnight Fight Express (PC [reviewed], Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox Series X)Developer: Jacob DzwinelPublisher: Humble GamesReleased: August 23, 2022MSRP: TBA

Thugs have taken over the city, and you’re an amnesiac protagonist who really likes the feeling of bone breaking against their knuckles. You’re guided by a drone that coyly tells you they know everything but tells you absolutely nothing. That’s okay! Who needs motivation when you have fists?

Midnight Fight Express is a level-by-level beat-’em-up. You know the type: you walk into a room, and all the doors get kicked in, signaling another wave of thugs. It’s probably better that they don’t knock since Midnight Fight Express is constantly judging you and will score you at completion. The best way to rev up your score is to keep your combo going. Mercifully, that isn’t a matter of avoiding pain but rather just keeping up a solid pace and not dying.

That’s maybe