Our South of Midnight tips and tricks have everything that we wish we'd known before we started the game, with advice ranging on topics from the best abilities to buy, to how you fight the Haights, to help with exploration around the Bayou and wreckage of Propero as a whole.
South of Midnight is a pretty linear game and there's not a lot of chance to diverge, so ultimately these tips won't make or break your experience. However, what they will do is streamline what's ahead of you, letting you level up faster and make it through the game's challenges with the minimum amount of struggle.
1. You can turn the Stop Motion effect on and off, and you should try both options
South of Midnight's beautiful visuals recreate the effects of stop motion animation, and that includes the actual stuttering frame effect as well. It certainly looks attractive, but particular people can find it a little hard on the eye for long periods of time, or struggle to get the timing on combat just right. Don't worry - you can toggle it on and off at any point through the Gameplay section of the settings menu.
2. Check creature lore for tips and weaknesses
After encountering any monster for the first time, good or bad, it'll be added to the "Creature" tab under the Lore section of the pause menu. This isn't always just context or world-building, as it tells you specific strategies and exploits that you can use to take advantage of and beat these creatures accordingly, such as how to use certain spells on them, or how they operate in combat.
3. Get Stigma Bane as early as possible
There's a few upgrades offered to you early on and more will unlock later, but the best of them to get as a priority is Stigma Bane, an upgrade for the Weave spell that causes ensnared targets to take extra damage. It's incredibly effective and makes what's one of the game's best spells even better, as it enables you to play more aggressively.
4. Don't save your Floofs, especially if you're an explorer by nature
Upgrades are paid for with the Floofs that you collect throughout the game, both in and out of combat, but don't worry about being stingy. If you're exploring the game thoroughly, looking for collectibles and extras, you should find more than enough Floofs to have pretty much maxed out your upgrade tree by the time the credits roll. It means that all you need to worry about is the order in which you obtain them - as we said, go for Stigma Bane first, then proceed according to personal taste.
5. Backtracking is a rare thing, so don't rely on it
The vast majority of South of Midnight is pretty linear, and it's very rare that you'll come back to certain areas that you've already visited. It's a mistake that's easy to make, seeing a collectible or just a mass of Floof that you can obtain on a high ledge, and thinking that you can't get there yet. In fact, you probably can, and just need a creative combination of your abilities or to find a hidden path nearby. If you carry on, you're probably not going to get it at all.
6. Your spells have a deceptively long cooldown, so don't spam them!
Though certain combos and abilities unlocked later on will reduce your spell cooldown rate, ultimately none of your spells have a short cooldown, and you'll be using them to supplement your melee powers rather than as an equal partner to them. With that in mind, you should make sure that you use them intelligently and with motivation, rather than firing them off mindlessly, especially considering that certain enemies will need specific incantations to stop them from hurting you. The last thing you want is to be without an option to defend yourself when you need it.
7. Pick Crouton's targets carefully, and be careful around possessed monsters!
The last major spell you'll learn is to summon Crouton, the little stuffed toy, who can possess enemies in combat to temporarily turn them into allies. However, because of the aforementioned cooldowns, you'll only be able to commandeer one or two Haints per combat - and unlike many similar abilities in video games, Crouton doesn't take out the enemy when he's done with them, meaning they'll turn on you immediately afterwards. If you get the chance, try and hit the possessed monster while fighting, whittling it down so you can finish it off when it goes back to being evil again.
8. Boss fights are about playing for time through evasion
Without spoiling in detail, South of Midnight has multiple boss fights, all of which are focused more on playing defensively than offensively. The boss will strike at you with various unblockable attacks that you'll have to carefully evade, while you wait for the moment where a specific trigger or event occurs that you can exploit - revealing its weak point. With that in mind, you'll be playing solely protectively until that stage, so don't bother launching attacks that won't do anything - it's safer just to focus on yourself.
© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.
