While Midnight Fight Express may look like a fairly simplistic game, there’s actually a whole lot more intricacy going on just under the surface of what you see at first glance. Behind the low-poly environment and simplistic art style, there’s an incredible combat system and an extensive skill tree. Midnight Fight Express is essentially a top-down 3-dimensional brawler, but the presence of this skill tree makes it feel like the game is whispering to you that it’s actually an RPG.
While the skill tree in Midnight Fight Express is not as extensive as those in other RPG titles, it can still be a little dissuading to try and figure out where to place the most emphasis – especially early on in the game. Therefore, we’ve decided to give you a quick guide on the best initial abilities to focus your early game point collection on in Midnight Fight Express.
Parry Weapons
Anyone familiar with this particular portion of the larger skills and abilities tree will know that this is one of the most crucial places to sink your points. This is essentially the key to turning the tables on your opponent. At the beginning of the game, you’re most likely going to be on the offensive more often than actually throwing hands when not provoked. Investing in Parry Weapons lets you take on a more offensive role, which is crucial to early success.
Although, it’s pertinent to note that you’re not only going to use this in situations where you’re the primary aggressor. This ability is also perfect for a defense that you can turn into an offense. So, here’s how you do it: An opponent will come at you, fists and weapons blazing. This will usually be some kind of melee weapon.
You’ll now be able to block their attacks more effectively, as well as issue a few of your own hits. This new ability ensures that you deal more damage to your opponent, but it also essentially results in them dropping their weapon at your feet, like some kind of sacrifice. Now, not only do you have your enemy subdued, you also have a new weapon!
Long Range Attacks
One of the first things you’ll notice is that your character’s punches are laughably short-range attacks. This is okay if your attacker is close enough to clip through you, but in a slightly more reasonable and believable hand-to-hand combat scenario, it’s not the best.
Luckily, Midnight Fight Express has a Long Range Attacks ability that lets you increase the distance that your punches will travel. This is perfect for the situation mentioned above, as well as if facing a large group of combatants and you need to be able to close gaps between yourself and said combatants without actually moving too far.
With sufficient attention paid to upgrading your Long Range Attacks ability, you’ll be able to close gaps and knock teeth out by simply using the light attack button.
Kick Big Items
Throwing hands is almost as fun as picking up items to throw at your enemies. But, do you know what trumps both those choices, hands down? Kicking stuff at your opponents. You see, when you’re throwing things, you’re not just performing one action. Especially seeing as the movements in the game are based and built on actual movements gleaned from a motion capture system, every moment is as realistic and quintessentially human as possible.
This means the simple act of throwing an item at an enemy is a major time thief. You have to account for the time it takes for your character to bend down, extend its arm, open its hand, grasp an object, and then lift the object up while simultaneously returning to a standing position. Then, the character has to stabilize itself, build up momentum to throw the object, and actually perform the various movements associated with throwing the object at a target.
If you kick an object, you simply have to build up momentum in your dominant leg, aim, and kick. It’s that simple. Of course, you need to dedicate resources to the ability to kick big objects on the skill tree first, but once you do, you’ll have far faster responses than if you were to pick items up to launch at your adversaries.
Power Wave Bullet
This isn’t as immediate a possibility as the rest of the items on this list, but it’s still a crucial one. As you play through the missions and objectives of the game, you’ll get to a pivotal point where you unlock a sidearm. This sidearm is known as the Secondary Gun and it opens up a whole new world of attack mechanics. For one thing, you’ll be able to shoot your adversaries now – no more waiting for them to be close enough to smack you in the face. But second, and possibly most importantly of all, you’ll be able to dedicate resources to an ability called Power Wave Bullet.
Essentially, this is one of the most fun and useful abilities to unlock, as it lets you power through numerous enemies simultaneously. This is particularly useful if you’re facing off against a sizeable crowd of miscreants. The trick, however, is to use this in conjunction with a melee weapon. You’ll be unstoppable – for a time.
Environmental Finisher
‘Finish Him’ – your brain must be screaming now. I know mine is. But this is not Mortal Kombat. However, you do have access to a similar set of mechanics in this game. While you won’t see the breaking of bones and graphic splatters of miscellaneous bits of viscera, you will be able to use various features of the environment to finish off your opponents. This will be particularly useful if you want to clear each stage.
Now, I cannot speak to the sheer scope of environmental finishers yet – I haven’t quite finished the game yet. I can, however, say that the environmental finishers are certainly entertaining to watch, and they deal extensive damage, which gets you out of harm’s way a lot faster. Therefore, this particular branch of the skills and abilities tree is a crucial one to which to dedicate resources.
