It will be difficult for me to write thoughts for this game, as it affected me on such an emotional level. The one thing I need to put at the forefront, however is that I just played one of the best games of all time. It was such a beautiful, emotionally intelligent exploration of grief and all its complexities, complications, and forms. Clair Obscur knows what type of story and experience it wants to provide the player, and every facet of the game works together to achieve that vision, it’s a near-perfect game. 

I’d hoped I would have enjoyed this game more, but the truth is there's just not much going on in South of Midnight. While the presentation, art style, and music are all so passionately displayed, the gameplay and story just didn’t do it for me. I almost immediately lost interest in the game, which is a shame, because the setting and directorial intent are so amazing, but that’s really all the game has going for it. 
I wanted the story to land so badly because I think the culture and folklore of the Deep South is interesting and unique, unfortunately, it falls short. You play as Hazel, who’s trying to get her mom back after she was swept away in a flood, which right off the bat is just kinda forced and stilted into happening. But along the way, while saving her mom, Hazel discovers that she’s a Weaver and that there are all these mystical creatures and locations tucked away in the Bayou. You learn what Weavers do and the history of them, which ties into a story of runaway slaves and also your Grandma, who seemingly knows a lot about all this mystical stuff, and she was a Weaver. 
You're helped along by a magical fish, which acts as your guide in this new world and teaches you about everything. A lot of the game is you helping people and creatures process their past trauma by bottling their memories and releasing them into a magical tree, which relieves them of the trauma and, in return, clears the world of “The Haint,” which is a physical manifestation of Hate and Fears. I like how they explore a lot of southern folklore this way and can really get deep into the culture, but that's about all I enjoyed. 
The writing is really messy, and I couldn't even understand what was going on with 85% of the traumas and characters. Pretty much all of them go nowhere, and nothing about them leaves an impact. It’s a really bad script structure and presentation, with not enough time spent on any one character. The entire game feels rushed and unexplained, even Hazel Weaver's abilities just sort of appear with no real explanation or exploration of that concept. Then all mystical shit makes no sense because I have no idea how Hazel and the general public never saw giant fish, talking trees, magic plants, and all the other magical stuff from southern folklore before the events of the game.
Interesting plot threads are present with your Grandma; she’s evil and using you, but you learn what caused her to be this way and why she’s doing what she’s doing. It ties into the childhood of your dead dad and comes back to the exploration of holding on to past trauma and hate until it grows into something evil. Then there are these dark forces at work and a realm in between the world, which your Mom is, which was interesting, but again, it’s all rushed, and the actual writing is super bland and kinda dumb. The story has good ideas and even good moments, but a bad execution, and does not amount to anything satisfying. 
The gameplay lacks execution and ideas. This is an 8-hour game, and they couldn’t even keep it interesting for 10 mins. You’ll do two things the entire game, platform and fight, the platforming has some bones, but the combat is absolutely unacceptable for a AAA Microsoft Studio. Every combat encounter locks you into the same arena where you have a few attacks to use on some really boring enemies. There’s nothing fun or engaging about this combat, if they put some effort into encounters then maybe the core mechanics of the combat could be fun but it’s literally just a circle that you fight in for every single fucking encounter. There is absolutely no level design, just waves of enemies spawn until the game decides to stop. I think if they actually built encounters around the abilities available, being a push, pull, and possess mechanic, then I could see them having something simple and fun. You could even incorporate some of the platforming into encounters, but alas, they just lazily throw enemies at you over and over. Boss fights are much better, and do have some unique mechanics and allow the platforming, combat, and level design to work together, but there are only a few, and really only one, which was actually impressive.
The platforming isn't anything to write home about either, despite being miles more fun than the combat. You can jump, double jump, dash, glide, wall run, and grapple, which isn't a bad base for a platformer, but the level design is pretty poor. It's very much a game where you just go in a straight linear line, and that linear path has nothing interesting going on. You’ll never do anything unique with those mechanics, just the standard shit you would expect over and over, jumping on platforms does not engage the player for long. There’s pretty much two moments where the game was fun, one was a boss fight which did a great job at giving you a mix of platforming, visuals, scripted moments, music, and unique boss fight mechanics then the other was when they introduced wind tunnels that let you fly but that’s a late and very scripted mechanic. Every other part of the game I was bored out of my mind. 
I guess there is minor exploration, you can find very quick offshoots that give lore or upgrade points for a basic skill tree. You do get a little companion character that can be controlled in small spaces but again those spaces are very linear and have nothing interesting in them. The game is just super bare bones mechanically and a complete waste of a cool idea for a game.
Far and away the biggest positive of South of Midnight is its Art Style and music, which was absolutely the focus for the devs, and its clear. The game has a stylized, almost claylike visual style that mixes in a stop motion look which really sets it apart from other games. The character designs are all super memorable and different then the environments are beautiful. My only complaint is sometimes environments look a bit too video gamey, and in the mystical places, that's fine but when you are in the real world with people around, it kinda took me out of things. Each chapter also has this really cool storybook animation/cutscene, which I loved and made it feel like a fairytale of sorts.
The music and every aspect of the sound design is perfect, the ambient soundtrack is one thing and very well done but they also have full full-fledged song that describes what’s happening while the song is playing. Sometimes the lyrics feel a little rough and hard to understand, but they absolutely nail it with setting the mood and emphasizing a moment. There are even lyrics and little vocals incorporated into the platforming when you do things like jump or glide. I can in no way complain about the visuals and music in the same way I did the rest of the game, the team did a great job in that respect.
I just wish the game had as much care and passion put into the rest of the game as they did the music and visuals.