Combat inSouth of Midnightcan be a bit tricky, especially once the game starts throwing a variety of Haints at you, but remembering to do one thing will make your journey through the magical Deep South a bit easier. The game’s faction of enemies, called Haints, hit rather hard, and are pretty good at swarming Hazel, the main character. More importantly, though,South of Midnightoffers limited opportunities to heal, somanaging your HP becomes one of the more important parts of progressing.
Despite the Stigma – a malevolent force born from unresolved trauma – spreading dangerous growths throughout the game world,South of Midnightinterestingly partitions its combat encounters almost entirely. Any place where you fight Haints has a noticeable shimmer around it, and there will always be a Knot, a concentrated tangle of Stigma. Approaching the Stigma will begin a combat encounter, and Unraveling it will end the fight, but there’s one easy trick you should always keep in mind to give yourself a leg up inSouth of Midnight’s gameplay.
Always Collect The Health Coil Before Ending The Combat Encounter
It Will Disappear Once You Unravel The Knot
South of Midnight’s combat encounters have a rather rigid structure, including a feature called a Health Coil that lets you replenish a significant amount of health only one time during the fight. The game explains this to you, but it’s less clear that once the encounter’s Knot has been Unraveled (after all the enemies are defeated), the Health Coil disappears. This meansyou will always want to collect the Health Coil before Unraveling the Knotand ending combat.
South of Midnight’s two lowest difficulties, Story and Easy, have replenishing Health Coils during combat.
Aside from the Health Coil, the only way to replenish Hazel’s health bar is to Unravel enemies. The sum of health points for Unraveling, though, is far fewer than that given by a Health Coil. You should save Health Coils for when you’re running low in the middle of a fight, butif you don’t use them before Unraveling the encounter’s Knot, that potential HP will be effectively wasted as it disappears.
Don’t Forget To Unravel Your Final Enemy
Another Tiny HP Boost
Unraveling Haints after reducing their health to zero is always important, but it can also be dangerous to get to a downed enemy while others are swarming the battlefield. There will, however, always be one opportunity to unravel a Haint and get some HP from them uncontested: after defeating the final enemy. Like the Health Coil,failing to unravel the final enemy in a combat encounter before the opportunity passes is simply wasting precious HP, even if it’s a modicum.
Certain combat encounters will fully replenish your health automatically, like those that give you parts of Patterns.
You should always try to Unravel enemies, since the benefits outweigh the downsides. It may be dangerous to rush to Unravel an enemy before they disappear for good, but you’ll get some health back, and may do some AoE damage to nearby enemies. It’s understandable if you can’t reach some Unravel points in a fight, butyou should always be ready to unravel the final enemy, since there are no more Haints around to be wary of, and your limited health pool is a precious commodity inSouth of Midnight.
The Health You End A Combat Encounter With Carries Over To The Next One
Hazel’s HP Doesn’t Regenerate
The primary challenge inSouth of Midnightcomes from a sort of basic attrition system.There are limited chances to heal, and plenty of opportunities even between fights to take damage, so not taking every opportunity to restore HP can really have an effect down the road. Especially if you’re searchingeachSouth of Midnightchapterfor Floofs to upgrade Hazel’s abilities, it’s very possible you’ll take damage from the environment and lose health before you even have to fight more enemies.
Luckily, there aren’t harsh penalties for actually dying. If you get killed in combat, you’ll be given two options: retry the encounter, or respawn outside the combat zone. It doesn’t seem like combat is necessarily the game’s primary focus, even if it is fairly interesting with all of Hazel’s spells, so it’s nice that the developers don’t punish you harshly for losing all your HP – you’ll just have to restart from the beginning of the fight.
Especially sinceSouth of Midnightreleases day one on Game Pass, a lot of people may be jumping into its magical version of the American Deep South. Restoring health isn’t really covered other than a quick tutorial tip explaining how Health Coils work. It may go unnoticed that Health Coils disappear when you Unravel an encounter’s Knot, however, and being sure to squeeze out every possible bit of HP can makeSouth of Midnight’s combat encounters more manageable.
