Superheroes, Supes, Capes, Villains, and Mutants. There are many types of characters with superpowers and even more names to call them by. Regardless of their naming and type, they’re great material for making video games. Capes is the latest game aiming to fuse the gritty side of superhero media with the turn-based strategy genre. Join me as we see if it’s a case of Capes or No Capes.
Reading Order
Capes is set in a futuristic, almost cyberpunk, megacity run by the force known as “The Corporation”. Having powers is a crime against The Corp and they will use any means necessary to contain those with them. The story begins with two budding superheroes who are led by the grizzled and secretive “Doctrine” on their first mission, stopping a rampaging supervillain from taking his bad mood out on citizens of the city.
Capes is inspired by many iconic storylines from comic books. You’ll see flashes of Marvel’s X-Men, certain titles from DC Comics, and even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Much like these, Capes tackles the scenario where the superheroes are the underdogs, and here it’s tackled in a respectful and genuinely intriguing way. Even if you’re a bit of a comic book nerd like myself, you’ll be gripped throughout, itching to see what the developers are going to do next to put a unique spin on such an iconic style of story.
Under The Mask
The characters in Capes are all interesting tweaks of existing archetypes for “comic stories”. There’s nothing completely brand new or genre-changing, but each character has enough going for them and plays on your expectations enough that when you learn more about them you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Even the villains have a lot more going for them than initially seen.
Capes uses the idea of rejection by society and being the underdog in such a way that it brilliantly crafts an oppressive atmosphere. It crafts the feeling of following the tale of a resistance force in their last days. While the story takes a while to explain how this situation came about, it works well for the way it tells this story.
Activate the Grid
Capes is a turn-based strategy game where you move your superheroes across an area grid by grid, using up movement points to do so. You also get a certain amount of action points allowing you to attack or perform an ability or action. The goal of each mission can differ but usually boils down to defeating your enemies or reaching a certain part of the map against insurmountable odds. The game splits its missions into two types: main missions and patrol missions. Main missions progress the story, while patrol missions are smaller optional challenges that add a little more story and give you the chance to level up a little more.
There are quite a few variations with the missions that caught me off guard. Quite early into the game, there is a stealth mission that you can complete without entering combat at all, which I didn’t expect from a game like this. Many of the other missions revolve around teaching you the best ways to use each supe’s individual powers, which you’ll later be tested on in a more challenging main mission.
Each mission has a set of bonus objectives that you can complete to gain SP which is used to power up your characters. These range from using a move a certain amount of times to completing the mission in a limited amount of moves. Fortunately, you can always replay any mission to try for the objectives again. Some missions practically require you to go back once you have enlisted the help of certain supes.
There is no “I” in “Team”
The key to getting the most out of Capes is leaning heavily into each character’s superpowers and archetype. A key example of this is one of the patrol missions that has you trying to protect a construction worker who’s angered The Corp. You need to use your defender to spawn crystals in to stop the worker from getting attacked, whilst also taking on upwards of 15 enemies. Fortunately, you can use your crystals to conduct electricity and you just happen to get access to a supe who can fire lightning. I’m sure you know where I’m going with this.
Other powers include a “Professor X” style psychic who’s proficient at throwing objects and a girl who teleports around to stab enemies in the back and get out before any damage is done to her. Characters can also team up, meaning you can use your teleporter to move your units with fewer movement points to key areas that they wouldn’t normally be able to reach. Teamwork makes the dream work, so to speak.
Teamwork is the underlying theme of Capes, shown through its story and the gameplay. You need to know how to make your heroes work together and make the most of their abilities together. A single supe is not going to be able to stand alone as they are only capable of taking a small amount of damage, but when they work together, you’ll see victory much more than if you’re trying to one-man-band the levels.
Arcade’s Revenge!
Capes feels quite basic in comparison to similar strategy games. In other genre contemporaries, you have things like resource management, social elements, and even a whole explorable area and secondary story in at least one case. Capes, however, feels a little lacking by comparison. In terms of gameplay, you can only really participate in missions, upgrade your supes, or read the dossier which gives you a little more insight on the characters and world.
The lack of things to do in Capes is one of the weaker elements of the game when compared to similar titles in the genre.
Powers Grow Into Superpowers
Progression in Capes is slow and the EXP and SP that you can earn per mission is limited. The game leans on the fact you can replay each mission to complete the extra objectives for additional SP, which you can use to improve moves or unlock new moves.
One big issue I found with Capes is the difficulty. While it is quite manageable when you know exactly what supes and powers are most suitable for the mission, there isn’t a whole lot of breathing room for experimentation on levels higher than easy. While I found the challenge of figuring out exactly what the game wanted from me fun, I can see this being a point of contention as the game is quite strict with mistakes. Small health bars and aggressive A.I. don’t make life easy either.
Issues aside, when it all clicks and you get a proper handle on how to make each power work the best for you, it’s like any superhero fan’s dream. It feels so good when you pull off the perfect mission that it’ll have you wishing you could join a superhero team for real.
The Mark I.V.
The presentation I feel is this game’s particular kryptonite. It is a shame, as while it employs a very appropriate cel-shaded art style to show off its comic book roots, it just doesn’t pop in the right ways to celebrate the medium in the way you would expect.
Capes heavily leans on the modern and gritty style of comic books, giving it a more muted and realistic tone. Despite this, it rather hamfistedly throws in things like cliche “goons” more fitting of the older style of comics, creating a rather weird contrast.
The game is full of rather stiff and lifeless animations which don’t help. The character art is fine and they have several different expressions, but once again they aren’t going to set the world on fire. The fact the game is also set in an entirely urban setting means for the most part you’ll be seeing the same kind of visual theme throughout too. Streets, warehouses, and sewers all work within the constraints of the narrative, but I like a little more variation when it comes to my superhero stories.
Performing Up To Standards
The game features voice acting and it’s all well done. It tiptoes the fine line between cheese and outright bad and wasn’t something I was expecting from the game. It helped to add an extra dimension to the characters and in my opinion all of them were well cast for their roles.
The performance was fine throughout. The game is available on all modern platforms and my chosen one was the Nintendo Switch. Sometimes this isn’t a good choice, but in the case of Capes, it ran and looked great and had that beautiful bonus of portability.
Verdict
I love Capes. It’s a great game and it’s staggering just how much they got right, especially just how gripping the characters and narrative were. A massive shout-out to the writers for that. That said, it’s significantly lacking in a few areas especially when compared to similar titles.
Capes is going to satisfy the hole in your life that calls out for comic books and strategy games for a good while. I do hope a sequel comes around and the developers get really wild with the team-ups, locations, and superheroes. But even if what we have now isn’t perfect, it could be a fantastic origin story for this series.
CAPES IS RECOMMENDED
If you are looking for more Strategy games, you might enjoy our review of Persona 5 Tactica.
Thanks to Daedalic Entertainment for providing a Nintendo Switch review code for Capes.
Pride of utopia & greatest thing ever, I found the One Piece, Collected the Dragon Balls & won the Mortal Kombat Tournament in one night, it was quiet for me that night! Follow me on Twitter @powahdunk
