Capes is a superhero-fueled turn-based tactical game all about building up a team of super-powered heroes to take back the city. You will be tasked with recruiting and training your heroes so they are ready to take down the villains. I had the opportunity to give this game a try. Let’s jump in to see if Capes has what it takes to be the next super tactical game.
In this review I will be going over the following:
- Story
- Gameplay
- Characters
- Leveling
- Missions
- Combat
- Abilities
- Team-Ups
- Ultimates
- Enemies
- Audio and Visual
- Conclusion
Story
Welcome to King City. 20 years ago the villains defeated the superheroes in an event known as the Showdown. Since then, the villains have turned it into a dystopian city that they control. Their corporation, the Company, runs the city now. Under their rule, developing superpowers has been outlawed and anyone with powers will be taken in.
However, all that is about to change. A cape from before the Showdown has resurfaced. He is gathering a team together to take back the city. Will the kids he has recruited be enough or have the villains become too strong since defeating the capes the last time? It is your job to put together a new group of capes strong enough to take back King City before it’s too late.
Gameplay
Capes doesn’t mess around. It focuses solely on story and combat. When you aren’t duking it out with a bunch of goons, you are leveling up your characters before getting back to the action. You’ll watch a short cut scene or two to progress the story and then your back into another battle. Let’s discuss a little about the characters first. Then we will jump into mission structure and combat.
Characters
Let’s talk a bit about a couple of the heroes you will get to play with. Then we will discuss leveling them up. The first three heroes in Capes are Rebound, Facet, and Mindfire.
Rebound has the ability of teleportation. This makes it easy for her to move quickly around the battlefield and get behind enemies to perform backstabs for extra damage. Facet is a defender and focuses on taking all the punches so his allies don’t have to. He has abilities to raise his defense and taunt the enemies to bring them in closer. Mindfire, on the other hand, does not like taking hits and would much rather use his telekinetic powers to throw things from a distance. He can also weaken his opponents so they take more damage when hit by the heroes.
There are several other heroes with interesting abilities and combat styles. Each can drastically change how you will go about completing a mission. I’ll leave it up to you to discover the other characters and their abilities.
Leveling
Only a few abilities for each character are unlocked when they start out. After each successful mission, you will be rewarded with experience points and skill points. The XP will level up your heroes, and the SP will upgrade their abilities. As they level up, more abilities and upgrades for abilities will be available.
XP is awarded per character that went on the mission. However, SP is put into a pool to use for upgrading any hero. Aside from missions, skill points can also be rewards for performing individual challenges per character. These include things like using a certain ability a set number of times in a mission or doing team-ups with the other heroes on the team.
Missions
Missions in Capes can be broken down into three categories. The main story, side quests, and simulations. The main story’s missions progress the overall game, and the story is about taking back the city. The side quests are missions that progress individual character’s stories and provide background on each of the heroes. Some side missions also give the opportunity to recruit other heroes.
During each mission, whether it is a main story or side quest, there will be a set number of optional challenges. Completing these challenges is how you get the skill point reward at the end of the mission. There is also a bonus of skill points awarded if you are able to complete all the challenges for that level in one attempt. Which, of course, is no easy task.
That is where the simulation missions come in. If you finish a mission without completing all the optional challenges, then you can go back to simulate it again until you complete all the challenges. Going back will provide your characters with some additional experience points each time you complete the mission as well as the skill points you get for completing all the challenges. Sometimes, you might have to level up your heroes or unlock new skills to be able to complete all the challenges on a mission.
Combat
Just getting through a mission in Capes is usually not that hard. It’s reaching the mission’s end while completing all the challenges that create the difficulty. In every mission, the heroes are highly outnumbered by goons. On top of that, they might even be up against a supervillain who has been at this a lot longer than they have. You have to figure out how to manage it all without your heroes getting knocked out and still complete the challenges.
Each character has a set number of action points that they can use on their turn. These are broken up into abilities, movement, and ultimates. Most heroes only have two points to use on abilities. Each ability can only be used once per turn. Movement varies between heroes but can be used intermittently with their abilities. So, the player has the freedom to move and attack before another move and attack. Or any other combination you see fit. Each hero has an ultimate ability. Ultimate abilities use their own action points to be used alongside the other move and ability actions.
Abilities
With a few exceptions, the abilities in Capes focus on three main effects. Those are damage, push, and disarm. Most abilities have at least two of these effects built in. Rebound has an ability that can damage and disarm enemies adjacent to her. Facet has an ability that can damage and push back enemies. So the goal is not always to just knock out every enemy. Sometimes, it is better to disarm them first or push them off a ledge to eliminate them entirely. Finding the best way to manage enemies is what leads to a successful mission.
Team-Ups
Aside from the character’s individual abilities, all of the heroes benefit from teaming up with their allies. There is a big focus on teamwork in Capes. As long as you are within 3 tiles of an ally, they can boost one of your abilities to make it stronger or even add additional effects. Each character has an individual challenge to perform a set number of team-ups with each ally to get extra skill points. Not only do team-ups boost abilities, but they also have a special animation between the two characters.
Ultimates
Each character has a unique ultimate ability that they can use in combat. The ultimate has a meter that charges before it can be used. The way to fill the meter is also specific to each hero. Rebound changes her meter each time she is able to attack someone from behind. Mindfire can charge his meter every time someone attacks an enemy that he has weakened.
Since ultimates use a different action point from the other abilities and movements, you are able to use a hero’s ultimate before their turn ends, even if you used their last skill point to fill the meter. This allows you to set up some interesting combos in a single turn with a lot of flexibility.
Enemies
The enemies are usually pretty intelligent. They don’t always just come running at your heroes aimlessly. Often, they will seek out a weapon to pick up first. Enemies with weapons get additional damage benefits. Even if you disarm them, they will try to pick it up again, or someone else might pick it up if they go first. Some of the enemies can have a lot of health, so disarming them before they hit you is sometimes the best strategy for surviving another round.
The bosses in Capes can be quite difficult. However, they do often follow a pattern. So, it might take a few tries, but figuring out their pattern can be the key to a successful fight. Sometimes, coming back with a different team after learning the boss’s strategy can help as well.
Audio and Visuals
I did want to take a quick moment to point out the audio and visuals in Capes. All of the characters in the game are fully voice-acted. Even all the bantering during battle is voice. You can hear the heroes giving each other a hard time or compliments. You can also hear them bantering with the villains during boss battles. I thought that the voice acting was really well done. I also thought that all of the game audio, such as the sound effects and music, were enjoyable to listen to. I was happy to have my volume up the whole way through.
As for the visuals. Capes leaned heavily into the comic book style. It seems fitting for the superhero theme. All the conversations at the base are done in a comic book style, with the characters all 2D with speech bubbles. Even the cutscenes, where the models are 3D, have comic-style speech bubbles. It is a nice touch that makes you feel like you are in the comic.
The visuals and animations were also very well done. The special animations for the team-ups were one of my favorite things to watch. The game seemed very environmentally aware. Mean shards from Facet stayed around, and attacks from Mindfire would actually pick up things around him, such as broken barrels or shards. There were a lot of nice touches put into the visuals.
Conclusion
With all that said, is Capes super-powered enough to be the next turn-based tactics game worth checking out? Like I said before, Capes doesn’t mess around. It focuses solely on story and combat. That can make for a very linear story, but that’s something I am ok with. This is a comic book come to life. It’s not looking to be a choose-your-own-adventure story. It is a well-written narrative with a great combat system.
The freedom to use your actions in any order you want and combos between characters, where they actually interact with each other, are things that I wish every game had and should have. This game is combat-focused, and it showed. No time spent building a base or managing resources. Just one fight after another. That doesn’t mean it pulled any punches when it comes to the story, though. I thought the story was well written and kept me excited to see what would happen next. There was always something going on that I wanted to learn more about. It also had a great dossier that filled you in on characters and backgrounds.
So, yes. I would say Capes is definitely a game worth checking out. Whether you are a turn-based tactics fan, a superhero fan, or a little bit of both, I think this is a game you are really going to enjoy. So head over to their Steam page and give this one a try. I know I’ll jump back in to try to get a perfect on every mission whenever possible.
The key for this review was graciously provided by the developer Spitfire Interactive.
