Review: Capes

Developer – Spitfire Interactive

Publisher – Defiant Development, Daedalic Entertainment

Platforms –  PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S (Reviewed), Playstation 4/5

Review copy provided by Publisher

Capes is a new Tactical Strategy game developed by Spitfire Interactive that discovers its superhero origins in games like Midnight Suns, XCOM, and Reverie Knights Tactics. You find yourself playing as a team of power-wielding heroes that join forces to counter against a supervillain mega-corporate called plainly the “Company.” Your goal is to kidnap, okay “recruit,” new heroes to join your team by completing several different missions in order to fully build your team to its full potential and take down Company before they kill the remaining heroes of the world. 

While this is certainly a turn-based strategy, there are also fun puzzle mechanics thrown into the mix. Each mission has bonus objectives that require quite a lot of planning and thought to fully complete each goal. By doing so, you maximize your team’s experience points which allows them to level up, gain new powers, or improve existing ones. While each character only has a level cap of 5, they have a decent number of powers that can be customized with skill points. The upgrade options include increasing the total damage of moves, adding disarming effects, increasing the range of abilities, and other specific stats that are unique to each character. 

Each hero has a specific role that they fall into, for instance, you have a support unit, a tank, melee attackers, ranged attackers, and some that can mix and match. The cool thing about the characters is they each have team attacks that are utilized when near each other. One example is the ability to grab a character and teleport them to a new area, dashing across the battlefield leaving a trail of crystals behind you, and controlling the mind of an enemy causing them to turn around so you can backstab them. On top of this, the heroes have their own ultimate attacks such as being able to perform a huge thunderstorm, teleporting between a bunch of enemies and stabbing them, crystalizing all the enemies around your character, and increasing the number of turns you can take in a row. 

There are several different mechanics that are taught during your adventure that keep things interesting. There are certain maps where you can push enemies off the edges, having to disarm security robots before they shoot massive lasers, staying out of sight from enemies that patrol the map, and protecting NPCs as they escape the carnage of villains and heroes clashing in the city streets. Learning how your heroes interact with each other and how abilities can be used in different ways to overcome certain objectives can be challenging. 

One downside of Capes is the overall visual quality. The visual animations aren’t the greatest, the characters look very wooden, and while major story events are in fully animated videos, a lot of the storytelling is provided with static backgrounds with the characters talking in front of it with comic text bubbles. The voice acting, however, isn’t bad and the sound effects are generally decent.  

In terms of the story, it’s a standard tale that has been told several times before and it does little to really stand on its own and doesn’t provide a fresh perspective on the genre, but the story is fun, and the dialogue compliments it well.  

I think one missed opportunity here is a hero creator where you could choose your hero’s basic looks, customize your costumes, select a role for them, and buy better gear as you progress. Even if they made only a single character that could have been customized that would have opened the game just a bit more. However, your heroes’ abilities are so rooted in the bonus objectives, that they wanted a more narrative experience with specific characters that there definitely had to be a tradeoff. 

At the end of the day, Capes is a very serviceable tactical strategy game. A lot of the elements in terms of the gameplay come together well and provide a deep enough challenge to keep you engaged throughout the story even though it lacks just a bit in that area. Leveling up your heroes and unlocking new skills is always fun and learning how those heroes can then interact with each other in new ways keeps it interesting. I don’t think Capes will fill the boots of a game like XCOM for anyone, but if you give it a try, I think you will be surprised with it!