Have to Know
What’s it? A turn-based technique sport about superheroes rebelling towards a dystopian regime.Launch date Could 29, 2024Expect to pay TBADeveloper Spitfire InteractivePublisher Daedalic EntertainmentReviewed on Nvidia Geforce RTX 3080, AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, 32GB RAMSteam Deck VerifiedLink Official website
All one of the best superhero groups have one factor in widespread: everybody has their function. Whereas Wolverine’s charging in, claws flashing, Cyclops is up on a ridge capturing down lasers, Iceman is zipping round freezing foes, Jean Gray is delving right into a supervillain’s thoughts, and Colossus is body-blocking power blasts.
That is what your squad of superheroes looks like in Capes as you are directing them in turn-based battles. From teleporter Rebound to psychic Mindfire to speedster Mercurial, every character is splendidly distinct, and securing victory means combining their distinctive powers to reinforce their strengths and canopy their weaknesses.
The “Capes” aren’t fairly your typical superheroes, nevertheless. They’re based mostly in King Metropolis, a near-future metropolis that is been dominated by a crew of supervillains for many years. Beneath their oppressive regime powers are outlawed, with any civilian displaying indicators of getting them shortly rounded up for a grisly destiny. Your crew is much less like a basic crime-fighting crew, and extra like a resistance cell—younger supers who’ve managed to flee seize and now struggle again towards the dystopian authorities to try to free their house.
The trail to revolution consists of a collection of story-driven turn-based technique missions—all the time a punch-up of some sort, however usually with a twist, similar to stealth parts, a race towards time, or civilians in want of safety. They don’t seem to be simple—it is the form of sport the place once you first load up a mission and see an absolute horde of enemies arrayed towards you, it is pure to assume “How is that this even attainable?”. Half an hour later, after a number of makes an attempt, you lastly stand surrounded by defeated thugs pondering “How did I pull that off?”.
The important thing to victory is all the time in getting essentially the most out of each member of your crew. Their identities are excessive by design. Aspect, for instance, clad in crystal armour, can take assault rifle bursts with out flinching, whereas Rebound might be downed with only a few punches—however Rebound’s capability to teleport offers her mobility not like anybody else on the crew, and her backstab assaults do huge harm. After they’re collectively, Aspect’s talents turn into a toolset for preserving her out of hassle—taunting foes, trapping others with crystal growths, and defending her with crystal shields retains her protected sufficient to get in place to strike key targets.
With eight heroes out there to unlock (you may normally select 4 to deliver into every mission), and more and more harmful enemies arrayed towards you, the online of attainable combos turns into a splendidly layered fight puzzle. All kinds of complimentary mechanics add to your choices. Workforce Ups, for instance, let heroes straight mix their powers in the event that they’re bodily shut sufficient, unlocking new variations of talents. Use Mercurial’s Sprint whereas she’s close to the pyrokinetic Ignis and he or she’ll go away a path of flame behind her; backstab a goal with Rebound when Mindfire’s shut and he’ll thoughts management them into turning round to make sure she offers most harm.
Every hero additionally has a distinct means of charging Final power, the juice they should unleash their strongest assault, additional encouraging you to commit every character to their function. Aspect, for instance, is such a devoted tank that he fees up each time he will get hit, whereas the storm-calling Weathervane will get a cost for each further goal he is capable of catch together with his chain lightning assault. Lastly unleashing an Final—setting Rebound off on a teleport frenzy the place she backstabs everybody in sight, or unleashing an enormous storm with Weathervane—is a beautiful mid-mission dopamine hit, rewarding you for getting one of the best out of that character.
Tremendous troopers
If you’re feeling slightly frazzled after a very difficult boss struggle or a cautious stealth mission, that is when the sport will throw you an enormous dumb struggle towards an amazing horde and allow you to unleash satisfying havoc on them.
Between missions heroes can improve their talents again at base, and also you’re free to replay outdated missions hoping to finish extra of the bonus goals, permitting you to grind for stage ups if you want. However crucially, upgrades by no means flatten the variations between the characters. Rebound, for instance, has three well being—irrespective of how good she will get at teleporting and takedowns, she’s going to by no means get any more durable, at the same time as enemies turn into more and more quite a few and harmful. That implies that she’s solely a few blows away from loss of life from the beginning of the sport proper to the tip, preserving her hit-and-run playstyle intact all through.
It is these sorts of intelligent choices that maintain Capes’ battles brilliantly tactical and riveting during. Nice pacing helps there, too—once you’re feeling slightly frazzled after a very difficult boss struggle or a cautious stealth mission, that is when the sport will throw you an enormous dumb struggle towards an amazing horde and allow you to unleash satisfying havoc on them. It nearly by no means lets up on the problem, however developer Spitfire Interactive is nice at tickling totally different components of your strategic mind as you play, reasonably than hammering on the identical one to the purpose of frustration.
The place the pacing sadly is not fairly as deft is within the story. There are lots of cutscenes in Capes, however only a few of them actually go anyplace—act 2 of three takes up nearly all of the run time, and consists of far an excessive amount of meandering round with none clear concept of what the characters are attempting to attain, earlier than abruptly act 3 brings issues to an abrupt shut.
Broad themes of capitalism gone awry and systemic injustice work properly sufficient as a framework, however particular person story threads inside that always really feel incongruous. There’s a lot agonising from the characters about whether or not it is okay to kill supervillains or not, for instance—that is an overused superhero trope at one of the best of instances, however in a narrative a few violent rebellion advised within the medium of prolonged turn-based fights, it would not match in any respect. You may take down 30 thugs by electrocution, setting them on fireplace, and hurling chunks of concrete at their heads, just for Rebound, whose combating model is completely based mostly round sticking foot-long knives into folks’s backs, to provide you a lecture about when deadly power is acceptable. It is absurd, and solely turns into extra in order you uncover fairly how irredeemably evil the principle supervillains they’re so involved with sparing really are.
Sadly, lackluster presentation would not do the story any favours both. There is a plastic high quality to the characters, which mixed with stiff animation makes them appear like motion figures. In fights, that is high-quality—the sport visually conveys what it must make fight run easily. However frequent cutscenes zoom in for face-to-face chats, forcing you to see each visible flaw because the heroes emote unconvincingly to the inconsistent dialogue.
Actually, although, it is not the story that pulls you alongside—it is the depth of technique on provide. The drama is not within the cutscenes, it is in each nail-biting flip as you try to determine the proper combo to get you out of one other high-quality mess. It may be a critical problem—for those who’re the form of one that hates the thought of reloading the identical mission a number of instances on the lookout for the best method, this in all probability is not for you. However meet it by itself phrases and Capes provides you with 20-30 hours of splendidly substantial and engrossing superhero technique.