• Price: $39.99 USD
• Developer: Spitfire Interactive
• Publisher: Daedalic Entertainment
• Release Date: May 29, 2024

A review code was kindly provided by Daedalic Entertainment on behalf of Spitfire Interactive. We thank them for being able to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Content warning: Rated T, depicts scenes of (gun) violence committed by those in power in a dystopian society. Also contains swearing and blood unless turned off in settings.

It’s always interesting to see what people do with the idea of the superhero. So I eagerly anticipated the release of Capes, a turn-based strategy game in which you gather a team of young enhanced heroes to defend their city against the evil within. (The art style on the Bruce Banner Jessica “Drew” me in as well!)

The game takes place in King City, a place where those with superpowers have been hunted down for 20 years after the villains won. Now controlled by “the Company,” the city is full of violence and fear as armed authorities brutally suppress any opposition and grab mutants off the streets. With control of the media, they falsely blame superpowered individuals for any destruction and violence committed by the Company.

Although the situation seems grim, there is still a small glimmer of hope. One of the few remaining veteran superheroes is doing his best to track down any new heroes he can to resist the Company (and also get his revenge for the death of his friends). He rescues them from the militant authorities and brings them back to his hidden base. This small group is known as the Capes, referencing the old style of heroes who were all killed.

At the base, you can manage your party members, unlock new skills, and also check out the dossier section, which contains information on important characters and unlockable conversations. Once you’ve finished your preparations, it’s time to leave the hideout and help people. Choose up to 4 party members to take with you, depending on the battle.

There are 3 difficulty level options:

• Casual:
  • Heroes have more health
  • Heroes start combat with some ultimate charge
  • Heroes can perform Team-Ups from farther away
  • There is more time to revive teammates in combat
• Normal: The recommended way to play Capes
• Hardcore:
  • Heroes have less health
  • Weapons and disarmable actions cause more damage
  • Missions fail when a hero is KO’ed

I started off with casual mode to begin with to see how challenging it was, and considered it challenging enough to stick with the lowest difficulty. As far as other settings go, they included blood and profanity filters for those who prefer to use them. (I just turned off the blood, personally.)

Of course the main battles in the game are the campaign missions, which have higher stakes. After campaign missions, you might have to complete a patrol mission or two; these add more background to the story, and can be about as tough as some campaign missions. Finally, we have the simulator missions, which allow you to replay campaign and patrol missions to try to complete any objectives you missed and/or grind a little.

Regardless of what kind of fight you’re in, they all work the same way. Combat is turn-based on a grid, and the turn order is displayed on the screen. Your party members have their own Move and Action Points to use each turn; once both are depleted, that character’s turn ends. Unfortunately there isn’t an option to undo movements if you aren’t satisfied with what you did, but I do like that we are able to move somewhere and then move again if a character has any Move Points left.

Every hero has a handful of regular abilities based on their power type, and you can only spend your limited Action Points on an individual skill once per turn (with the exception of Mindfire). I can definitely see what the inspiration for their powers might be. I particularly enjoyed using Rebound (teleportation), Mindfire (psychokinetic), and Weathervane (lightning), but a few latecomers had some really nifty powers as well!

One of my favorite battle mechanics is the Team Up function. If two heroes are within a certain distance of each other on the grid (value depends on difficulty mode), the character you’re currently controlling can Team Up with the other hero and use a modified version of an ability.

For example, if Rebound is nearby, you can use one of your Action Points on a collaborative Teleport move instead of using Move Points. I really appreciated how the team talks to each other with voiced lines when using Team Up moves, as it…enhances…the character interactions. 😉 It was also fun to hear teammates express their appreciation of another hero’s combat prowess!

In addition to the Capes’ “regular” abilities, they can also charge up their Ultimate abilities by meeting its requirement several times. Facet needs to take some hits to build up his Ultimate skill, while Weathervane gains Ultimate charge by hitting enemies with his lightning. These powerful abilities usually impact a large group of enemies all at once, and they can be used multiple times in the same battle if you play your Capes cards right.

Whether the mission focus is on stealth, rescuing civilians, or blowing up enemies and their resources, you’ll continue to use all of these skills to your advantage. Each mission has one or more primary objectives, and you can fail if these aren’t met. There are also optional objectives that you can choose to complete for additional “Shell Points” used to upgrade your characters.

These optional objectives range from using an ability X number of times to something like defeating an unaware enemy. Most enemies seem to be standard humans, but that doesn’t mean they’re powerless. They may start a battle with an equipped weapon, or they can rearm themselves by picking another one up.

A key method of defanging your opponents is to use an ability with the Disarm function; some of them only have to be Disarmed once, while others need a second Disarming. Regular enemies can be a pain if you don’t deprive them of weapons, but eventually you’ll also find yourself confronting enemies who do have powers.

Not Disarming enhanced enemies is far more dangerous. Instead of weapons, they have special attacks that need to be Disarmed before their next turn, and you need all hands on deck to prevent those attacks from happening. Special enemies generally need to be Disarmed 2-4 times, so it’s important to consider and manipulate the turn order, movement range, and patrol paths as best as you can to avoid taking damage.

This is especially important because until you recruit two of the last few heroes, you have ZERO healing capabilities. At first I didn’t like that, but it admittedly does make you think more strategically. (It also kind of makes sense that a dystopian closed-off city lacks medical supplies.)

If a hero is defeated, you can revive them by moving next to them and using the Revive command instead of an item. I like not having to manage healing items in that regard. You have to revive them within a certain number of turns, and their max HP is halved (for the duration of the battle) each time their HP hits zero. Once they reach the point that they only have 1 HP max, if they die it’s game over and you get to restart the battle.

Battles are pretty lengthy, often with multiple phases and reinforcements. Longer missions may be a pro or con, depending on the player. You can take advantage of the quick save function; sometimes I would quick save after reaching the next phase with my team in good health, and if I messed up I could load from my quick save. When you load a quick save, it doesn’t go away, so you can reload the same one as many times as you need to!

I liked a lot about the tactics gameplay. That being said, I had a few things I’d change. For one thing, the text on the battle menus (handheld) is a little small. Next, while you can skip cutscenes and even fast forward enemy movements in battle, sometimes there are so many enemies that it seems to take forever to get to your turn. I remember being able to skip watching the enemy phase in recent Fire Emblem games, so something like that would’ve come in handy here for me.

I also disliked how we can’t move our heroes through each other on the map like in some other tactics games. Instead, we have to move around them, which wastes more of our Move Points. Granted, you can teleport them, but it would be more efficient to use their Move Points instead of an Action Point on teleportation.

The types of stages also could use more variety. It seemed like all of the missions took place in similar environments. Perhaps they could have included a mission at a lake or river in the city, either on or under the water? The Company uses helicopters, which we never get a chance to destroy. An air battle could have been interesting as well, and/or a level where we fight across train cars.

Although I was frustrated about things here and there – like some optional objectives to earn SP – it was incredibly satisfying to return to them later in the simulator and complete them after getting used to the battle mechanics and character abilities more! I felt pretty accomplished when I succeeded in battles I’d initially had trouble with.

Shell Points for character upgrades can be earned by completing optional objectives, but also by completing Hero Challenges, which require a hero to use specific skills and level up. You can complete these challenges in any battle, but it’s probably easier to try to meet challenge conditions in the simulator battle of your choice.

I did think that some missions give too little experience (1 or 2 XP), but using the simulator to grind isn’t hugely necessary, as the max level is 5. Each hero comes to you at level one. You get experience points after missions, not during. Party members earn the same set amount of experience points each for a battle; I liked that I didn’t have to use a specific character against enemies to level them up. I could just focus on the strategy.

For the most part, you get to choose your full party for missions, with the exception of a few that require a set character or two. (In the simulator, you also can’t use a character who is a set guest ally in that mission). I certainly had favorite heroes to use, so I was happy I could use them more.

You can also decide how to spend your hard-earned Shell Points. When characters reach a certain level, new abilities become available for you to unlock with SP. Unlock and upgrade skills to increase their attack, range, and more in order to improve your chances against Company goons.

I spent most of my points on the heroes I liked using more first, and unlocked some cheaper abilities on the others in the meantime. They did a good job of balancing melee and ranged attacks, I thought, and I also liked the range of character personalities.

King City kind of seems like Batman’s Gotham with its out of control violence, so the general mood is a bit dark. However, the writers juxtaposed that darkness with quippy dialogue that often made me laugh. I did have some least favorites on the team in terms of personality, but I loved the team dynamics overall.

The Capes are a diverse group of heroes, and you can see a decent variety of representation for different races, genders, and sexualities. One hero even has a disability. The cast isn’t “all-inclusive,” but it’s still impressive to have so many options for players to potentially identify with.

I don’t know if I’d say that the story is the most original out there, and they could have expanded on the plot and characters a bit more. But the storyline was still enjoyable, and worked well to introduce the missions.

I want to say I noticed quite a few superhero comic references, but personally I didn’t find that they were blatantly “in your face” or referential. Unless I’m mistaken, I picked up on some Joker and Superior Iron Man vibes, and there were small details like a Captain America-inspired shield in the background.

The artistic choices they made really worked for me. I love the character art, as well as the comic book-style narration with speech bubbles. And in my opinion, the voice actors all did a great job with their characters!

Between the artistic elements and the gameplay, I enjoyed my time with Capes over the course of nearly 40 missions. Everything ran smoothly for me, with no noticeable glitches and no crashes. I had a few issues with certain design choices for the mechanics, but I found the tactical aspects really engaging (especially the Team Up component). The game is challenging, but never to the point that I wanted to quit.

There isn’t a traditional New Game+, but at the end you can keep playing through the same save file and watch all the story scenes again when you replay battles using all the skills you’ve already unlocked and upgraded. So it’s kind of similar to having a NG+ mode.

And speaking of new games, while I feel that the overall experience could be improved here and there, I’d still love to see more content set in King City. I’d be interested in a prequel where you control Doctrine and his team up until the Company takes control, and/or a sequel with the team of heroes we recruited in this game. I consider myself a more casual superhero/comic fan, but still thought this was…marvelous. 😉

8/10