Have you ever wondered what it would be like to take control of a team of silver age superheroes? If yes, then Capes might just be for you.
If you’ve ever played a squad-based strategy game before, then you’re going to immediately recognise the format and the flow. Capes pulls on elements of what came before it, most notably for myself being able to spot a couple of similarities to XCOM 2 from my time spent pouring over the tactical map.
Is this a bad thing? Absolutely not! Capes for me has the fundamentals absolutely nailed to a point where I was able to glide straight into engagements without feeling like I was ever at a point of information overload, something I very much appreciate in a new strategy title. The premise and overall story direction so far, without revealing spoilers, is relatively engaging. It has an opening that does a good job of establishing the world and a couple of characters without falling into the pit of meaningless lore dumping and exposition for the sake of it. I am interested in seeing how certain character relationships play out and where the overall plot will end up after a certain point in the story.
For example, heroes Facet and Rebound have a special team-up ability where Rebound can teleport him to a new location on the map, getting the drop on any enemy goons that are unfortunate enough to be stood there. There are also class types for certain heroes, which govern how they play and their health pools. So far, I’ve worked with characters that are like walking tanks, others that are a bit more fragile to hit but pack a mean punch and those that act as ranged powerhouses, able to deal high amounts of damage with minimal risk of melee if you keep them moving and out of range of would-be assailants.
Let’s talk about the gameplay real fast. As I’ve said already, Capes has the fundamentals of squad-based combat down, but it introduces a unique twist on it in the form of your team of superheroes being able to perform their own ‘team-up’ actions if they have a friendly unit in an adjacent tile to them. This ability will vary depending on which hero is available, something which I also found rather interesting to play around with.
You’ll notice I named characters whilst talking about gameplay, and no superhero adjacent media is complete without having a hearty roster of extraordinary individuals that vary in each of their abilities, personality and their overall interactions with one another. Capes is fortunate in that it does not share any ties to any Marvel or DC properties, something which I found refreshing as it was nice to see new characters that I could experience for the first time rather than a rehash of a previously established entity.
As I got further into the preview, I was delighted to see that the heroes in your team are able to rank up socially and unlock personal one-to-one conversations with one another in the hideout (which is basically your base of operations to choose missions, upgrades and settings). I did enjoy certain interactions members of the team had with one another although I will note that the voice acting left a little bit to be desired from certain characters, though this wasn’t enough to take me out of the game.
So far, I’ve only been able to play Capes for around six hours and I can say that, so far, I have enjoyed the experience! It took me a little while to wrap my head around the synergy between certain team members as well as managing the weaker heroes on my team to avoid them from being stomped into the ground after turn two, but once I did the game really opened up with the level of opportunities and ways I was able to tackle certain engagements.
Capes is due to launch on Steam on May 29th, be sure to check back in for our review once it does!