Capes caught my eye pretty immediately because it’s been quite a while since I’ve played a good turn-based strategy game. Actually, that’s not entirely true, Nexus 5 was a quite good turn-based strategy game, but I guess I was looking for a good turn-based strategy like Fire Emblem—maybe we need a name for that subgenre…Emblemlikes?
It’s hard to believe the last ones I played were all the way back in 2022 with Triangle Strategy and Digimon Survive. I was always intrigued by Marvel’s Midnight Suns but never got around to playing it—foolishly waiting for the cancelled Switch port. But I like the idea of a superhero-based Emblemlike, so I was looking forward to this.
Capes didn’t exactly blow my socks off, but it did enough right that I was genuinely pleased. It’s fairly standard in its execution but finds interesting ways to incorporate its superhero elements into the gameplay. It’s just a bit of a shame that much of the rest of the game is a bit underwhelming and a touch undercooked.
“Capes didn’t exactly blow my socks off, but it did enough right that I was genuinely pleased.”
The first place you can see this is in the game’s story. It takes place in King City, where superheroes once upheld the rule of law until they mysteriously “fell from the sky.” Now under the despotic control of “The Company”, any citizen found to have superpowers is rounded up by The Company. Fortunately, a ragtag group of rebels are taking the fight back to The Company by recruiting new “Capes” to the cause before The Company gets to them.
It’s not a particularly original story, but with the group of rebellious teens sticking it to “the man,” it does feel a little too derivative of The Boys. From the way, the team is led by a grizzled Brit who has a history with The Company—who feels a lot like Billy the Butcher. To the way The Company uses their own Capes – or supervillains in this case—or just the fact that they’re called “Capes,” similar to “Supes” in The Boys. It’s not bad, it’s just not remarkable.
Thankfully, the gameplay fares a lot better in this regard. The core gameplay is fairly similar to Fire Emblem. Players move their Capes around a battle grid, methodically dispatching enemies while trying not to lose any of their own forces. Unlike Fire Emblem, though, there’s no separation between player turns and enemy turns. Instead, it uses an initiative system, kind of like Dungeons and Dragons.
While similar in structure to Fire Emblem, Capes creates its own unique style of gameplay thanks to its superpowered heroes. Each character has their own unique superpower, which gives them special abilities that can assist them in battle. What’s more, these abilities expand to unique team-up attacks that have different effects depending on who you use, so there is an incredible amount of depth to how you approach the combat.
This is further enhanced by elements such as environmental hazards and the ability to disarm gun-wielding enemies or taunt enemies to focus their attention on a single cape, adding interesting layers to combat that extend the Fire Emblem inspiration. This is supported by a simple skill tree that allows players to customize their capes in small ways to better suit their playstyle.
In the audio/visual department, Capes is a little bit lacking. For starters, the game lacks a distinct visual style—or at least commitment to one. In cutscenes, it tries to emulate a comic book style, but its overall presentation is kind of generic and lacklustre. Furthermore, In certain cutscenes, characters have a semi-stylized cel-shaded look, but in-game, they just look like standard 3D models.
“While similar in structure to Fire Emblem, Capes creates its own unique style of gameplay thanks to its superpowered heroes.”
And the Capes themselves aren’t particularly interesting or memorable. A lot of their designs are kind of basic cyberpunk templates and lack the visual distinction and flair you would want for superhero designs. Capes also suffers from a few visual hiccups that make the game feel a bit amateurish. The way certain animations don’t play out particularly right, or other attack animations that feel a bit choppy detract further from Capes’ overall lack of visual presentation.
The game does a little better with its audio, especially in the voice acting department. Everyone definitely brought their A-game to Capes, with characters that feel believable and do a good job of delivering the somewhat cringe-worthy dialogue. The game’s music, however, is less inspired, with battles having a sort of downplayed sci-fi vibe rather than the intense, bombastic music you’d want for a game like this.
As such, the battles feel very unenthusiastic and lack the excitement and tension you would expect from something like this. I get that the whole vibe of the game is the cyberpunk dystopian future, but when your gameplay is slow and methodical, and you’re ALSO adding superheroes into the mix, you need upbeat, exciting music to keep the player invested.
Like I said, Capes isn’t a bad game it’s just, ironically, not one that realizes its full potential. Its foundation is solid enough, and fans of Emblemlikes will probably have a good time with this, but without the backing of distinct audio and visual presentation, it gets lost in the sea of more distinct RTS games.
