Crimson Capes Review (PC)

Crimson Capes is the new game by developers Poor Locke, an impressive nod to the past that seeks to build something new.

The player takes on the role of the Milon, Left Hand of the king of a fantasy land. Milon’s responsibilty (and those in his cadre) is to rout out a conspiracy of magic wielders that have aimed to take out the monarch.

This is done in a 2D side-scrolling open world with the characters all rendered in a rotoscoped style that reminded me of the original Prince of Persia (not that one, the one that wasn’t even 3D). The limit to the player’s ability to explore this world is locked behind a few items and the player’s own skill.

The game has a gorgeous retro look, with each of the combat moves lovingly animated. Milon has a giant two handed sword that he can swirl around him in a number of flourishes. Each of the enemies he encounters is similarly lavishly articulated. The areas are fantastic too, with lots of variety between areas – poisonous marshes, snowy mountains and dark caverns.

The main crux of the combat is heavily inspired by Dark Souls with each attack having to play out before a new one can start. This means that a missed swing, or incorrect feint is going to cost the player health. To help in taking down the cadre of ghouls, Knolls and bandits is a number of unlockable moves (and more characters later on), a parry, a dodge and a bunch of consumables that temporarily increase stats, or offer long range attacks.

Apart from the a few traders and the blue flower save points (that respawns all enemies when used) the player is going to fight a lot of antagonists – so mastering these moves is going to be key.

That said, I hacked and slashed my way through 8 to 9 of the named bosses and I don’t think I ever actually did feel like I was ever fully in control of my tool set.

To explain, my main gripe was the stamina and parry system. All enemies can be stunned with a well placed parry, but some have a stamina meter that must be depleted before that stun can be triggered. Crimson Capes has a peculiar way of handling this whereby successful parries do not diminish the meter, and instead the player must use offensive moves to chip away at it.

It feels counter-intuitive to do this – and this feeling is made worse by a couple of factors. The first is that bosses do not reveal their stamina meters and this means that it is hard to be tactical with moves. The second is that some enemies don’t feel like they have many openings to actually hit them and instead you’ll find yourself parrying (or attempting to) long strings of attacks with no reward other than not losing health. Because of some of the longer, less well signalled attacks, often I would successfully stun parry and then scramble to use one of the limited healing potions instead of taking advantage of the opening.

Across the 8 hours I’ve spent in this game, I never felt fully confident in being able to read attacks. This is a shame because the developers have definitely thought about their enemy composition and how each of their movesets encourage different approaches. Gurmenor, King of the Skies, encourages dodging around him, while Murz-Gak has some really cool late attacks that pushed me to pick strikes carefully.

It is just that every enemy seemed like they were moving at twice the speed I was, and always able to mess with me in ways I was ill equipped to counter because Milon and his teammates control like they are wading through mud.

Crimson Capes’s loading screen suggests that you use consumables to take on tricky bosses. This might be a cool idea, but if you get killed in a fight, those consumables remain used. This means that using them is not something that I was willing to experiment with if I wasn’t already confident in winning the fight, which kind of defeats the point of experimenting.

There are also flourishes that are supposed to add offensive and defensive options, and they never really worked they way I hoped – there was one that was supposed to auto parry attacks that was very hit-and-miss – so I ended up largely ignoring them.

To make completing the game a little easier, it is possible to get someone to jump in and help out in seamless co-op. There is also a threat of people invading your game and trying to kill you.

In my time playing I tried to join another game and didn’t find any, and never witnessed an invasion so I am not sure how well these features work. If this is game that appeals to you and you want to co-op it, find a friend to do so.

Crimson Capes is really cool to look at, and a lovely salute to games of yore, the combat just doesn’t feel compelling, only frustrating.

Conclusion

Crimson Capes is an interesting experiment, where every fight could be a chance for meaty combat, instead it feels like too close to Prince of Persia combat – flailing and anachronistic.

This game was tested and reviewed on PC (via Steam). All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by the publisher.