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A fun story based game that allows users to take control of a child who has mysteriously transformed into a superhero

A fun story based game that allows users to take control of a child who has mysteriously transformed into a superhero

Vote: (12 votes)

Program license: Free

Developer: DONTNOD Entertainment

Works under: Windows

Vote:

Program license

(12 votes)

Free

Developer

DONTNOD Entertainment

Works under:

Windows

Pros

  • A story that provides a heartfelt exploration of childhood imagination
  • Ties in well with the existing Life is Strange universe while standing well on its own

Cons

  • Plot is sometimes overly sentimental
  • Much shorter than the company's typical physical releases

The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit is a whimsical graphical adventure game that puts you in the shoes of a young boy who fashions a superhero alter ego and deals with heavy themes of loss and trauma. While the superhero genre seems to be reining supreme in everything from film to video games, Captain Spirit isn't your conventional superhero power fantasy. You play Chris Eriksen, a young boy who creates the identity of Captain Spirit as a way of coping with his mother's recent death. It's heavy stuff, but the developers manage to deftly walk the line between the pathos of Chris' real life and the vast and imaginative world that he's built in his own head. The result is a game that plays like just about nothing else on the market.

Captain Spirit is something of an odd duck. Dontnod Entertainment has built a name for themselves for their ability to craft deeply human experiences that aren't afraid to address the mundane, and Captain Spirit is no different. But you shouldn't expect a game on the scale of their traditional releases. This free game is designed as a promotion for Life is Strange 2, and the team has promised that this story will loop back into the plot of that flagship release. But you don't need to be familiar with its sister game to enjoy Captain Spirit. The story itself is self-contained, and the world itself is modest. While Chris regularly spins into flights of fancy where he thrusts himself into Silver Age style comic book adventures, all this fantasy is rooted in the real world. You spend most of the game exploring the lead's modest house. It does an exceptional job of marrying the fantastic with the mundane. Perfectly normal household objects become sci-fi inventions in his mind, but the world is also littered with documents and photos that reveal the family's history and the details of the recent tragedy. This allows the pathos to simmer beneath the surface rather than occupying the text front and center. It's a notably subtle approach and one that most developers would find hard to execute, but Dontnod really sticks the landing. The implication that there might be more to Chris' powers than just an overactive imagination is deftly handled as well, and it sets up some intriguing teasers for Life is Strange 2. That said, the story can sometimes be a bit cloying and play its emotional cards too aggressively, but it mostly works.

In terms of gameplay, Captain Spirit doesn't diverge too much from the adventure game format, but there are some unique little wrinkles that lets the game sing. You have control over the design elements of his costume, and while that's an entirely cosmetic addition, it does add a lot of personality and contributes a greater sense of ownership to the player's actions. Complex dialogue trees similarly don't change the shape of the plot very much (at least not on the scale of Telltales' games), but it gives you a sense that you're really occupying the life of this precocious young man.

Pros

  • A story that provides a heartfelt exploration of childhood imagination
  • Ties in well with the existing Life is Strange universe while standing well on its own

Cons

  • Plot is sometimes overly sentimental
  • Much shorter than the company's typical physical releases