Extremely Powerful Capybaras Review

When you think of the typical hero in a survival roguelite game, you are surely thinking of some muscular dude armed with a variety of weapons or a magic user who can use powerful spells. What would you think if I told you that this game stars a variety of capybaras? Main character-wise, capybaras are pretty unrepresented in videogames; they are the largest rodent and are pretty damn cute, so it's about time that they got some love! The Extremely Powerful Capybaras game is here to convince you that these fuzzy creatures can kick some butt.

We start the game by hanging out with other capys in the hot spring. You can play on your own, or with three other players locally or online. When someone joins the game, they will take control of one of the relaxing capybaras. Before you can jump into battle, you will need to select a class from one of the four types available: Bard — a musical cappy who uses music to attack; Druid — shoots flower projectiles in four diagonal directions; Assassin — has ninja stars called “speedy spinners” that encircle the uses and radiate out and in towards the user; Warrior — is equipped with a spear. All classes have different stats available, but to see them, you will have to stand on the pedestal for the class you want and then pause and select stats. If playing with others, you don't all need to be a different type, but if more than one person is the same character, it's harder to keep track of your capybara. Personally, after trying out all the different options, I like the Warrior, but my son enjoys the range of flowers shot out by the Druid.

Once everyone has their class, you head to the capybara statue to select your stage. Extremely Powerful Capybaras has three different arenas, each increasing in difficulty. In the beginning, only the first stage, called Fishy Swamp, with a one-star difficulty, is available to play. River Rat’s City — two-star rating and Volcanic Springs, the most difficult stage, are waiting to be unlocked. Once this is decided, head to the swirly vortex to start your run. Be sure you have a class chosen, as naked capys are not allowed into the arena.

In the arena, you will instantly notice that the weapons all shoot and jab automatically. You don’t have to worry about hitting buttons; you can just concentrate on avoiding enemies coming at you by using your dash to get out of the way. The controls are incredibly intuitive. At first, the hordes of capybara zombies are quite slow, so they are easy to defeat. Some of the defeated enemies will drop orbs, either blue or red; collecting these will fill the meter at the top of the screen. Once full, you will level up. It only takes three blue orbs to get the first level, but as you progress, each increase in level requires more to achieve. The red orbs are worth more than the blue, so keep an eye out for them, as you can level up faster. Below your character is a red gauge; this is your health, and when it is depleted, your run is over, but that’s only if you are playing by yourself. If you are playing with someone else, you can be revived. The surviving players have to stand in the circle surrounding their angel and defeat the number of enemies listed within that area. Once that is completed, your capybara comes back to life. However, while playing cooperatively, we did run into a few bugs when upgrading weapons where the game froze. I'm hoping this will be fixed up soon.

When you level up, you are presented with four different power-ups. There are two types available: active and passive. If your plan is to get rid of all active attacks, this will not work. The game forces you to strike a balance between the two. On the top right of the screen, you will notice ten little slots; five have a sword symbol, which is the icon for active, and the other has a swirl, which designates passive. Once you select five of each type, these ten will be the only power-ups that you can get for the rest of your run. Instead of always getting new ones, you will make the ones you already have stronger and decrease the cooldown period between uses. If you are playing with other players, you each have to select a different item. Problems come when you have the required number for a certain type, so if you already have five active moves, if your friends aren’t nice, you might get screwed over and can’t pick the remaining item, so you will just have to miss out on that round. There is also the option to reroll cards if you want to see if new items will have what you need.

The visuals in Extremely Powerful Capybaras are great and feel like you are playing inside of a children’s book, and the characters are super fun and cute, with a fun tropical soundtrack to accompany it. I love how each of the different classes has a different outfit and weapon that they are carrying, making it easy to identify your character from other people who may be playing with you. Each wave you complete will introduce a new enemy to fight; all the zombies look the same, just like with the piranha fish. There isn’t variation between them, but that doesn’t really matter. With huge hordes coming at you, you are more concerned with getting out of the way than the look of each foe.

The village has fun capybara residents who will help you on your journey and can, like your capybara, be upgraded to offer new services to assist you, like powering up the base amount of damage an attack does. During your run, you will collect capy-coins and capy-tokens that you can redeem to unlock new items that will appear during your runs or pay to upgrade your weapons. Once upgraded, your weapon will stay at that power level when you enter the arena for your next run.

I have played a lot of bullet hell titles as of late, but Extremely Powerful Capybaras is definitely one of the best. The vibrant and adorable capybara characters, along with the unique system for selecting passive and active attacks, create a different experience than other titles in the genre. The only drawback to this title is the lack of tutorials explaining how everything works. I was confused when we were playing multiplayer and the game wouldn’t let me take certain items; it wasn’t until I was playing on my own that I figured out how the game worked. Once you know how it is all set up, you are going to have a great time with others — unless they steal all the good stuff, then on your own! Will you become the mightiest capybara?