Ok Ko! Let's Play Heroes

Battles account for around half the game, and unless you’re a fan of the TV series it’s much the better one

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We spend a good five hours waiting for an ‘All Your Base’ gag that never comes. The Cartoon Network animation on which Capy’s latest outing is based is clearly made by a team in love with videogames, but there’s little of the pandering nodding and winking you might expect here. Yes, there are references to games, such as the line about them being better than real life (“You get points!”), but OK KO! Let’s Play Heroes is cheeringly matter-of-fact about its inspirations, preferring to build its own world rather than remind you of someone else’s. Little wonder, really, given the set-up, which is arguably better suited to a game than a kids’ TV show.

The denizens of Lakewood Plaza Turbo, a small, colourful strip mall, are all heroes – officially so. It’s proven by their Pow card, a gleaming foil effort that shows their hero level, built up over a lifetime’s worth of doing good. Protagonist KO’s mother, a burly martial-arts instructor, is a lofty level 11. Rad, a dudebro alien who works with KO at the local mini-mart, Gar’s Bodega, is a respectable level three. KO, however, is yet to get his card. He spends his days running errands for his boss and co-workers, pumping his daily wages into the bodega’s Pow vending machine in the hope of finally getting a card that’s adorned by his dinky frame. When it finally comes out, it’s a level zero; immediately, every other hero has their card progress reset to the same number. Suddenly KO’s path to true heroism is clear: he must find out what happened, then help his friends get their hero levels back – while, hopefully, also gaining one to call his own.