His Ultra Attack (L1+R1) appears to have armor and deals quite a lot of damage. He has a special attack that counters in-coming melee with a brutal combo, has a ranged shot, and his ultimate attack is a rapid-fire burst from his rifle. Though your basic combos tend to knock your opponent quite a distance away, you can cancel move animations to extend combos, and use assists, but the game definitely doesn’t teach the cancels and doesn’t show you how useful (or the dangers) of push-blocking.įun fact: I absolutely stomped my first real ranked match.Ī prime example is Magna Defender, who is, in my estimation, one of the stronger in-game characters. Each character plays differently, as well. I was hoping for some snarky back and forth, not the occasional grunt or cry of pain. However, I’m disappointed there are no character sound-bytes/audio. The assists feel solid, the attacks are fierce and feel authentic to the Power Rangers shows and brand. The basic attacks (light/medium/heavy) have auto-combos that come from mashing, but you can make your own combos, throw in assists, and even summon one of three giant fighters to help you! I only say “fighters”, because two are Zords (Megazord, Dragonzord), and the third is Goldar himself.
It has a hidden resource to prevent infinite combos, where, when the attacking player runs out, the defending player breaks free and flips backward. I was really hoping for some of the main themes too. However, Ranger Slayer can fire an arrow into the air as an anti-air option. Other than crouching or in the air, this is not really the case in Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid. In many fighting games, hitting other directions alongside your attacks give new/alternate moves. She’s also one of the few characters I’ve played that have varied moves. It doesn’t last long, so you have to really know someone’s going to hit it. The Ranger Slayer (Alternate Pink Ranger) for example, can set some kind of bomb-looking attack in the air in one of her moves. It’d be nice to know what these do without having to experiment or get an explanation on what they do. There’s a Special Button, and hitting it, and Forward/Backward and Special will do a variety of attacks, and some characters have Specials in the air. The “moves list” just shows what all of the buttons do, since there aren’t many “super attacks” in the game. That’s good enough.īattle for the Grid is very barebones in terms of UI and introduction to the game.
I was kind of hoping for the Evil Green Ranger, but we do have Lord Drakkon. Don’t forget Ranked! That’s also here – you play three matches against the PC, then go into your actual player qualifiers. There’s also Versus, for couch competitive, and a Casual Mode, for online casual matches. The word “story” is very much a misnomer though. Players control a team of three Rangers and do battle against either other players online, or in the Arcade Story Mode.
I enjoyed the mobile Power Rangers game, Power Rangers: Legacy Wars and this fighting game feels like a combination of Legacy Wars, plus Marvel vs. Power Rangers is a little different, a bit more kid-friendly, with easier-to-follow plots.
Each year is a new series with a new theme and cast, but there’s almost always (these days) a cross-over movie to introduce the new team and callbacks to previous shows. So, I’m a long-time fan of the Power Rangers, but more than that, I love the franchise it came from, the Super Sentai series.