When it comes to licensed games, I imagine the hardest thing to come up with is what genre best fits the series you’re dealing with. You’ve already got a general story, design, characters to work with, and in most cases, a fan base that is already established and eager to throw their money at your product. Historically, the Power Rangers have not had the best track record in their licensed ventures; does their newest release Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid make amends for past failures?

In a strange turn of events, the game is actually a pretty solid fighting game. It features 3-on-3 tag-team battles, snap back attacks, and the token super, ultra, explosive cinematic special moves that are shoehorned into every new fighting game. These all work together for a fighter that flows extremely well, allowing even the most inexperienced player to pull off longer than average combos and quarter circle based moves within the first few battles. The end result is one of the deepest, most enjoyable fighting experiences I have played in a while, which makes it even more devastating that the rest of the package is so dull.

Out of the box, the game comes with nine fighters. Yes, nine, as in single digits, or only one more than Street Fighter II came with a few decades ago. I wish I could say that there were some customization options or alternate skins to earn or unlock, but as of this writing, there are none outside of the DLC content offered via the Season Pass. Looking beyond the small cast of characters, less than half of which represent the titular Power Rangers namesake and take from the rogues gallery, there are five stages and a lone single player mode (not counting the versus or practice modes, as these should be a given) that are used in the game’s narrative.

I get that an indie game isn’t going to have the same budget that some of the bigger fighters have, but the fact that I already know more about the unreleased Mortal Kombat 11′s story than what the grid is and why the Power Rangers are fighting for it is a bit of a problem. The narrative barely qualifies as a story which is conveyed via brief one-liners spewed between characters pre and post battle that rarely work together to formulate a coherent conversation, let alone a proper plot. With a complete lack of voice overs or post-game cut-scenes (or even storyboards), this feels like a lazy Arcade mode, primarily due to the same characters being used each and every game in the exact same order. With no difficulty options in play, single player offers nothing outside of the associated achievement or trophy for completing it with each character.

There are two modes of online play, Casual and Ranked, and the only difference between them is whether you can earn XP or not. What does the XP do? Aside from unlocking lackluster titles to display on your profile that can only be seen by your opponents in the brief online lobby and increase the number next to your gamertag…. nothing. Now, if the carrot being nearly invisible isn’t something that impacts the level of enjoyment you get from a fighting game, you will find better than average network play that connects you to other players quickly with minimal connectivity issues.

Regardless of the mode you play the gameplay remains the same, requiring you take out the opponent’s team before your own falls. The standard tag-team battle rules are in play, allowing you to tag out as you see fit to recoup some lost health, which is a bit on the forgiving end, allowing each character to linger longer than they rightfully should. The same can be said for the rate you earn energy toward your characters’ super moves, which are simply beefed up versions of character specific special attacks. The forgiving nature of these mechanics can make for some tough fights against player controlled characters, but make the AI battles feel like an uneven slog, in which you can essentially get their player in the corner, mash combos, and win.

The overall presentation nails the look and feel of the Power Rangers if it was delivered via a free-to-play model opposed to the $20 entry point. The character models are passable and feature a decent amount of detail, but at this stage of the current generation’s hardware they fail to impress and could have easily been released on last generation’s technology in the same state. The same can be said for the backgrounds that have minimal details, coming across as generic and failing to make the best use of the property the title is based off of.

While Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid takes a few steps in the right direction for licensed games as a whole, the solid fighting mechanics do not make up for the painfully dull presentation and lack of content. Unless you are a diehard Power Rangers fan, I would steer clear of this until an inevitable discount or a full package is released at the same price point.

6 out of 10

Pros

• Solid Fighting Mechanics
• Reliable Online Play

Cons

• Lack of Playable Characters
• Lack of Offline Modes
• Dull Presentation

Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid was developed and published by nWay. It launched on NS and X1 March 26th, 2019, PS4 on April 2nd, 2019, and is TBD for PC. The game was provided to us for review on X1. If you’d like to see more of Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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