Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid Collector’s Edition
Initially released back in early 2019, nWay’s Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid launched to some pretty mediocre reviews. With a variety of Power Rangers to choose from when building your three-character-team, and done in the style of other fighting games such as Street Fighter - it looked promising. But in reality, it was deemed to be a fairly lacklustre title. Now, after numerous updates, Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid is like a totally new game, with extra characters being included via Season Pass, and its popularity going from strength to strength. A physical (and digital) Collector’s Edition was even released recently, containing all of the Season 1 DLC, an extra character plus a whole bunch of in-game costumes. So now is the best time to jump in!
The premise of the game is that Lord Drakkon has killed Rita Repulsa and all of the Power Rangers in his dimension - and has now made an appearance in the Power Rangers Command Center, interrupting their training. After initiating a beacon to warn the other Rangers throughout the multiverse, it is up to you - along with all of the variations of Power Rangers - to stop Lord Drakkon in his tracks. There are Power Rangers spanning multiple series available to play as here, and playing in teams of three allows you to enjoy playing as multiple characters, as well as take advantage of the huge variety in skills and combos that each has in their arsenal.
The art style in Battle for the Grid is fairly average, with decently designed characters (of course) but mediocre settings. Levels are quite old-seeming with weirdly boring settings. Cut scenes consist of semi-static images with a voiceover, and whilst the art here isn’t bad, it feels like something is missing. Going into the story you are greeted with further static art of various Rangers and their base. It feels like something lifted straight from a cheesy 90s game - this is Power Rangers after all. A lack of voice-acting, outside of the cutscenes, makes for quite a bland feel - although this is something I can overlook as long as the gameplay is good. Thankfully, fighting feels enjoyable and even for the most button-mashy of players it can feel quite straightforward to get a hang of what you’re doing.
It’s a fun game for sure, and one that you will be sucked into for the gameplay due to the sheer frantic-ness of it all. If you’re already a fan of Power Rangers, then you’re sure to find a lot to interest you here as there are Rangers from across multiple iterations from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers all the way through to Power Rangers: Space Patrol Delta and Power Rangers: Jungle Fury. One odd thing we noticed was that when playing against AI - at the top of the screen the player character is not named, instead being noted as “Player” and the opponent as “Enemy” - not the worst thing in the world, but if you’re not familiar with all iterations of Power Rangers then it can be quite a frustrating thing, especially as characters are denoted y their names in text boxes mere minutes later.
Controls are intuitive, and feel natural in use. Learning each characters special moves can prove to be quite a challenge, but doing so feels worth it, and due to the wide variety of characters - each with their own unique moves - allows for you to get a feel for who you enjoy playing as so you can perfect their skill set. The game is designed purposefully to be ‘easy to learn, but difficult to master’, which works fantastically well for people of all skills and abilities to get involved. It’s a truly solid system and is a lot of fun to play, whether you’re a newcomer or a seasoned veteran.
As with many fighting games, there’s tonnes of replayability to be had - and Power Rangers is no different. The fun, fast-paced combat allows for quick matches, and playing against someone at home ups the ante, particularly when you’re in a competitive household like I am! Extra content is available to be purchased for the Season 2 and 3 Season Passes, each priced at £12.49, which can feel like a bit of a kick in the teeth when the CE only includes the Season 1 pass, but this is something you’ll just have to weigh up on if having the additional characters and skins is worth it for you. Personally, we always like to have all of the additional content available for a game, but it does definitely sting a bit when there’s so much available behind a paywall. Including a way to unlock the extra content, even if it requires a tonne of grinding, is something we always appreciate so it sucks a little to not see that implemented. That’s the main thing affecting our opinion on it aside from our other minor gripes.
In the end, we decided to give Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid the Collecting Asylum rating of 7.5/10.
Have you played Battle for the Grid yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to Maximum Games for the Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid Collector’s Edition Xbox One review code!
