- [Mitchell] Power Rangers: Battle For The Grid
is a great example of how far rock-solid mechanics
and strong characters can take a fighting game
even when everything else is working against it.
From ugly graphics to poor sound design
to substantial bugs that make online play a crap shoot,
it has all the makings of a disaster.
But against all odds underneath all of that
beats the heart of a fighting system
developed with thought, care,
and an obvious love for 2D tag fighting games.
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Battle For The Grid is an accessible
three-on-three tag fighter with a four-button combat system
much like Dragon Ball FighterZ.
Every move is performable by pressing
a direction and a button.
It has a huge focus on fundamentals, which is great,
because the simplicity of the combat system
is complimented by much more complex tag mechanics
and a wild array of special moves
that will have skilled players
mixing opponents up like batter.
Much of the depth comes from pushblocks,
armored EX moves, super moves,
and a big satisfying comeback mechanic
in the form of a one-time-use ultra attack
that succeeds as a way to turn the tide of losing battle
in your favor without feeling like a cheap win button.
Like in BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle,
you can call in an assist to have them do an attack,
but then you also have the option
to take control of the assist
and tag the other character out,
allowing you to convert combos off throws,
and continue combos with assists
in fun and interesting ways.
While there are only nine characters in Battle For The Grid,
which is a paltry number by any measure,
they are at least all extremely well-defined
and fun to play.
Most typical fighting game archetypes are covered,
from hyper rushdown-focused characters,
big slow bruisers, zoners, and mid-range powerhouses.
The main issue with Battle For The Grid
is that everything else is lacking.
It's visually bland, there's virtually no voice acting
outside the announcer.
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The music is generic soft rock
that quickly becomes repetitive
because there are only five themes across five stages.
Arcade Mode is a bust with virtually no story and poor AI.
Training Mode lacks a basic function
of being able to record and play back moves.
There are plenty of graphical and sound bugs,
and there's no option to rematch in Online Play.
To be fair, Battle For The Grid is $20 game,
and the content offered certainly matches up with its price.
Battle For The Grid will ultimately live or die
based on the community that develops around it.
Online play has been mostly solid on wired Ethernet,
but playing wirelessly on the Switch
had frequent drops in connection and otherwise laggy play,
so I'd recommend avoiding Wi-Fi if possible.
There also seemed to be some substantial bugs
that are exclusive to online play relating to blocking.
In several matches, I experienced issues
with consistently getting by lows
despite doing nothing but holding crouch block
and also getting hit by normal jump-ins
despite doing nothing but holding standing block,
and hopefully they are able to fix it
because it really hurts the online experience.
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There are some surprisingly good fighting game mechanics
in Power Rangers: Battle For The Grid,
but there's very little meat on that skeleton.
A well-rounded roster of fun, nostalgic characters
is represented poorly by dated graphics,
slapdash presentation, and most damningly,
a lack of meaningful single-player content,
other modes, characters, and stages.
It's a solid start for developer nWay's
first foray into the fighting game genre,
but there's a long way to go
to make Power Rangers a contender
in a space that's become crowded with high-quality games
at the same budget price.
For more fighting games, check out my reviews of
Dragon Ball FighterZ and BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle,
and for everything else, keep it here on IGN.
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