Power rangers: Battle for the grid – PS4

To help celebrate 25 years of power rangers Saban along with nWay games have produced Power rangers: Battle for the grid…. Wow 25 years its times like this that I realise how old I am getting as I remember watching it when it first aired. In this game you will find a assortment of rangers from across the entire franchise form the original characters to SPD and even the live action movie, you don’t have all the characters from them but rather a selection of them from different series but that is explained (sort of) in the story mode.

Anyway, let’s move on. Battle for the grid is a beat em up game with the 3 on 3 format you will find in such games as Marvel VS Capcom, it is face paced and the controls are simple to get to terms with even if you’re a stubborn gamer who doesn’t believe in using the training or checking the move list. Battle for the grid has what I describe as a steep learning curve if what I expect to be the case is correct but I am unable to confirm that at the moment but I will cover that shortly, but for now I will say that its easy to pick up and play but with the time invested you can master the moves list and really do some nice combos.

I said you can master the move list and get some nice combos and I’m not technically lying there are some nice move sets you can learn, but there is somethings you can’t do which I have noticed and I’m not sure if its been done intentionally or if it is an over sight by the developers. JUGGLING! There is no juggling! I love my beat em ups and I love getting the timing right and just juggling an opponent for a while it’s a nice combination of skill and disrespect, but it is something that is just not an option here. Well if it is neither myself or my house mate have found a way to do it as they seem to just drop through your attacks and hit the floor.

So there are 5 modes to the Battle for the grid you can play, Casual – I don’t think I really need to say much about this mode as it does speak for itself, this is the online mode by the way but sadly you will struggle to find matches as there doesn’t seem to be much of a online presence for the game.

Next up you have ranked, and this is something I really wanted to try as it is going up against other human players trying to prove you worth, well it would be if anyone was playing it. After I completed the first 3 CPU matches of my qualifying matches you do 5 human matches to get your starting rank but sadly after 15-20 mins, I gave up hope of this and picked up my laptop to start the review.

Arcade mode, now you’re probably thinking ah this is where I can play my friends in some 2-player action and we can have a laugh, nope that is the verses mode you’re after buddy! So arcade is a 8 round mode where you choose your team of 3 then you go up against a range of fighters in different scenarios where some may have multiple health bars and other such madness, you will in this mode learn what true hatred is I warn you now and that hatred comes in the shape of a mastodon sentry! I can’t use the words that were being shouted at the screen on the later rounds but if you choose to play this game you will understand my rage in full.

Finally, story mode and this is where it explains what the battle for the grid is and it starts with lord Drakkon killing Rita Repulsor in an alternate reality and taking control of her power. I wont go into much more details other than that as the game does explain what happens and it is a interesting story line even if there are some bits where it skips ahead, oh and some points where the voice actors and the guy who typed the subtitles had different scripts but that’s ok as you can follow what happens anyway. You will need to keep an eye on the cut scenes though as some will pull you out of a fight halfway through a combo and if you’re not paying attention you might skip the first part of it, spoken from experience of course.

The game looks good and it plays well, it’s a lot of fun and it’s a decent price as well at less than £20 and they are looking to do season passes to increase the content in the game for example the first on will give you 3 new fighters, given the amount of different rangers in the franchise they could be going for years. My only real issue with this game is its too short in terms of single player, between arcade and story we completed the whole thing in less than 2 hours and that includes multiple fights on a certain level (damn you mastodon sentry!).

I know there is online modes and ranked but that is the issue for me, no one is playing them, and the game feels like it’s already dead and its only been out a month on PS4! I did some digging and it turns out everyone else gets to play together via cross play like a big happy family and the PS4 players are left outside in the rain looking in through the window wondering what they did wrong to not get invited to the party.

I realise I haven’t reviewed Battle for the grid one of the other formats but I would say if you buy it buy it on one of them and then you will get to have friends, well friends you can punch and kick anyway but I would avoid the PS4 edition unless they open it up to cross play with everyone else.

Overall score 5/10 (if online was there I would give it an 8)