Released in 2015, this small tactical RPG by Behold Studios is everything I could have wanted from a Power Rangers game. It’s something that I had no idea of until it became a part of the Jingle Jam Games Collection of 2022, but the developer obviously had the same idea I did in how a franchise such as this can make for a good tactical RPG.
This game is pretty much a love letter to tokusatsu, with five stunt actors tired of their boss quitting the job and forming their own studio. Hence the Chroma Squad series is born. After the tutorial, where the basics of the game are explored, customisation of the team is available. Choose the actors and their colours to create the Ranger team you’ve always dreamed of.
Each actor has certain perks related to episode success or combat, so the celebrity will bring in more fans per episode, while others will have perks to one of the combat stats. Each member of the team has their own abilities depending on which class you assign them, with class-specific weapons also being a thing later in the story. For my team, there was going to be no red. I wanted a team that defied the usual conventions seen with team builds across Rangers.
As such, I ended up with purple as my lead. Now, this team having just started out, their costumes are… basic. But this feeds into upgrades. Via the shop, you’ll be buying new equipment. This equipment starts out being basic stuff such as toy pistols and boxing gloves, but over time will expand to props that look fit for purpose. Crafting is another way in which you can equipment. Enemies will drop materials upon defeat, which can then be used to craft things you won’t find in the shop.
As for how the game plays, it’s a typical turn-based tactics RPG, where strategy matters. Since this is for a TV series, each section of the story is a contract signed for a new season of the series. There’s a fail condition that will end the story, but if you know your tactics, it shouldn’t come to that. Each episode will have an audience meter, where every action you perform will fill it. Teamwork will fill it faster, as will meeting the conditions for the director’s instructions.
This audience meter, once the episode has been finished, will convert into new fans and more money coming in. Should one of your actors fall in battle, the audience meter will drop. Should all the team fall, the episode is delayed a week and you’ll lose fans. With each new season, the amount of fans you lose per delay will rise, meaning too many failures will risk hitting that contract fail condition.
Some episodes will be a singular battle, while others will be multi-part affairs. Each part will have their own director’s instructions. These director’s instructions can be as simple as surviving a set number of turns, but others could require you to attack a boss with the lead actor every turn. As said, you’ll get a lot of audience for meeting those requirements, but they are completely optional. If you feel you can’t strategize around them, you should still have enough audience for an episode to be a success.
That audience meter is also tied to the morphing in certain episodes, so you’ll be playing in civilian form for the start of some battles. But this also ties into the tactics of the game. While their civilian forms are weaker without all their abilities, you still have the teamwork option to make short work of foes. Then, when you do choose to Chromatize!, the team will gather together to morph and their health resets. Even those who are downed will get back up, so risky civilian plays could be what win you the day.
Of course, this wouldn’t be Rangers without the monsters of the week and megazord battles, and both are here. The bosses act as the monsters of the week, with each have multiple attacks per turn and a greater range of movement. Once their health has been chipped away enough, you can set your team up around the monster with the teamwork option activated to perform the finishing move.
As for the mecha battles, these take the form of a turn-based beat ‘em up. Choose to attack and a bar will appear with a certain section that needs to be hit to perform the attack. The amount of red on the bar will increase the further into the combo you go, but with great timing you can chip off an entire bar of the enemy mecha’s health and then immediately go again. While it’s the weakest part of the game, such fights don’t appear so often that it becomes grating to the experience.
With a diverse range of minions to beat up, fun interactions between characters that poke fun at the absurdity of some of the monster designs, and a gameplay loop that will keep you engaged, this is an easy recommendation from me, even if you’re not exactly the biggest fan of tokusatsu. If you have a creative streak and want to put some ideas into action, the episode editor DLC will let you do so.
I got this game through the Jingle Jam Game Collection, a collection of over 80 games valued at over £1000 that you too can get for supporting charity. Head on over to the Jingle Jam Tiltify page and donate £35 to get this and many more games available on Steam.
Images Taken From:
Chroma Squad | Original Screenshots
