Launch trailer for Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time. A new sword slashing action game told by the creator of the show Genndy Tartakovsky and Series Head Writer Darrick Bachman. Dive into your favorite moments from the show as you travel back in time to finally stop the evil Aku. Coming on August 21st to PlayStation 4.
I vaguely remember seeing an announcement about this game, but I'm just now seeing the trailer despite it releasing about a month or two ago. I've provided the IGN footage of 18 minutes of in-game gameplay as well for those interested in seeing how the game would play out.
They had me sold when I saw Demongo and the Daughters of Aku in this. I hope we're going to be able to play Jack's story from the beginning to the end and hopefully spice up that ending a tad bit.
Fiercer than she looks, bravest in the cosmos, she is ANNIE OF THE STARS!
Coming soon to Skullgirls Mobile (and in early 2021 to 2nd Encore)!
“Far and away, the best mobile fighting game out there.” - TouchArcade
Over 5 million downloads! Download today for free gifts!
Apple App Store: http://skullgirlsmobile.com/ios
Google Play: http://skullgirlsmobile.com/aos
Listen to the new Annie stage soundtrack here: https://youtu.be/vdvLMFUhSIE
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm pleasantly surprised that Skullgirls is cranking out new content, especially after all of this time. This is really surprising following the lead developer of the game, Mike "MikeZ" Zaimont, being banned from Combo Breaker for the next few years following his accusations and behavior being exposed.
It's still pretty nuts that it's taken over SEVEN years to crank this DLC out. I remember when they were sharing the concept art and designs on social media to allow fans to vote on who they should make next.
On the July 22, 2020 episode of Dynamite, AEW announced a women's tag team tournament consisting of eight teams that would begin that summer. The winning team will be awarded the tournament cup trophy. The rules of the tournament were that all sixteen women had to draw a random color with the matching colors becoming a team; all selections were final. This concept is similar to World Championship Wrestling's BattleBowl tournament where the teams were drawn at random in a "Lethal Lottery". The tournament began on August 3, 2020, airing on AEW's YouTube channel, and will conclude on a special Saturday Night Dynamite episode on August 22.
Keep that first rule in mind as you will quickly see that there's not a goddamn thing random about these draws.
Night 1 (Aug. 3, 2020)
Glad to see Veda Scott on my TV screen again. Last time I've seen her on a wrestling program was on one of IMPACT's Knockouts Knockdown PPVs.
The best thing about this tournament for me right off the bat was hearing Veda Scott's voice on commentary alongside the legendary Tony Schiavone. Veda is no stranger to calling women's tournaments and women's wrestling in general, so it's a pure delight to have her on board to call the action.
.@Guerrero_Shaul announces the legend @Madusa_rocks to introduce tonight's AEW Women's Tag Team Cup Tournament card!
Madusa (WWE Hall of Famer Alundra Blayze) made her return to TNT programming in 20+ years with her AEW debut as the introducer for this tournament. That really came out of left field, but I can't be too surprised when Madusa has had similar roles for other promotions over the years, such as recently for Stardom.
Shaul Guerrero makes her AEW debut here as the ring announcer for this event. I'm glad to see someone pick her up as I thought she wasn't bad in the role when she filled in for Melissa Santos in Lucha Underground's final season.
The Nightmare Sisters (Allie & Brandi Rhodes) def. Mel (Melanie Cruise) and Penelope Ford (w/ Kip Sabian)
I didn't notice this during the initial airing until a friend of mine pointed this out for I could rewind and rewatch this clip, but Allie CLEARLY cheats to get on the team that she wanted for this tournament behind Brandi and Dasha's backs.
The Nightmare Collective has been dead and buried for months, but apparently Mel didn't get the memo that she has permission to grow her hair back out. Allie did majority of the work on offense for her team until she could tag in Brandi, who had a minor "reunion" of sorts with Mel that turned ugly - much like the most of this match. For the first match in this tournament, this was NOT a great start at all. Sloppy moves and botched spots left and right. The more I see of Brandi in the ring, whether it was in IMPACT, ROH, and now here in AEW, I can totally see why WWE opted for keeping her in the role of a ring announcer. I thought she was best as Cody's valet, but she seems deadset in proving people wrong.
Allie had the EXACT same look on my face as I did when I was watching at home.
(Shrugs) It's not my money Brandi's wasting. It's Tony Khan's since he's keeps funding these constant vanity projects of hers.
I swear though... If Brandi and Allie win this whole thing, I'm going to roast Brandi over the coals about it. I didn't tear into her like most did about that AEW Heels thing but if she shoehorns herself into being the winner of this tournament just to add cloat to her resume, then I'm calling her out on her bullshit.
In all seriousness, if I was Allie, I wouldn't trust Brandi Rhodes. She's the one who's suddenly acting like a heel in interviews but babyfacing it in matches and for her Chief "Brandi" Officer position. Pick one alignment and stick with it. This isn't musical chairs. Isn't that what people make fun of The Big Show for doing all these years?
Anna Jay (w/ The Dark Order) and Tay Conti (formerly NXT's Taynara Conti) def. Ariane Andrew (formerly WWE's Cameron) & Nyla Rose (w/ Vicki Guerrero)
I HAD to make this meme after seeing her show up on Dynamite the week prior...
(Whistles) Boy, did I get a good laugh when it was announced that Cameron (AKA the woman who said the best match of all-time was between Alicia Fox and Melina) was debuting for AEW and would be Nyla Rose's partner for this tournament.
Nyla, I would appalled too if Cameron was my partner in this.
To her credit, she was nowhere as bad as she was back in her WWE days here, but that's not saying much. Anna Jay shines more in singles matches than clusterfuck tag team matches like this, but she's a lot better than one would expect for one with so few years into the business. Conti's training from the Performance Center shines as a lot of her movements look polished and methodical, instead of doing stuff to do them like how 90% of the AEW roster goes about a match. I still don't see what was the big fascination about Conti though, but she has a platform here in AEW to show why she should have been a bigger star in WWE.
I shook my head at how much selling Nyla did for Jay and Conti after tearing through both women. I loved the finish here though. I had to replay it twice because I loved it so much. Excellent finish to a very bland match. I can totally get behind this JayTay pairing.
Post-match, Nyla Rose laid waste to Ariane Andrew and took out the trash like she is - rightfully so after costing her team the win there.
Tournament Brackets updated following Night 1 results.
Night 2 (Aug. 10, 2020)
Big Swole (Ariel Monroe) and Lil' Swole (Nicole Savoy) def. Leva Bates (w/ Peter Avalon) and Rache Chanel
The first thing to come out of my mouth when they said Big Swole was teaming with "Lil' Swole" was WTF. Then I got a closer look and went "Isn't that Nicole Savoy?" Jesus. More and more time has gone by and I wonder why she hasn't followed Mercedes Martinez and Shayna Baszler into WWE for a Trifecta reunion following her stint in the Mae Young Classic. If AEW can sign her to a contract, I say go for it. It's not like she's doing anything with Shimmer, Shine, or any other promotions that would get in the way of her on-screen appearances right now. Savoy can add some more technical finesse that is severely lacking in terms of talent in that women's division.
Savoy gets cool points from me just for merely wearing that One Punch Man shirt though.
This match was fine for what it was. No, wait... I'll give these ladies props, even though I think that Big Swole is the same amount of entertaining as Baron Corbin to me. This was the best match out of the two weeks of this tournament so far, but that's not a high compliment to give these ladies when there wasn't much to write home about this tournament so far. I don't know what the fuck was going on with Rache Chanel's gimmick. Wasn't she the one standing in the crowd with MJ Jenkins on one episode of Dynamite a few months ago?
How are the Librarians still a thing and still employed in this company? I just don't get it at all. This company had enough common sense to realize that the Nightmare Collective had go-away heat from every scope of their fanbase, but yet this gimmick (along with the Dark Order) is still a thing? I would love to see Leva Bates fall back into her lovable cosplayer gimmick that everyone knew and loved from her indie days. The hardcore indie fanboys are the bulk of AEW's fanbase anyway, so you can't tell me that wouldn't have gone over.
Diamante and Ivelisse def. Dasha and Rachael Ellering
The backstage interview where Madusa came up to Dasha and let her know that she was going to be able to compete in this tournament was SOOOO goddamn cringe-worthy from Dasha's FORCED acting here. To say that she left WWE to get away from that, it's even worse to see her doing the same thing here in AEW.
That being said, she wasn't bad at all in this match, especially to say that she hasn't been wrestling very long. Her biggest misstep was towards the end of the match where it looked like she was a deer in headlights trying to keep up with what was going on for the finish. Speaking of that finish, she had absolutely no idea how to take those moves, but it was more shocking to see a Canadian Destroyer actually end a match and not be a goddamn transition or throwaway, common spot. I'm sure someone will correct me, but wasn't Ivelisse using that as a finisher in Lucha Underground?
I hate to make fun of anyone's weight, but it was pretty noticeable that Ellering had put on some considerable weight since her appearances on NXT and IMPACT programming. I remember her being a beast of a woman in terms of stature, but she was more toned and muscular than her better half in Kassius Ohno. Now it's looking like they are on the same diet - or lack of thereof. All jokes aside, Ellering is still a great for AEW if they could sign her to that women's division. They are extremely lacking in strong hands to be enhancement talent and Ellering did a great job in that position when IMPACT's Knockout division was in a transitional period a few years ago.
Much like Ivelisse and Diamante's first two bouts in AEW, this wasn't their best work, but I'm confident that we will see a better showing with them by the time this tournament is all said and done.
As for Dasha, I don't know if she's more interested in being a backstage interviewer and occasional ring announcer or being an in-ring talent, but she's got a lot of promise. I'm anxious to see how far her talents could grow within the right environment. Sadly, I don't think this women's division is the place to go if she's looking to challenge herself.
Updated brackets following Night 2.
Afterthoughts:
I'm sure that the AEW diehards don't want to admit it, but the first night of this tournament was NOT good at all. The standout performance above the rest was Veda Scott on commentary with Tony Schiavone. I really hope they have enough brains to sign her to some type of contract after this tournament is over. Veda is a Jack (or Jane rather...) of All-Trades - she can talk her ass off. She can act as a manager/valet as needed and she can wrestle too if needed. Veda's not going to be pulling five star matches out of her hat, but I always thought she was an asset to whatever promotion managed to bring her in. I thought it was a massive disservice that her talents aren't being used in any company right now, even before this pandemic started.
I do like that AEW is using this as a platform to introduce some new women onto their roster, but at the same time, it's a double-edged sword when they should be using this tournament to establish and feature more of the women who aren't booked on Dynamite regularly, like Abadon, Bea Priestley, or Sadie Gibbs - even though the latter two have been released by the company as of this posting.
Night 2 was a better pill to swallow than Night 1 was by a mile. I'm dreading going into the semi-finals I don't think the match-ups will be very good outside of the team of TayJay against Ivelisse and Diamante. That's the only match I'm really looking forward to in the next round of matches.
Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid is a fighting game developed by San Francisco-based game developer nWay, featuring characters from the Power Rangers franchise. It was released digitally for Xbox One and Nintendo Switch on March 26, 2019, for PlayStation 4 on April 2, 2019, for Microsoft Windows on September 24, 2019, and for Stadia on June 1, 2020. Limited Run Games released a standard physical version on the Switch and PlayStation 4 alongside a more expensive Mega Edition in November 2019.
Characters:
The game features twelve playable characters, with nine additional characters available as downloadable content via three season passes.
Dragon Armor Trini (MMPR Yellow Ranger), Udonna (Power Rangers Mystic Force White Mystic Ranger), Cenozoic Blue Ranger (Power Rangers 2017 movie Blue Ranger)
Jen Scotts (Power Rangers Time Force Pink Ranger), Trey of Triforia (Power Rangers Zeo Gold Ranger I), Lord Zedd (MMPR)
Anubis "Doggie" Cruger (Power Rangers S.P.D. Shadow Ranger), Eric Myers (Power Rangers Time Force Quantum Red Ranger), Dai Shi (Power Rangers Jungle Fury)
Robert "RJ" James (Power Rangers Jungle Fury Wolf Ranger), Lauren Shiba (Power Rangers Super Samurai Red Samurai Ranger II), ?? (My guess is Scorpina from the silhouette)
* Added via free post-launch update
** Paid downloadable content character; number denotes which season pass the character is included in
The Plot:
The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers are training in the Command Center when it is breached by Lord Drakkon, an alternate future version of Tommy Oliver trained by Rita Repulsa who killed her and the other Rangers in his dimension. Despite the arrival of Time Force Ranger Jen Scotts from the future, Drakkon manages to kill the younger Tommy and escapes. With his Chaos Crystal now charged by Tommy's green chaos energy, Drakkon and his forces begin travelling across time and space, using his Dragon Cannons to remove Rangers' powers and steal their morphers. Zordon sends a warning through the Morphin Grid and, with Jen's help, begins sending Rangers through time to protect other Rangers being pursued by Drakkon.
During an encounter with the Ranger Slayer, a future version of herself from Drakkon's universe, Kimberly Hart manages to free her from Drakkon's control, though Ranger Slayer continues to feign loyalty to avert suspicion. The Rangers regroup at Corinth, where Dr. K is working on a way to disrupt the Dragon Cannons, but they come under attack by Drakkon's forces, including several Power Rangers placed under his control. Drakkon, who has powered himself up using the stolen morphers, arrives and overwhelms the Rangers, forcing them to retreat to the Command Center. Ranger Slayer arrives and reveals Drakkon's plan is to gain full control of the Morphin Grid and rewrite reality, using the morphers to increase his resonance with it. She suggests destroying his tower in their home dimension, preventing him from crossing dimensions and sharing his morphers' powers with his armies. Knowing they will be unable to do so alone, Zordon asks Rita to help stop Drakkon.
Led by Jason Lee Scott, a united group of Power Rangers storms Drakkon's tower. They are attacked by Drakkon and the Rangers under his control, but Mike Corbett is freed by the spirit of the Magna Defender and defects back to Zordon's forces. Rita infiltrates the tower and uses a Powerdraining Candle to weaken Drakkon, forcing him to retreat to stop her. Trini Kwan uses her Dragon Armor to grow and topple the tower's antennae, causing Drakkon's forces to lose their powers and breaking his control of the other Rangers. Rita attempts to kill Drakkon, but his minion Finster-5 disarms her and the other Rangers. Finster-5 attempts to stop Drakkon from using additional morphers to restore his powers, believing the process will be fatal, but Drakkon kills him and proceeds. As he powers himself up, he is challenged by Tommy, restored to life through the Chaos Crystal's powers. Tommy defeats Drakkon, whose body has become unstable due to the morphers' power, and he escapes as Drakkon explodes, destroying himself and the tower. Zordon thanks all the Rangers for their help, and Ranger Slayer reassures Tommy that he will never become like Drakkon thanks to his bonds with his team.
Gameplay:
Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid is a fighting game in which players compete in battle using characters with different fighting styles and special attacks. Players select teams of three characters to engage in one-on-one combat, and can choose to switch between them at any point during the match. When all three opposing teammates have been eliminated a Victory is declared. Ultra attacks can also be performed, calling on Megazords to assist with the battle.
One of the early ads for the game listing features available at launch.
Ranked Online, Arcade, Versus, Casual Online, Training and Tutorial modes were available at the game's launch. A story mode, loosely based on the "Shattered Grid" storyline and written by Boom! StudiosPower Rangers comic book writer Kyle Higgins, was added to the game in April 2019 along with three additional characters, voice acting and two new stages. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers actors Jason David Frank, Austin St. John, David J. Fielding and Kerrigan Mahan reprise their respective roles as Tommy Oliver/Lord Drakkon, Jason Lee Scott, Zordon and Goldar. An update in July 2019 added three characters via the first Season Pass, and additional features such as cross-platform play between the Switch Xbox One, and Windows versions; cross-platform support for PlayStation 4 was added via a later update in February 2020, making it the first fighting game of the eighth generation of video game consoles to support fully platform-agnostic multiplayer. A second season pass was announced alongside the game's Windows release. A third season of content was announced on May 25, 2020.
The Verdict:
After divulging about seven years of my gaming life into playing Street Fighter IV at the competitive level, I honestly burnt myself out on the fighting game genre by the time Ultra Street Fighter IV and then Street Fighter V dropped shortly thereafter. That being said, I still dabble here and there on an occasional new fighter that peaks my interest, such as Tekken 7, Soul Calibur VI, Injustice 2, Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, Gundam Versus, or even the recent Guilty Gear Xrd-STRIVE- beta to boot. My personal issue is that a lot of these games don't hold my interest long before I go back to playing something else, especially with the sheer complexity and/or time sink required to truly master these games.
With Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, I didn't run into that problem in the least. This is a VERY simple fighter to pick up and play for all skill levels, whether you are a seasoned pro at the genre or casual newcomer. You won't find any complex button inputs to perform special moves and attacks. Instead, everything is simplified, much like in the Super Smash Bros. series. That simplicity made me want to try out every character instead of shying away from others and keeping to the ones that I felt "safe" with in terms of the least amount of complex inputs to memorize and master.
I know the "hardcore" mindset of the FGC (fighting game community) tends to hear "simplicity" with dread as it tends to create an "EZ Mode" that rewards players lacking skill, but I have been always of the mindset of why do we have this artificial barrier of entry for this "elitist" club of players who bitch and moan about wanting more players to join it? Remove that artificial barrier and you would have more players willing and wanting to stick it out with your game for the long haul. The main reason that the first person shooter genre isn't going anywhere anytime soon is that they don't require any complex button inputs nor forces players to invest into a $100+ specialized controller/fightstick just to be somewhat competitive with the online environment. There isn't any artificial barriers of entry, which allows players to invest in the strategic aspect of gameplay instead of worrying about landing complex inputs with flawless precision. Right off the bat, Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid sold me onto this game with the lack of any of that. I was excited to suggest this game to not only all of the Power Rangers fans - old and new - that I personally knew, but to gamers in general that I thought would enjoy this game.
Summon your Megazord!
The gameplay combines the good of what we know and love from the Marvel vs. Capcom series with its tag team gameplay, but keeps things fresh enough in terms of the leniency and accessibly of the combo system to deal massive amounts of damage with relative ease. It's to be expected that a game like this would have "touch of death" combos, but there wasn't a single moment that I didn't feel like I couldn't come back in a match - at least in some capacity as long as I had the comeback mechanic in term of the Megazords that are available when you construct your team(s). Your Megazord meter can be used to summon your team's Megazord to rain down devastating attacks on your opponents, lock them down for potential mix-ups for your own team's combos, or even be used to counter another team's Megazord with the right timing at the cost of your own meter. Like any other "good" Versus title, there's also Snapbacks to force in a specific teammate into battle and Push Blocking to deal with rushdown-heavy combatants.
If I had any gripe about Push Blocking, it's the same issue that I had with it in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 as people will take FULL advantage of you mashing for it during blockstrings and whiff/delay the combos on purpose, thus setting you up in some highly disadvantageous situations. In those situations, it's not a design flaw with the game, but just a hurdle each player has to adapt to within those unique situations.
Send down the Putty Patrol!
Each character has an EX move (a more powerful version of one of their trademark attacks that costs 1 bar of super meter) and a Super Move unique to that character that deals massive damage at the cost of 2 bars of super meter.
The biggest disservice to this game and the 25+ year history of the Power Rangers franchise as a whole is the size of this roster. By default, there are only 4 seasons (2 seasons of Mighty Morphin while 1 season of Lost Galaxy, Super Megaforce, and S.P.D respectfully) represented in this game if you didn't purchase any of the downloadable content nor download the characters that were added for free following launch. I had the pleasure of picking this up while it was on sale, along with Season Passes 1 & 2 as part of one of the many PlayStation Network sales going on this summer. Otherwise, there's no way in hell I would have shelled out the cash for this game at launch if I knew how small this in-game roster was. Fortunately, the physical disk version of the game is set to release in October 2020 with every fighter to date available, along with the upcoming release of Lauren Shiba (Power Rangers Samurai Red Ranger II) and the remainder of Season Pass 3's DLC content.
That being said, it's still pretty jarring to know that Power Rangers has been around this long and there's little representation across the board for a lot of the seasons in that franchise's history, especially with some of the modern outings, such as Ninja Steel and Beast Morphers - which is currently airing on Nickelodeon.
This is only a FRACTION of the characters in Power Rangers: Legacy Wars. Explain to me why we couldn't get a sizable roster like this game did?
The small roster feels like a complete slap to the face, especially when you compare it to the in-game roster of Power Rangers: Legacy Wars. To make it more jarring, Legacy Wars was developed by nWay who worked on this game as well with the major difference being that game was made for mobile platforms and this was made with gaming consoles and PC in mind, despite the similar visuals. I would LOVE to see the wealth of those characters come into this game sooner more than later.
This is a VERY minor gripe, but I was bummed out that I couldn't swap out certain Rangers for their Super Sentai equivalents - namely Gia from Super Megaforce for Luka Millfy (Gokai Yellow) from Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger - instead of their traditional Power Rangers iterations. I guess I would have to hunt down some of the various import Super Sentai video games if I want to see any sort of representation from those teams in any capacity.
Story Mode
I can't say that I was too impressed with this story, especially having read the BOOM! Comics of the same name. They took some "creative" differences in terms of adapting this story for this video game. I'm guessing it's for the same reasons that Injustice: Gods Among Us have done with their video games as it's to not to heavily rely on the source material for they have a bit of freedom and wiggle room in future updates and expansions to the lore and sequels to the video game.
The Story Mode in this game isn't much to write home about, but I cleared all three Acts within the span of two and a half hours casually in one sitting. I have linked my complete playthrough stream archive of that gameplay below.
Once again, this story is hindered by the massive disservice that this game's in-game roster provides. You're left fighting the same grunts and henchmen for Lord Drakkon over and over again, along with some "brainwashed" Rangers littered in-between. I couldn't tell you how many times I grew sick of fighting Mastodon Sentries and Goldar on a repeated basis. If I didn't genuinely like the gameplay of this game, along with these characters in this continuity, then I honestly wouldn't have bothered playing this to its conclusion just from the sheer redundancy of it all.
I can't give them a pass on not representing a lot of the characters from the very same Mighty Morphin continuity that this story takes place in. Billy and Zack are oddly absence for majority of this story, despite the Mastodon Sentries being in the game along with the Cenozoic Blue Ranger. They could have re-skinned those characters for something, narrative-wise. I thought it was in bad taste that they got a poor imitation for Barbara Goodson's Rita Repulsa too, but I was saddened that Robert Axelrod died before Lord Zedd's inclusion into the game. Sadly, Zedd has absolutely no presence at all in this narrative, but at least they found a way to give Rita a prominent role.
On the positive side, the story does allow you to play roughly every fighter available in the game by default without any of the Season Passes, so that was a plus in that regard. A lot of the DLC characters are either shown in the background during cutscenes, so they have a place in the narrative to some extent.
Arcade & Training Modes
The Training Mode/Tutorials give players a sense of how to play the game from beginner techniques, such as movement and basic attacks, before graduating to advanced techniques, such as push blocking and breaking throws. The tutorial ends with a full blown match against the AI, putting everything that you have learned to work. The tutorial isn't as robust as the one for Killer Instinct or Skullgirls, but it's better than nothing at all which you usually tend to get from Vs. titles like this.
Arcade Mode scraps a lot of the redundancy from the Story Mode and recycles the same pre-fight lines for every battle in 7 battles back to back until you face Goldar (along with his Mastodon Sentries), Ranger Slayer (along with her Mastodon Sentries), and finally Lord Drakkon himself as the final boss. Each of those "boss" encounters have text dialogue exchanged between the key characters, but don't have any sort of any unique endings after defeating Lord Drakkon. In that aspect, it's a bit of a letdown, especially for the characters who don't get much action over the course of the Story Mode. The lack of voices to those dialogues came off as really lazy and half-assed to me in that regard, especially when the Story Mode was a post-launch addition. They could have done something more with the few Power Rangers alumni that provided their voices for this game.
The lackluster effort put into this mode reminds me a lot of how not just Street Fighter V (which got bombarded with criticism for it - rightfully so if I may add...) but a lot of modern fighters tend to neglect this aspect of offline/single player play. It's been said time and time again that these games and genre as a whole cannot thrive off of the "hardcore" competitive player base forever. Mortal Kombat 9 - along with almost every new fighting game that NetherRealm Studios puts their hands on - has a wealth of single player and multiplayer content to please casual and hardcore players. This idea that the developers think that they can hand players an incomplete game and allow players to "fund" it's progression to its "true" completion with season passes is getting to the point where it's beyond ridiculous. We are three seasons into this game and I think it's comical that this game is still lacking in a lot of pivotal content.
Online Matches
Despite all of these shortcomings, I want to praise this title's online component. I played through the online Ranked Matches until I hit Platinum League to get a proper assessment of the online environment. Long story short? This game has an EXCELLENT online netcode. That's amazing, especially when this game has cross-platform play across PC and all current generation consoles. Outside of a few random disconnections due to server errors and/or sore losers, I never ran into a match that was so littered with lag that I felt the matches were unplayable. I am more surprised that there's a healthy online component for this game period, especially when the genre has so many options available at gamers' disposal. More developers in the genre need to take note with the marvels that have been done with Power Rangers' netcode. It doesn't matter how great your game is offline when players can't enjoy it online, especially now more than ever when players are forced to play at home instead of in-person due to the current global pandemic.
I firmly believe that more fighting games should adopt rollback netcode or GGPO for their fighting games instead of the tired and true delay based netcode that the industry seems to constantly rely on. I have played a lot of fighting games over the last two console generations and this is easily the best online experience I have had out of any of those games to date.
Play It or Don't Bother?
Assemble your crew.
If you're a fan of Power Rangers, definitely give this a look, but you might be disappointed that your favorite season in the franchise isn't represented. As it stands currently, I wouldn't purchase this game for what it retails for at $20+ digitally as you're getting a pretty basic bare-bones fighting game for the digital pricing, but the physical disk release in October is shaping up to be the game that SHOULD have been released when this game initially launched.. The digital pricing is a complete rip-off when the individual Season Passes go for $15 each ($45 total for all three) when they aren't on sale. You're better off waiting for the physical release of the game that is set to release on October 8, 2020 that gives you EVERYTHING right out of the box - Season Passes 1-3 along with all of the extra costume skins and DLC add-on characters - for the flat price of $30.
This game doesn't have "auto-combos" that many casual players enjoyed in Dragon Ball FighterZ, but does have the traditional "magic series" (chaining button presses from Low, Medium, and Heavy attacks in succession for simplified combos) combos found in Capcom's Vs. series. On the positive side, if you're looking for a fighting game that anyone of all skill levels could jump into in the same vein of Super Smash Bros. series' style of inputs, you can't go wrong with this game. There's no Dragon Punch/Shoryuken, Tiger Knee commands, nor strict frame perfect precise inputs in this game. As it stands currently, the only "complex" inputs are jump-cancellable attacks and that's not "required" for the long-term enjoyment of this game.
That being said, this game isn't going to be for everyone. If you want to try the bare bones version first, I humbly suggest waiting for one of the digital sales on PSN, Xbox Live, Steam, or Nintendo's eShop before full investing into the title. If you do decide to take a chance on this fighter, you'll find one of the most rewarding combo systems that I have had the pleasure of experimenting with in recent memory, only bested by Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite's combo system (despite all of the negativity surrounding that game since launch), with an excellent online netcode that allows players to find other players of all skill levels to test your skills against.
It's a tough call, but I genuinely had a blast with this game and was pleasantly surprised at the gameplay - both online and offline, despite the various shortcomings that I have mentioned. Sadly, this is a game that needs more support to become what it SHOULD be, especially for a game that is allegedly honoring the 25+ year history of the Power Rangers franchise. Much like Power Rangers Super Megaforce, this is a labor of love that has good intentions, but needs some polish before being truly great.
In Halo Infinite's campaign, the Master Chief returns when humanity's fate hangs in the balance to confront the most ruthless foe he's ever faced – the Banished.
Looking at this, I'm with everyone else. This looks like a last-generation title than something for next-gen hardware. On the flip side though, this is allegedly a glimpse back into the past of what made us fall in love with Halo in the first place. Everything was here in this trailer - dual-wielding, armor abilities/power-ups from Halo 3 and Reach, hi-jacking vehicles and raining down the chaos from the driver's seat, and most importantly, this is still the Master Chief that we know and love.
I haven't played Halo 5, so I don't know where his previous adventure has left him, but it seems like he's in for his greatest battle to date - if they aren't all pretty legendary/epic in their own right. Maybe the visuals will improve in time for release but for a first impression, these visuals didn't deliver, but I was stoked to actually play this. If the rumors are true about Microsoft making Xbox Live Gold free to play multiplayer then they have a strong contender to dominate the holidays from that fact alone. Some of my fondest memories in college were all of the gatherings we had in the dorms of 16 player system link Halo matches.
That being said if Microsoft's Xbox has been your console of choice, then you definitely have a bit to look forward to with the Xbox Series X presentation. I'm not going to cover this in it's entirety but I wanted to provide the event in its entirety here for those interested.
