Monthly Archives: March 2017

Hype Train: Power Rangers: Legacy Wars:

Power Rangers Editorial 1

Get dunked, nerd!

Henshin Daaaaaa! Oh wait, this is the American version. Let me try again.

It’s Morphin’ Time!

Much better. Okay, so, anyone who knows me knows I adored Power Rangers as a young man, and as an adult, I found the Japanese “Super Sentai” franchise, thanks to Mike, one of my best friends since Middle School. There’s still a part of me that loves it and won’t deny it. And with two new games and a new film? My hype is building to uncomfortable levels. So when I was asked to play Power Rangers: Legacy Wars, I informed my boss that not only had I been playing it for a day, I was at that time, undefeated. I’ve only lost three times since the game came out, pretty proud of that too. But I’m willing to look at this without rose-coloured glasses on, because while I love this game, there are some things that need work, or are not so perfect. That’s okay though! There’s only one perfect game and that’s EarthBound; that’s just how life is. So the important question is: What is Power Rangers: Legacy Wars?

Power Rangers Editorial 2

The cast is varied, but where’s my Koragg?

It’s a 2D fighter in the same vein as Mortal Kombat on mobile, except you have two allies to jump in and assist, a’la Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Marvel’s not dead, guys! It’s just turned into Power Rangers! And isn’t that better? You have Lead Characters, and Assists, and most of the cast has a version of both. I haven’t seen an assist Tommy Oliver [Green, White, Zeo 5, Turbo Red, Dino Black], but most of them I have! You can tell which is which because the Lead Character version is zoomed in on the helmet. You unlock characters by opening boxes, which have a timer on them [unless you spend money, those unlock immediately], and when you have enough shards for them, you can unlock them in the Roster Menu. Typically the higher the rarity, the more shards needed, as well as for upgrading them. So yes, keep farming shards! If you get the appropriate amount of shards, you can use coins to level up the character, increasing their stats, and you really really want that. More damage, more overall health won’t make you win, but it certainly won’t hurt your chances. It still comes down to skill. But you can’t just pick whatever you want, or rather, you shouldn’t. There are three styles of characters, Balanced, Attacker, Defender. I prefer to have one of each, my Lead is a Balanced, then my assists are Attacker/Defender, and there’s also a Rock-Paper-Scissors aspect to be aware of. Defense Moves [Blue, Move, I’ll get to that] beat Regular Attacks [Yellow], and Breaker Attacks [Red] defeat Defense Moves. You can use Defense to stop Regular Attacks, but not Defense. It’s important to note that Attackers “can” defend, but Defense characters have a better chance of doing so.

Power Rangers 3

Skills to pay the bills!

You can also move back and forth by swiping and personally I tend to immediately move back at the start, see how they react. From there, I build my strategy! As time goes on, even if you’re under attack, your meter builds which has a number assigned to it. The abilities characters have also have a cost, which you use your meter for. Thankfully, Defense is a 0 cost move. Your goal is to get the other team to 0 hp, and it’s even easier if you can pin them into the corner and juggle them up the screen because there’s no Burst, no Break Out, other than hoping you have a Defense skill. You don’t recycle skills, either. If you can’t use them, you can’t gain new ones. And if you pin them into the corner, and keep bouncing them, like using Green Ranger’s “Kickin’ It”, which is a vile, powerful combo move [that I love, by the by], follow up with Dragon Quake, or another one of his moves, and hopefully you’ll be able to continue stomping them. Their obvious response is going to be to defend as soon as they can, and you wait, hoping for a Red Attack. That’s why Balanced is best, they have a nice variety of moves. Your assists are also expensive [4-5 at least], but they can make up for whatever you lack on your main character. The combat is fast, the matches are short, and the point gains have been pretty good. I gain on average 33-34 on a win, and lose 15-16 on a loss. So I don’t feel like a single loss will crush me.

Power Rangers Editorial 4

There are Leagues, and each League unlocks more characters. Well, it unlocks the ability to unlock more characters. I do like the cast that is currently in the game, and I’m glad the film characters are in it, but why not the original movie suits? Those would be interesting, but also I do admit it could convolute the list of names even further! I’d still like it though. I’m grateful that the list of playables is so varied, but there are some that I’d like to see that aren’t in yet. Magna Defender, Koragg the Knight Wolf, the entire team from Hurricanger/Ninja Storm. . . That’s the good thing about a game like this! There will always be characters to add! I do love that there is such a variety though. All they have to do is reach out and I’ll gladly give more suggestions, as well as rarity and attacks! I’ve got you guys. One day, my love of Sentai will be an asset! The game will give you chests as you progress, like the Corruption Chest [daily] which is unlocked by dealing damage! I love that concept, and it can drop some pretty great shards. Alpha 5 will give you chests throughout the day, but those are generally just common shards, coins, and power crystals. But I am grateful that those free chests also give Coins/Crystals because it’s a way to buy stuff without spending real money. A slow way, but a way nonetheless!

Power Rangers Editorial 5

Now here’s the hard part. I love this game, but it’s definitely not perfect. Winning matches gives you chests, like Noble Chests, and they can definitely give you Rare, useful shards for your team. But. . . the better that chest is, the longer the wait is. Some of them are 8 hours. So you can either wait or use 12 or so Power Crystals to unlock immediately. Thankfully all chests give Coins and Crystals, so you can in theory just unlock them immediately. But if you’re lacking, you will have to either wait or spend money. The game does go faster if you spend money, but I don’t think “pay to win” is the way I’d classify it. Definitely, the potential for pay to go faster, though. They also offer bundles, generally for about 10 bucks, that gives you a huge pile of in-game currency [Power Crystals], Coins, and at least one powerful, rare character. When the game first came out, they had one for a Rare, Balanced Tommy Oliver [Green Ranger]. Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic is the order [but that’s what it is for all games!] and it was definitely worth it. The leveling system is kind of busted, having to crack chests to unlock more shards. I just wish there were an alternate method, like using Coins or Power Crystals or sacrificing other team members.  I’ve had this talk before, and some people say that it’s bad for you to spend real money on a free game, but I think if you love a game, and want to support it, you spend money as long as it’s not a pay-to-win concept. This is not one of those times. The thing I detest, though, that really upset me: There’s only one Defense move. There are plenty of other moves, but I’ve only seen one Blue move, so it’s my hope that that gets fixed up in the near future.

Magic Wand, Make My Hype Train Grow! 4/5

Power Rangers Editorial 6

Bye, Trini!

I love this game! I normally don’t play mobile fighters, but hot damn, this has everything I want in one place: Sentai/Rangers, cool moves, team building. I stand by it not being pay to win, but I could see an argument for “Pay to Start”. I’d be willing to pay for this game if it started you with a better character than it did. But buying a bundle at the start definitely helped me, because you don’t start with such a powerful character, and the bundle gave me Power Crystals to both buy boxes, and unlock boxes for winning much faster. But it won’t make you good at the game! That only comes with understanding how the game functions and acting/reacting swiftly. It’s fun, addicting, and climbing feels rewarding. The chests improve as you go on, and so do the characters you can play with. Normally when I review a mobile game, it just disappears from my phone afterward but this is not one of those. I can pick it up for a few minutes, body some fools, and then go about my day. If I could figure out streaming from my phone, I’d probably stream it too, if possible! I’m so glad that the developers of this game and sponsors for it have a real love of the content, and I feel like it shows in everything. The only other complaint: Not enough of the real music from the shows! No “Combat”, no “Tengu-Bye-Bye”, nothin’! If you love fighting games and want to get your fix with some Power Rangers, you’d do well to give it a swing!

LawBreakers CBT1 Impressions

By Michael Sagoe (mikedot)

 

From one test to another, Boss Key Productions has let loose yet another milestone to their upcoming gravity defying FPS: LawBreakers. For those that aren’t familiar with the game and the dev team behind it: LawBreakers is an arena style, team-based shooter where the laws of gravity have been royally screwed up due to some global event called “The Shattering,” and players can either side with Law officials or criminals simply known as Breakers in an attempt to abuse gravity to aid in the act of theft and glorious murder. The changes showcased in the first closed beta for Lawbreakers included the introduction of three new character classes, several new balance changes, new maps, a loot system and so much more, all topped off with integrated voice chat support with Discord and enhance support for Nvidia Shadowplay.

With all this, I managed to try out every little thing the beta had to offer during it four available days, and right at the end of it all, I was hungry for so much more. I will flat out say right here and now that I’m quite excited for LawBreakers, because it truly feels like something new and unique compared to many titles on the market right now. Cliffy B and his team at Boss Key have really gotten a gem on their hands, and with a few more tweaks and extra polish, I could easily see this become a smash hit.

That being said, however, there are a few things about some of the changes they’ve made from Alpha to Beta that does irk me a bit, but we’ll go over that a bit later. For now, let’s start off with the game’s first noticeable changes: The UI and menu screens.

LawBreakers CBT - 1

Compared to the original, the starting menu screens were way livelier as it shows Maverick and Toska-9 dogfighting in midair as their character models slowly rotating from right to left. The lobbies have been given more options to choose from including the option to go customize your character, check your profile, access new settings and more. When entering into a match, you can also notice how some slight changes to the UI, as the game now showcases skill cooldowns, player kills and deaths in a way more stylized way. While I feel that some elements of the UI could be tweaked a little bit more, what they currently have in beta is good enough for me.

This beta then introduced two new maps, one known as Mammoth and the other called Station. While the Mammoth map serves as a spaceship hanger, the theme for Station is just as it sounds like, being a futuristic train terminal/shopping mall. Both of these maps have a very similar layout design just like all the other maps in the game, with one wide open area for zero-g dogfighting and several enclosed spaces for close quarters combat. Personally, I’m not completely fond of the various enclosed areas which players generally get funneled into, especially during overcharge matches as they generally turn into messy chokepoints that can be difficult to get around once the enemy team gets their feet planted after securing the battery. Of course, that isn’t to say that these chokepoints aren’t impossible to get around, but I’d much rather see the team at Boss Key focus their efforts on map design that focuses more towards the zero-g combat, because there’s nothing quite as satisfying as sailing through the air with blindfire and nailing your opponent with a well-placed shotgun blast.

Next, they included a new loot system called “stash boxes” as well as a customization system that works suspiciously similar to another popular FPS, Overwatch. As your character gains levels from completing matches, you earn a stash box that contains four cosmetic items including character and weapon skins. Occasionally, stash boxes will have coins that can be saved up to purchase skins directly from the customization menu. Now, I know that this game has been getting a lot of flak for being an “Overwatch Killer” when the gameplay between the two are radically different, people have been trying to draw comparisons between the two for some of the dumbest reasons ever, and I really wish people would ease up on those comparisons as the game is clearly trying to do its own thing.  Still, the stash box and customization system is something that I can live with, since it incentives play well without having to go down the road of giving players power overtime with systems like stat perks and what not.

LawBreakers CBT - 2

Lastly, the biggest change included was the addition of three new classes: The Gunslinger, the Juggernaunt and the Battle Medic, each of which tailor to different playstyles that one would expect from a team-based shooter. The gunslinger class was easily my favorite of the three new classes, as his moveset in specifically tailored towards dueling. With two pistols in each hand, the gunslinger can fire each pistol independently, attack while blind firing through zero-g and perform other unique tricks. And they also can be reloaded independently, too, so it’s quite possible for a gunslinger to always be firing at their opposition as long as they watch their ammo counts and use them wisely. Not to mention that the gunslinger has a few more tertiary abilities to round out their kit such as a throwing dagger that deals a small amount of damage while revealing enemies in a small sonar like proximity, a dash around to avoid big damage attacks, and even an ultimate that allows the gunner to melt enemies in seconds. I honestly like what they’ve been able to pull off with the gunslinger and see this class as a shining example as to how much Boss Key is trying to make their game stand out from the competition.

 

Now despite all my positives placed towards the game, I do have some issues with some of the other two classes introduced into the game. I’ll begin with the Juggernaut. The overall defensive gameplay style designed for this class does not fit well with the fast-paced nature of LawBreakers’ gameplay where offensiveness and mobility is key. Having a high health pool, shield ability to block incoming damage, and a damage reducing ultimate doesn’t mean much to me when the Juggernaunt’s slow, bulky presence alone is enough to make opponents want to focus fire them. The shield that Juggernauts can deploy does not seem to last very long under fire so it’s only good for blocking one big damage attack or two. Lastly, the Juggernaut’s only means of attack is a shotgun that’s (obviously) only effective in close range, and any opponent that isn’t completely braindead will simply know to keep their distance from a Juggernaut with relative ease so long as the Juggernaut doesn’t get the surprise drop on them from a blind angle. Basically, Juggernaunt is like a class that was designed for a completely different game (like Call of Duty Black Ops 3) rather than LawBreakers…

Same goes with the Battle Medic class which was also introduced as a clear answer to players that despised the game’s reliance on healing stations through each map. To be quite honest, I had a pretty big kneejerk reaction when I saw the Battle Medic in the game, thinking “Oh god, they’re going down THAT route with this game now…” But my feelings on this class were more favorable than I expected due to how effective they were at dealing damage and with how quickly players can rack up the damage counter. Also the Battle Medic’s healing ability wasn’t prominent as I feared. Still, I really hope that they tweak Battle Medic’s healing to only be effective in giving a friendly a small boost to help them with a scramble. Just introducing a healing class feels like they’re trying to appeal to the Overwatch crowd, and it’s something that I can’t really get behind.

 

I’d really rather not see Lawbreakers turn into a game where mandatory roles need to be filled, and with the inclusion of the Juggernaunt and Battle Medic, which are clearly intended to be played in a defensive and supportive way respectively, I can’t help but feel as if they are taking too many notes from other modern team-based shooters and digging itself into a hole that will ultimately force the game to carry a “just another Overwatch wannabe” label. I want to believe that Boss Key isn’t trying to achieve this with Lawbreakers original core design. The whole main reason why I feel in love with LawBreakers in the first place was to get away from modern team-based FPSes like Ovewatch, along with other “Hero Shooters” trying to ride off of Overwatch’s coat tails. If it were up to me, I would like to see the Juggernaunt’s mobility get a rework of sorts, and as for the Battle Medic, I’d probably trash that class completely. In my humble opinion, Lawbreakers needs to stay as a twitch-based shooter first and a team-based shooter second, and go with that angle for as long as possible.

 

Everything else about the game was awesome. The overall polish the game has from alpha to beta is a huge leap forward. Besides from the Juggernaut class, every other class feels good, unique and moderately well balanced. The music is nice and energetic, the visuals are grand and the gameplay is solid. While the game could use a few more maps and game modes, what they have now is a well-rounded package that made me want to play for hours on end. I have a lot of high hopes for LawBreakers and Boss Key Studios, and as soon as the next closed beta rolls around, you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be all over it once more.