Power Rangers: Legacy Wars Review

DFG Exclusive Review Summary

Read Full Power Rangers: Legacy Wars Review

Game Description

Super Smash Rangers

Power Rangers: Legacy Wars is a fairly simple fighting game with one big thing going for it: you can create your own personal dream team of Power Rangers from several different series that have taken place throughout the years. I mean come on, that's pretty awesome.

Let's Go, Team

The Rangers you decide to bring into battle can make a pretty big difference.

• Not everyone is a Leader. Leaders are the only Rangers you can control directly. Most Rangers have both a Leader and an Assist version, but they aren't interchangeable.
• Health is cumulative. The health totals of all three of your chosen team members are all added to your overall health total. Keep this in mind if you find yourself getting K.O'ed often.
• Know your skills. Yellow indicates regular attacks that can be strung together for combos, Red is for strong attacks that are slow to use but can't be blocked, and Blue marks defensive skills.
• Leaders have several skills each, while Assist characters only have one available. Who you add to your team will have a direct impact on the skills you'll have available in a fight.
• Upgrade your Rangers. As you earn rewards from winning battles, you'll inevitably get the chance to spend some coins on upgrading your Rangers. Do this at every opportunity - at least for the Rangers you use regularly - because upgrading means more overall health and stronger attacks.

Hi-Yah and All That

Legacy Wars looks like a fairly typical fighting game, but there's a certain pace to it that might throw you off if you're not mindful of it.

• You can actually move left and right. By swiping on the screen, you can get your Leader to dash towards or away from your opponent; assuming you haven't reached the edge of the arena, that is.
• You can chain regular (yellow) attacks together by tapping several of them in succession.
• Be mindful of your energy. Energy builds up quickly over time but caps out at 10. Be careful not to spend a bunch of energy on high-cost attacks and leave your energy reserves empty.
• Blocking will interrupt combos. You can block at almost any time (when the skill is available), it doesn't use any energy, and it's a great way to open your opponent up for a counter-attack.
• Strong (red) attacks cannot be blocked. If you see your opponent block, cue up a strong attack. If you see a strong attack coming, try to counter with a faster regular attack or dash out of the way.

Hit and Miss

It takes some getting used to, but Power Rangers: Legacy Wars can be a pretty good time. The only real problem is unreliable internet connections which, sadly, have the potential of completely ruining said good time.

Power Rangers: Legacy Wars Review

Fighting Fantasies

A fighting game - admittedly a simple one - where you can pit a bunch of different Power Rangers from all across the various series, from Mighty Morphin' to the new movie? Sign me up! Although, while it's definitely cool to be able to put together all sorts of wild dream teams of Rangers from across several different series, I could do without the 100% focus on online versus play.

Go, Go, All the Rangers!

Right from the start, Power Rangers: Legacy Wars' appeal is obvious. The various Rangers look really good on screen, and you can acquire a whole bunch of them. Granted my interest in Power Rangers petered out around the time Mighty Morphin' came to an end, so I don't have much familiarity with other series like Wild Force or Dino Thunder, but my nostalgia goggles are rosy enough when it comes to the show that started it all - in the US, anyway. I'm well aware of the fact that Super Sentai had been a thing since well before we first heard 'It's morphin' time!' on tv.

Mechanically, Legacy Wars is sort of like a fighting game that's been mashed-up with a card game. Only without the cards. At any given time you have three different abilities available that include regular attacks, slow but powerful heavy attacks, and/or a block. The card-like stuff involves the randomness of ability appearances, which don't seem to have any rhyme or reason to them as far as I can tell. I've had matches where I almost always have a block available, and I've had some where I go several exchanges without being given the option. Regardless, knowing when to use these different abilities is key to winning. Managing your energy, which builds up over time and is required to 'pay' for using different moves, is also super important.

While your team of three only has one primary fighter, which is (disappointingly) sort of its own class so you can't just go picking anybody you want to put at the front lines, the other two Rangers provide support attacks. They pop into your ability selection bar just like any other attack, use energy just like any other attack, and can often deal some pretty serious damage. Of course if they get hit it counts against your own health bar, so don't start treating them like some sort of ultimate attack that makes you invincible.

There's a sort of rhythm that I began to pick up on after a few matches that, once I found it, made playing Legacy Wars much more enjoyable. At first I honestly hated it because I was trying to play it more like a regular fighting game. The tutorial/training mode not going over important stuff like how you can move by swiping the screen (seriously) didn't help, but again, once I figured this stuff out for myself it got much more palatable. Now I can say I actually do enjoy it - when it works.

The big problem with Legacy Wars is its reliance on an online connection. This in itself isn't inherently a bad thing - there are lots of mobile games that require an online connection and offer realtime player-versus-player competition - but even the slightest bit of lag can completely kill any enjoyment. Even after wrapping my head around the rhythm and the unexplained mechanics I still found myself loosing my composure during these lag-infested match-ups. Activating some abilities wouldn't work, others would take seconds (SECONDS) before actually starting up - it's definitively not a good time. What good is learning the game's rhythm when that rhythm goes completely out the window when someone's connection slows down?

Latency Matters

So long as you spend a bit of time training so you can get a feel for the pace of play, and so long as you have a consistently stable internet connection, Power Rangers: Legacy Wars is a fun time. If your connection is even the slightest bit unreliable, though, be prepared for a headache.

Player Reviews