Go Go Loot Boxes
This has to be considered the greatest collection of Power Rangers characters in a video game.
In the Summer of 2020 I, like some of the country, was on lock down with nothing really to do except my 24 hours of work a month and kind of just hanging out at home. I was itching to get in to a fighting game and one that I understood or was basic enough for me to learn. Then I also wondered if Power Rangers was ever going to create a game that let me play as different Rangers throughout the series. The answer was yes and it just so happened to be a mobile fighting game. I was hesitant at first because I’m not a fan of P2W (Pay 2 Win) games but I thought I wouldn’t spend anything on the game and chose to see how far I could get.
I started up the game and began looking at the overwhelming amount of playable characters to choose from but then I realized – I had to unlock them. Unlocking them seemed easy enough, just win and earn your way up to different leagues. How simple. Then I saw each character had moves that could be upgraded to match your player level. Your player level was increased by the amount of shards you used to unlock and upgrade your moves so they went hand in hand for awhile. Then I needed to upgrade my stats on each character – defense, strikes, health etc. But I also needed orbs to level up everything on a character. My goal was to just pick my favorites and go from there.
Having a wide range of Rangers, Villains, Mentors, and Henchmen was great at the start but I found myself spread thin on resources. When I finally got to Emerald League I was getting my butt kicked by everyone because I didn’t focus on the right people. I was using Zeo Pink for the most part and then switched over to Turbo Pink which carried me up to the next league, Sapphire. Then that’s when I noticed the divide between players. Not just good players (because there is a lot) but players who were paying to unlock new characters and max them out right away. My first experience with this was when I was a level 7 Turbo Pink got outright destroyed by Dino Thunder Yellow. She was a level 5 and the character had just dropped MINUTES ago. She was destroying me. I was in shock and then noticed a lot of the characters I was fighting in Sapphire league were premium characters. I had lost so much I dropped back down to Emerald and noticed I was fighting against characters that have been premium or characters the game started you with.
It was in that moment I realized if I wanted to not get frustrated I would have to pony up some money to unlock things a bit quicker or to get better stats/levels/characters. I had been saving pretty much all my Zeo Gems (a currency in-game that you can buy with real money) that I had been earning SLOWLY from just playing the game to eventually use on someone I wanted. Then he showed up. Jungle Fury Rhino Ranger! He’s from my favorite season (Power Rangers Jungle Fury) and one of my top 3 characters from the whole franchise. Mind you I hadn’t, and still as of this writing, unlocked DaiShi or Wolf Ranger yet so I was waiting for Rhino Ranger. I used up all my free Zeo Gems and only got 7 Shards of Dom and didn’t even unlock him (you need 10 to unlock a character) so to say I was bummed was an understatement. I would use Rhino Ranger anytime they had Casual Play (non ranked matches for fun) and I was fine tuning the way I would use him if I ever did unlock him.
While I was saving something happened – I had gotten a Gold or Silver Loot Box (can’t really recall the color) but it took 24 hours to unlock and when it did unlock it dropped me 10 Rhino Ranger shards! I was excited! I went to Twitter right away to show off my level 1 Rhino Ranger and I was getting wrecked using him cause he was not strong at all. But I persistently kept using him to get better with him. I leveled him up and then he came back in the shop and I dropped all my free Zeo Gems again and got so many more shards to level him up and now I’m sitting in Sapphire league enjoying a good 2-3 win streak before losing 2-3 times but i enjoy it because he’s my favorite character.
While I do not like the P2W format, the game can promote a happy little balance between paying for the Power Pass ($5 a month to get skins and double rewards on some boxes) and just enjoying the game for what it is – a celebration of a lot of Power Rangers history mixed with some need to make money – a motto that I can look past but still look at my screen in frustration when Ninja Tommy shows up (Balance him nWay I’m begging you!) but I do like to highlight when Rhino Ranger beats him. Back to action! Jungle Beast SPIRIT UNLEASHED!
Update 11/23 White Ninja Tommy has been balanced.
