Mighty Morphin Chroma Squad | Chroma Squad Review

Chroma Squad is a tactical RPG that allows you to step behind the scenes of one of the beloved Sentai (just think of Power Rangers) shows you grew up with while giving you the tools to create a new Power Rangers-like show. Behold Studios captures the essence of the Sentai genre, from the over the top cardboard clad bad guys to the epic mecha battles and meshing spectacularly with the turn based gameplay of games like XCOM.

When five disgruntled stunt actors become fed up their pompous director and the meandering plot of their current Power Rangers type series they band together and decide to leave to create their own Sentai series. Starting out of one your squad member’s uncle’s warehouse you will start filming new episodes and begin to build a new studio from the ground up. The main story of Chroma Squad will take you on an enthralling journey that is filled with some hilarious dialogue and some crazy situations.

The beautiful pixel artwork from Behold Studios previous games like Knights of Pen & Paper and Monster Jam have been exquisitely injected into this Power Rangers-style world. Not only do the characters, enemies and Mechas look great, the environments that your squad battles through look excellent. From forests to construction sites and cities and your studio, Chroma Squads pixel artwork is bursting with vibrant colors which is expected from any Sentai TV show.

The XCOM-like turn-based combat comes into play when the squad is filming an episode. With each squad member being a different class, this brings a wide variety of ways to take down your foes. Whether that being the damage dealing Assault class, the buff specialist Techie class or the squad healing Assist class, teamwork is paramount especially in the later seasons of the game. At the end of the most of the episodes is an epic mecha battle, where your team members will combine into a huge robot to take on the huge enemies across the city skyline (cardboard boxes in the studio).

As you play through each episode there is an audience bar at the top of the screen and this determines how many viewers your episode will end up. This can be increase through performing special moves and working together or completing the director’s instructions such as defeating all the minions or completing in a certain amount of turns. However the bar can go down if one of your squad members is downed or if you lose a battle, which results in having to delay the episode a week and having to reshoot. This simple dynamic makes you really think about how you fight, working with team members to perform special takedowns or crazy moves. The more viewers you get, the more money your studio earns.

The battles can get a little repetitive from time to time, fighting similar enemy types throughout entire campaign. The mecha battles are quite repetitive as well, a much simpler battles that often makes you feel as though you have done it all before after only a few of them.

Between episodes you will upgrade your actors and your mecha’s skills and abilities by purchasing and crafting new equipment. Boost your TV ratings by hiring different marketing agencies and upgrade your studio by purchasing new additions such as enhanced lighting, superior cameras and better-quality green screens.

Interacting with your fans is an integral of Chroma Squad, keeping them happy means that more money for the studio and more money for the studio means better gear and a better studio. A great way that Chroma Squad allows you to interact with your fans is via emails. Between each episode you will find a number of new emails in your inbox. How you deal with these emails is almost entirely up to, sometimes they are just fans writing in to tell you how much they love the show, sometimes they are scams trying to get money out of you, although on the odd occasion your squad can benefit greatly if you make the right decision. Whether that be helping out a fan with some money or investing in a decent business proposal these emails can often result in getting more fans, rare gear or crafting materials.

Throughout my time with Chroma Squad I only encountered a small amount of frame rate dips during some of the intense mecha battles which although not game breaking did unfortunately lead me to not defending as well as I had hoped. Very small flaws for how well the game exceeds in most other facets.

Behold Studios’ Chroma Squad pays a beautiful homage to the Sentai genre, allowing you to build your own studio as well as Sentai TV show. The intriguing story that is woven around the excellent mix between a part management game part XCOM-style turn-based tactical RPG is one that will keep you hooked and coming back for more. Upgrading your actors, mecha and studio is satisfying and watching it all come together as you take down cardboard clad bad guys and watch your TV ratings skyrocket. Apart from the slight frame rate drops during mecha battles the game runs extremely well. The repetitive nature of the battles is overshadowed by the steady upgrade system that regularly grants you new weapons and abilities to try out on your next foes. Behold Studios have crafted an excellent game that is not only for Sentai fans but those craving something unique.

This review is based on a review copy of the PC version of Chroma Squad produced and developed by Behold Studios