 | As a kid during the Power Rangers craze, I was mostly jealous that I wasn’t allowed to watch the show every week like my friends. No real reason why, just my mother couldn’t stand it (In retrospect, I don’t blame her!) Plus, I was always stuck playing the yellow ranger because a more popular girl had already claimed dibs on the pink ranger. |
But despite all this, there’s just something still deeply appealing about Japanese spandex-clad superheroes fighting ridiculous monsters. Playing Chroma Squad, a part-homage part-parody of these shows, has brought back fond memories of cheesy jokes and over-the-top action as seen in low-budget productions. Cardboard boxes never looked so good.
Chroma squad is a tactics turn-based game about a group of actors creating their own superhero squad TV show with a shoestring budget. Each turn, you move your rainbow-colored heroes and attack hordes of monsters, then the monsters take their turn and fight back. Each hero has their own special move, such as a sword attack or a healing move, which you can execute every so often. Special moves like this, as well as acrobatics and more complex fighting, keep the show exciting and help you to gain fans.
Behind the scenes, there’s the studio to run, nicer green screens to purchase, and acquiring better, sturdier costumes for your group of actors so they don’t get knocked out during filming. The emails you receive in the game range from helpful to hilarious, and you can craft various items out of the duct tape and bits of junk that fall off of the characters as they beat each other up.
My favorite part of the game is also one of the simplest: everything is customizable, including the name of the team, the various shouts that they make, even the names of the actors. You can truly make it “your” show, so if you’ve always wanted to name your own mecha robot, here’s your chance. I won’t judge if your inner ten-year-old wants to name everything with cringeworthy innuendo or South Park references.
Let’s fighting love!
-The Dungeon Dame
-The Dungeon Dame
