{"id":462,"date":"2019-07-03T05:05:01","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T05:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seventh-studios.com\/project\/harper\/?p=462"},"modified":"2019-07-03T05:05:01","modified_gmt":"2019-07-03T05:05:01","slug":"power-rangers-legacy-wars-wants-20-years-of-history-to-be-more-than-a-cash-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wiharper.com\/power-rangers-legacy-wars-wants-20-years-of-history-to-be-more-than-a-cash-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Power Rangers: Legacy Wars wants 20 years of history to be more than a cash-in"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We finally have a game that can help us settle a 20-year-old debate: \nWho was the better fighter, the original Red Ranger (aka Jason Lee \nScott) or the Green Ranger (Tommy Oliver)? My money\u2019s on Jason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developer nWay is making this dream match-up come true with Power Rangers: Legacy Wars, a real-time multiplayer fighting game coming to iOS and Android devices on March 23. While Legacy Wars is a tie-in game for Lionsgate\u2019s Power Rangers<\/em> reboot film, it also includes heroes and villains from the franchise\u2019s 24-year history on TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That means old fans like me can pit a crew of Rangers from the \u201890s Mighty Morphin<\/em><\/a> era against the 2017 movie incarnations or the 2015 cast from Power Rangers Dino Charge<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[Lionsgate and franchise owner Saban Brands] have really taken a big\n bet on us to create something unique,\u201d said nWay chief executive \nTaehoon Kim to GamesBeat. \u201cThe big reason is \u2014 if you look at the mobile\n industry right now, everything is all clones, right? \u2026 Something like \n[Legacy Wars] is a new experience, a new type of fun. That, combined \nwith the Power Rangers brand, could work wonders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legacy Wars differentiates itself from other mobile fighting games \nwith its card-based combat system. During battle, you select your \nfighting moves \u2014 like a block, punch, or special attack \u2014 by tapping one\n of the three cards in your hand (you still move left or right by \nswiping the screen). Once you use the card, another one from your deck \ntakes its place, adding an element of randomness to your fights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Above: The cards at the bottom determine what actions you can take <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Above: The cards at the bottom determine what actions you can take.Image Credit: nWay <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learning from ChronoBlade<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Power Rangers: Legacy Wars is only the second game to come from the \nSan Francisco-based nWay, a studio made up of veterans from companies \nlike Realtime Worlds, Kabam, and Electronic Arts. Its first project, \nChronoBlade, was an attempt to make an action role-playing game<\/a>\n for phones and tablets. It also had a competitive multiplayer mode. \nHowever, nWay soon found out that the game was too complex to sustain a \nlarge audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe tried [making a regular fighting game] and it didn\u2019t work well,\u201d \nKim explained. \u201cThe pool of players just became more and more hardcore \nbecause it was so twitch-based. \u2026 Some people just don\u2019t have that \nreflex. And those people were leaving. We were left with super hardcore \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With ChronoBlade, nWay built its own low-latency matchmaking \ntechnology, which allowed players to fight each other in real time. But \nwhile the game didn\u2019t work out the way the developers wanted it to, it \ndid play a big part in attracting Lionsgate executives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLionsgate saw ChronoBlade and they thought [nWay] would be a really \ngood fit. Actually, they thought the multiplayer technology was \nsomething that would work really well with the Power Rangers,\u201d said Kim.\n \u201cAnd then they showed us that they were making a movie and that we \ncould license content from the movie and the TV series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we saw the amount of characters that they have, that\u2019s when we \ngot really excited about marrying the IP [intellectual property] with \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

. We thought it was the perfect mix.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inspired by the success of accessible multiplayer games like Clash Royale<\/a>, the developers wanted to make a 1-on-1 fighting game that anyone could play. As a result, Legacy Wars is a much more relaxing experience compared to ChronoBlade. Kim said you can even play it with one hand if you wanted to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Above: You can select up to three characters for a battle. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pulling from 20-plus years of history<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to the films, Lionsgate views Power Rangers as its next\n big franchise: Last May, CEO Jon Feltheimer revealed that they might \nmake up to seven films<\/a> in all. That\u2019s not too far-fetched considering the company\u2019s previous blockbusters, such as The Twilight Saga<\/em> (a total of five movies) and The Hunger Games<\/em> (four movies).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That bodes well for Legacy Wars\u2019s future. More films would mean more \ncontent for the game. But even if the new flick doesn\u2019t take off at the \nbox office, nWay won\u2019t have to worry about running out of characters any\n time soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hundreds of heroes and villains have come and gone over the years on \nthe Power Rangers TV show. During development of the game, Saban gave \nnWay a list of fan-favorite characters to pull from for future updates, \nand that alone has more than 100 names. Legacy Wars will have 50 \ncharacters at launch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surprisingly, no two Rangers or villains will play the same \u2014 every \nfighter will have their own unique moves and animations. Kim said Saban \n(and the hardcore fans who\u2019d spot any discrepancies in the Rangers\u2019 \nweapons and fighting styles) wouldn\u2019t have it any other way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSaban admits that not all of the Power Rangers games that have come out so far are very good. But they\u2019re really proud of this,\u201d said Kim. \u201cThey\u2019re like, \u2018Finally, a really good triple-A looking Power Rangers game!\u2019 And we\u2019re getting support from the highest levels at the company.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Above: The Mighty Morphin Red Ranger (left) summons his Power Sword. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However, one of the iconic elements from the show that Legacy Wars \nwon\u2019t have right away are Zords and Megazords, the wide array of robotic\n vehicles that the Rangers use to defeat skyscraper-sized monsters. But \nKim said they\u2019ll be coming in a later update, and that they\u2019ll fight \nalongside the Rangers during battle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a plethora of Rangers, Zords, and bad guys to choose from, nWay plans to keep Legacy Wars fresh for years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGames like this, as you can see from [Clash Royale studio] \nSuperCell\u2019s games, last for years,\u201d Kim said. \u201cIf you continuously pump \ncontent into it, it\u2019ll last for a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We finally have a game that can help us settle a 20-yea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wiharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wiharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wiharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wiharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wiharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wiharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wiharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wiharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wiharper.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}