Review: FLYING HIGHER Takes the POWER RANGERS DECK-BUILDING GAME to Space
Last year, possibly the best Power Rangers series got an expansion for the Power Rangers Deck-Building Game. Power Rangers In Space entered the game with the Flying Higher expansion from Renegade Game Studios. Renegade was kind enough to provide me with a copy of the expansion, but all thoughts below are my own. If you want to purchase a copy, you can head on over to Renegade’s store or your local game store to get it with an MSRP of $30.
Let’s Rocket!
Zordon has been captured! Led by Astronema, the Princess of Evil, the forces of Dark Spector are spreading out to conquer the galaxy. Only Andros and his Space Rangers can save the universe from being plunged into darkness. Hop on your Galaxy Glider and rocket into action!
I feel very ambivalent about Flying Higher. On the one hand, I feel like it does an excellent job of capturing the feel and essence of In Space and bringing it to the Deck-Building Game. On the other hand, I don’t know that it’s a great expansion for a game meant to do a ton of mix and matching. This expansion brings quite a bit to the table and there’s quite a bit to talk about so let’s hop on our galaxy gliders and dive in.
First, Flying Higher introduces a brand new win condition. At the start of the game, the villains get an oversized Dark Specter card while the heroes get an oversized Zordon card. Zordon lets the heroes start the game with 15 Energy, but that becomes the new maximum amount of Energy for them (instead of 20) and if they ever drop to zero, they lose. Meanwhile, Dark Specter will gather Conquest tokens and once it has 10+ the villains win. This helps freshen up the game as it creates new strategies. It’s important to note that these do not replace the standard win condition of dropping your opponent’s Health to zero.
Another new mechanic is Search. Once on your turn (or when a card/ability lets you), you can flip the top card of the main deck over and then if you want, you can buy it. One thing to note is that if it is an Adversary (Hero or Villain) card with an attack ability, you will get hit unless you can block it (note that Hero cards do not attack Hero players but Villain cards attack both Hero and Villain players). Another thing to note is that either player can purchase Hero and Villain cards revealed through Search even if they normally couldn’t. If you don’t want to buy it and it’s the opposite of your alignment, you can choose to battle it if you want. Any card bought via Search can immediately be attached to your character which is pretty nice and made even better by the fact that Heroes and Villains can be attached to either Hero or Villain slots in this manner. I really like this new mechanic overall.
While I do appreciate these new mechanics, it does also create a glaring problem in my opinion. One of the coolest things about the Power Rangers Deck-Building Game is how you can mix and match characters and cards from various sets to create a really varied experience. Some sets have introduced what I would consider minor mechanics that don’t disrupt the way any game would be played too much. For example, in RPM: Get In Gear, they introduced RPM tokens which affect various card abilities. It doesn’t impact how the game is set up, won, or really too much of how it’s played. I feel like the new mechanics in Flying Higher are much more impactful and could be classified as major mechanics. Search is the lesser of the two and if it were the only new mechanic, it wouldn’t be too bad. However, the Dark Specter/Zordon mechanic is an alternate win condition and some character abilities directly interact with it (i.e. Astronema's Scheming ability is that you gain shards for every two Conquest tokens on Dark Specter). This means that if you want to play Astronema, you have to play with Dark Specter/Zordon. I’m probably sounding a bit more harsh than I mean to, but it does annoy me that for a game meant to mix and match, this expansion (not even a big box standalone expansion) is not very friendly to that format.
Another disappointment I faced was the Psycho Rangers. These are fan-favorite characters who kick the Rangers’ butts on multiple occasions. Their Scheming ability is really cool as they can not only buy Heroes from the Grid, but they also get the Battle reward when they do it! This is balanced by the fact that Heroes are immediately exhausted when they are attached. Their Signature Monster Form is also decent as you can spend four Energy to boost all attacks you perform by one for every two Conquest tokens on Dark Specter. Unfortunately, the Empowered ability leaves something to be desired as it costs five Energy to deal two points of damage for each Hero you have attached. That seems like a steep cost, especially when you have someone like Astronema that can deal one point of damage for each Conquest token on Dark Specter for only four Energy! The Psycho Rangers just feel outshined here. Also, their Master card is one of the worst ones I’ve seen in the game. It’s the first one I’ve seen that requires an Energy payment and it’s to do an attack that deals damage equal to the cost of a Hero card attached to your character. While the Search mechanic makes it possible for any villain to have a Hero attached, if that Hero becomes unattached for whatever reason, the only Villain that can utilize this Master ability is the Psycho Rangers. The one positive is that you get to choose when to activate it. I would love to see a mini expansion where the Psycho Rangers are made available as individual characters instead of grouped together. That could be a lot of fun.
On its own, Flying Higher is fun to play overall. I feel like one character is a pretty big dud, but the new mechanics are fun. Unfortunately, you are forced to play with the alternate win conditions if you want to use anything in this set, so it feels less mix and match than other expansions. Let me know in the comments how you feel about the Flying Higher expansion.
