I played this for a couple of hours last night since it launched early for backers. So far I'm really enjoying it and it's a lot more polished than what I'd expected. Granted I haven't been following development very closely, I just knew some of the big stuff like the Saban issues.
I made it through the first season/contract in my ~2.5 hour play time and I'll provide some more impressions later once I'm off work.
--------------------------------
Gameplay rundown
Squad creation- You create a squad with set roles like "Leader", "Scout", "Techie",etc which roughly equate to sentai/MMPR roles. I don't think you can change these (ie you have one of each), but you can choose different actors for each role who each have a unique sprite, bonuses, and per episode wage cost. You can also rename them and change their color. Most of the actors are normal humans (often based on real actors), but there's also a guy in a panda suit, a robot, and an alien. I chose the beaver as my leader.
Studio- You start off working out of a run down warehouse that you can upgrade. Each upgrade has an initial cost and an ongoing per episode cost. They do things like boost squad HP, increase drop rate, increase audience, etc.
Equipment- You can get new equipment from the store or craft with drops from your battles. In the first season all you can craft are guns made of play doh and the like.
Marketing- This unlocks partway through season 1. You can choose a marketing firm (or a random blogger) to support your show. As you gain fans, you can expend "fan power" to use your marketer's abilities. This can give a 1 time cash bonus, increase viewer->fan conversion, etc.
Mecha- Unlocks at the end of season 1. At the start of season 2 you can start upgrading it with cardboard and duct tape. It seems like it will be used in certain climatic battles and has unlockable abilities based on equipment. Mecha battles use a different system than standard battles.
Battles- What you're probably actually interested in! Each season you have to produce a certain # of episodes on a specific budget. Some episodes are mandatory, but it seems you'll have a choice at some point. In season 1 you can choose the order of the non season opener/finale, but they all have to be done.
-------------------------
Anyways, Chroma Squad is a grid based SRPG/TRPG (whatever the right term is). You begin most battles with your actors in their street clothes (or I guess naked as the beaver). After punching a few baddies you can transform which generally makes everyone stronger, gives them access to special abilities, and restores health. In one turn generally a character can move twice or move once and attack/use ability/teamwork. There's also free abilities which don't use an action. Abilities function on cooldowns and seem to be granted by roles and weapons.
At this point everything seems pretty standard, but there's a few twists Chroma Squad adds that made even the easy opening levels entertaining. First is audience. You don't just want to beat the bad guys, you want to do it in style. More audience means more money and more fans! Each season has a fan threshold that needs to be achieved in addition to giving you fuel for those marketing powers I talked about.
So how do you get more audience? Listen to the director! Each episode has optional objectives that will give a big boost to audience. Stuff like defeat enemies in a certain number of turns, hit the boss every turn, use x team attacks, etc. Doing stuff like team attacks, cool summersaults, an finishing moves on the boss tend to give good audience gain too. On the flip side characters being downed or using a finishing move without killing the boss drops audience.
Teamwork is probably my favorite spin on they've added. Instead of attacking/using skills a character can act as a boon for other characters. By placing a character properly the others can use them as a trampoline to extend their move range. If a character standing adjacent to an enemy while using teamwork and another character attacks, both will combine their attacks. You can do a teamwork formation with up to 5 characters for a finishing move. This really adds another layer of depth as you often need to situate one character (especially when chasing ranged guys) to boost move range so everyone else can reach the enemy. And if that character is near the enemy they can join the attack too!
Final Thoughts
So far the game's been pretty easy as it introduces all the gameplay systems, but they've already put the pieces in place for more difficult and strategic play. The season 1 finale boss was actually quite challenging so I'm looking forward to starting season 2. The story at this point is decent. I feel like the dialogue is fairly straightforward and simple most of the time, but at other points they do a great job of capturing the camp of their inspirations.
