A fun, turn-based combat focused tribute to Power Rangers, what’s awesome about 8-Colors Star Guardians + is just how much it manages to do with so little.

Whether we’re talking about the minimalist aesthetics – which manage to pack a lot of character and detail in sprites, backgrounds and animation using very few colours – or the straightforward, boss rush style gameplay, there’s initially not much to 8-Colors Star Guardians +, yet it turns out to have a lot more under the hood than you expect.

So, in 8-Colors Star Guardians, you’re introduced to its team of colour coded, female super heroes. Yes, they’re basically Power Rangers. Even the music feels like it’s very closely referencing the classic Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers theme song; it’s clearly a very loving, if cheeky, homage to the Super Sentai-based shenanigans of the show - and the tokusatsu genre in general.

There’s shades of Mega Man in its initial structure too, seeing as you’re presented with 8 boss monsters to beat, in any order you choose – though you’ll have real difficulty taking some of them down without first acquiring certain power ups, which you’ll get from defeating specific monsters.

It’s in tackling the different bosses that you realise it’s not as open as it first seems; there’s definitely an order in which you need to tackle them, though some leeway is allowed.

Your team of heroes each have their own strengths and weaknesses against the different monsters, but for the most part you can only take three of your heroes into battle from your selection of five, so experimentation is needed to work out which you’ll need to secure a victory.

There’s at least one boss which took me forever to discover the right tactics for; it seemed utterly impossible until I stumbled upon the right combination of heroes and then the right way to approach the fight. This did make it feel a little more like a puzzle to be solved, rather than an encounter that could be overcome in a number of ways – and there could certainly be more cues or onscreen info as to what each character’s attack does, for example.

That aspect of it was a little frustrating, in honesty; there are times when it feels next to impossible to win, but also times when a loss is required in order to advance the story.

Speaking of which, the story in 8-Color Star Guardians + is incredibly well written. The heroes all play off each other brilliantly in the between-stages dialogue; some really amusing situations come up – including at least one pair of characters who seem incredibly horny for each other.

There’s numerous twists and turns in the story, which comes as a welcome surprise given the simplistic structure of the game and its more-linear-than-it-first-appears nature.

There’s also an impressive amount of stuff to unlock and much more beyond those initial 8 bosses. If the turn based combat gameplay loop and narrative grab you, you’re in for a treat, because there’s lots to keep you going here.

Though I wasn’t overly enamoured with 8-Colors Star Guardians + at first, it did sink its kaiju claws into me once I’d cleared the first few bosses. Once I overcame the 8th and final boss of the first chapter, there was no stopping me!

It’s a nicely low-priced game that’s got buckets of charm; if you’re tuned in to the campy madness you can expect of a typical Power Rangers storyline, you’ll likely get even more out of 8-Colors Star Guardians + too.

8-Colors Star Guardians + is now available digitally on NIntendo Switch. Many thanks to publisher Flynn’s Arcade for providing me with a code for review purposes.