In early 2017, to promote the then-upcoming movie, Twitch held a marathon of every episode in the Power Rangers series. The result was one of the website's most highly successful events, and Saban looked for ways to collaborate further. The result: Power Rangers HyperForce, a 2017 Web Video Series and Actual Play tabletop RPG collaboration between Saban, Twitch, and Hyper RPG. Instead of basing a season on an existing Super Sentai team, the action is acted out by the player characters Critical Role-style.
The plot is set in the year 3016 at Time Force Academy, where a team of Time Force Ranger cadets must band together to defeat an ancient evil who is set on unraveling the very fabric of the universe. Under the leadership of their mentor, Jen Scotts, and with the show’s Game Master, the newly minted Rangers will cross both time and space to complete their mission while running into many familiar eras (and faces) along the way.
The game is a system designed by the Game Master, Malika Lim, and boasts a notable group of players:
- Marvin "Marv" Shih the Iapetus Lion Red Ranger: played by Peter Sudarso, who played Preston the Ninja Steel Blue Ranger.
- Edward "Eddie" Banks the Oceanus Serpent Blue Ranger: played by Andre Meadows of Black Nerd Comedy.
- Chloe Ashford the Hyperion Phoenix Pink Ranger: played by Meghan Camarena, aka cosplayer and YouTuber Strawburry17.
- Vesper Leigh Vasquez the Coeus Cerberus Black Ranger: played by voice actress Cristina Valenzuela.
- Jack Dealgoode Thomas the Crius Ram Yellow Ranger: played by Paul Schrier, who played Bulk in several previous Power Rangers seasons.
- Joseph "Joe" Shih the Hydra Green Ranger: played by Yoshi Sudarso, Peter Sudarso's older brother who previously played Koda the Dino Charge Blue Ranger. Starts out as the Silver Time Force Ranger.
The series also represents a series of firsts for the franchise: the first East Asian red ranger, the first full-time female black ranger, the first team entirely based on original designs rather than a Super Sentai season, first female ranger with a unique battlelizer, and the first show broadcast online and live. The show was broadcast on the Hyper RPG
twitch channel every Tuesday starting October 24.
Recurring Power Rangers tropes include:
- Animal Themed Super Being: All the rangers have an animal motif built into the helmets. Marv is a lion note , Eddie is a serpent, Chloe is a Phoenix, Vesper is a Cerberus, Jack is a ram, and Joe is a Hydra..
- Big Bad: The Alliance.
- By the Power of Grayskull!
- The Mentor: Jen Scotts herself.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: She is critically injured while fighting The Alliance and is unable to join the Rangers for their mission, staying in the future.
- Team Dad and older teammate Jack also gets a taste of this when he almost dies in episode 2.
- Mentor Occupational Hazard: She is critically injured while fighting The Alliance and is unable to join the Rangers for their mission, staying in the future.
- Mythical Motifs: The team draws inspiration from Greek Mythology and titans. Marv is Iapetus, Eddie is Oceanus, Chloe is Hyperion, Vesper is Coeus, and Jack is Crius.
- Recycled In Space: It's Time Force with actual time travel! As a livestreamed RPG!
This series contains examples of:
- Actor Allusion:
- Invoked by Andre, when Eddie uses his catchphrase when trying to speak 90s lingo.
- Paul Schrier plays a hulking man who is a former police officer and is a veteran of this sort of thing. No, we're not talking about Farkas 'Bulk' Bulkmeier, honest.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: In episode 20, Lord Drakkon forces the Hyperforce team to work for him to stop Scorpina.
- Audience Participation: From episode 3 onwards energy is given out to the rangers by the chat room.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The ending of Season 1. In spite of foiling parts of his plan, the Alliance Leader ultimately wins, all of Power Rangers from In Space on never happens, Rita and Zedd successfully conquered the Earth and Timeforce never existed. The Hyperforce Rangers do have a shot to reverse it, however.
- Big Damn Heroes: The group arrive and see the Alliance Leader overpowering Jen. They form the Vortex Blaster and shoot him.
- Breather Episode: Following the intense Shattered Grid crossover episodes, Episode 21 is much lighter in comparison, revolving around Joe and Nadira's wedding.
- Brick Joke: During the beginning of Episode 19 the Rangers discuss the consequences of The Alliance successfully stopping the the Z-Wave from wiping out the villains, citing the return of Rita Repulsa , Lord Zedd, Divatox, Astronema... and Pumpkin Rapper.* Later in the episode it turns out that Hicks is The Mole working for Drakkon's forces... and he's actually Pumpkin Rapper.
- Card-Carrying Villain: The Alliance talk about how their goal is evil and evil is their goal.
- Christmas Episode: Episode 8.
- Cliffhanger: Episode 19 ends with Pumpkin Rapper exploding, killing all the civilians, and the Hyperforce Rangers coming face to face with Lord Drakkon. Episode 20 continues the trend with The Hyperforce rangers jumping forward in time into the event proper, to be continued in the pages of the comics.
- Darker and Edgier: Episode 19, being the Shattered Grid crossover, takes this and runs with it for all its worth. Episode 20 goes even further when Lord Drakkon takes one of the hostages and cuts their head off at the start of the episode, then proceeds to cut off Vesper's arm and nearly kill her toward the end.
- Demoted to Dragon: The Alliance Leader Hyperforce fights all season is revealed to be The Dragon to the real Alliance Leader, Chloe's father.
- Dressing as the Enemy: The team does this in episode 1 to blend in with the Alliance mooks. Ironically, this means they're dressing as enemies dressing as good guys.
- Dynamic Entry: The group rescues Jen from the Big Bad by shooting him with the Vortex Blaster in an ambush. It isn't enough kill him and he still manages to seriously hurt her, but it definitely hurt her and let's her get out alive.
- Fastball Special: Jack tries to throw Chloe at some putties in episode 2.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: The rangers are from the utopian year 31st century, and as such don't understand some of the practices of our time. For example, they seem convinced that Halloween costumes are the skins of actual creatures worn as costumes.
- Halloween Episode: Episode 2 was played on Halloween 2017 and in game the Rangers travel back to Halloween of 1994.
- Interquel: Episodes 6 and 7 take place during the year Time Skip between Corinth's shields being raised and Dillon's arrival.
- Kneel Before Zod: Lord Drakkon ends up making the Hyperforce Rangers bow before him.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Vesper starts doing this from episode 22.
- Legacy Character: Alpha 55
- Mythology Gag: Several to both Power Rangers and Super Sentai
- While the suits aren't based on any one specific Sentai team's, there is a clear design inspiration from Tokumei Sentai Go Busters, particularly with the shoulder pads, and the half-adapted Gosei Sentai Dairanger, as seen with the helmets, most obvious with Hyperion Phoenix. There are also elements from adapted teams like Power Rangers S.P.D. the suit is divided between black and the Ranger's color (lighter black, in the case of Coeus Cerberus).
- The morphers are a combination of the Chrono Changer and the Gosei Morpher. The morphing sequence is heavily inspired by Goseiger, ToQger, and, most notably, Gobusters.
- The villains being called "The Alliance" is one to the franchise's Legion of Doom, the United Alliance of Evil.
- One of the core team turns out to be an android. Furthermore, said character temporarily gets infected by Venjix, just like Dillon.
- Another core team member is an alien from a planet called Kaien. This character's mother told them of a "red lion warrior and his friends".
- In episode 16, Vesper has Jack pretend to be her husband in front of her parents. Looking at their colors, they're basically a genderbent version of Carlos and Ashley. It's dropped in under a minute, but hey.
- Parental Abandonment: Chloe's parents are missing in action and presumed dead. Her father is actually alive and is the Big Bad, having apparently killed her mother when she refused to join him.
- Percussive Maintenance: Eddie fixes a communication device by hitting it with a wrench, a move he learnt from his father.
- Red Skies Crossover: The March 13, 2018 session will be a crossover with the upcoming Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Shattered Grid event. Episode 20 then reveals that the Hyperforce team will be showing up in some function with the actual storyline.
- Sequel Series: The team originates from the year 3016, 15 years from when the Time Force Rangers went after Ransik, and the team themselves are Time Force cadets.
- Ship Sinking: Despite what the ending of Reinforcements from the Future would have you believe, Nadira and Lucas do not stay together. In fact, she's engaged to Joe Shih, Time Force Silver-turned-Hyperforce Hydra Green
- Shout-Out: Peter has confirmed that his character's nickname is one for Captain Marvelous.
- Further expanded with his character's brother, named Joe, who also calls Marvin "Cap".
- The mutant sympathizers' hideout in 2025 is suspiciously similar to the Foot Clan's hideout from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
- Spoiler Title: Episode 6 in Hyper RPG's YouTube channel is called "Vesper's betrayal"
- Totally Radical: Used deliberately by the time travelers for Fish out of Water humor value.
- Transformation Is a Free Action: Morphing into ranger form is a free action and did not consume a player's turn. Morphing would count as that player's turn during episodes with a guest GM, but morphing was set back to being a free action when GM Malika Lim resumed running the game.
