The Tone of VR Troopers
 

While VR Troopers was diffinitly a kids show and had a lot of the cheesiness of Power Rangers, it was a bit darker then MMPR. They could get away with a little bit more since the show was on Syndication as opposed to on a network. Plus the heroes were a but older. It was probably somewhere in between the tone of MMPR-Turbo and Space-WF. Of course it had a lot of the same conventions as MMPR. The same kind of diolouge and whacky co-stars. Plus the heroes were almost perfect role models. Karate was also a big part of VR Troopers. Ryan searching for his dad was diffinitly a plot darker than any in MMPR. Grimlord was also rarely played for comic relief, unlike Rita and Zedd were. I actually think the show holds up pretty well today. And is not that far from Disney's current PR. Of course the action scenes aren't as crisp. But if Metal Heroes was going today and we still had VR Troopers going on....There probably wouldn't be much of a difference.

For me VR Troopers wasn't so much as darker than PR as much as more realistic not just for the reasons you mention but also because the monsters, and super powers were created through human technology, and Grimlord started out as a human who became a supervillain through technology, and he was also a crooked businessman most of the time, and most of that seemed to be the big episodes like the multi parters..


But to the same degree it was also the comedy parts with Woody, Jeb, and later Percy, and the stand alone episodes that I liked.