History Series / VRTroopers

* BewareTheSillyOnes: Some monsters fit this trope, but an egregious example was the last monster they ever fought, Fanbot, a Creator/JerryLewis {{Expy}} who was clumsy on the battlefield and seemed to trip over his own feet. Until the end where [[LetsGetDangerous JB's finishing attack failed to do any real damage and the robot simply]] [[OhCrap grabbed JB's laser lance (while it was lit) and tossed him aside and prepared to suck him up]], in order to win, JB had to use the VR Technobazooka to finish him off, something normally reserved for Grimlord's air forces and not a MonsterOfTheWeek.

* OrcusOnHisThrone: Grimlord in the first season. To be fair, he's more than capable of kicking butt without getting off it.

** Ryan has several, including a flying drop kick and a flying, spin move, but his most common is his Electro Hand attack, a super charged karate chop.

* {{Mooks}}: The Skugs. With the ability to shapeshift, they frequently approached in the form of civilians. Karl Ziktor's female assistants were Skugs, and so was his main underling, Strickland (who acted like a Skug while looking human if no one who wasn't already in the know was around. Creepy.) As Skugs are often destroyed, there have in fact been many assistants and Stricklands. In Season 1, they're upgraded to Ultra Skugs, and female Mooks called Vixens added.

* SecretIdentity: Unlike the heroes, Ziktor keeps his identity as Grimlord very under wraps and by the time the series ended, he still had his identity intact.

* OrcusOnHisThrone: Grimlord in the first season.

* BadassNormal: Tao is Ryan and J.B.'s sensei and explicitly a better fighter than either of them. He's more than capable of pounding a group of Skugs into the ground by himself.

* TransformationSequence
* TransformationTrinket: The Virtualizer pendants worn by the Troopers.

* StuntDouble: When the actors are oddly dressed in '80s clothing for certain scenes in an episode, anticipate the show using footage of the Japanese actors as this in the very next shot.
** Similarly, if part of the plot revolves around an Asian-American child, expect them to be kidnapped by a monster, in order to sync up with the kidnapped child in the Japanese footage.

* BewareTheSillyOnes: Some monsters fit this trope, but an egregious example was the last monster they ever fought, Fanbot, a JerryLewis {{Expy}} who was clumsy on the battlefield and seemed to trip over his own feet. Until the end where [[LetsGetDangerous JB's finishing attack failed to do any real damage and the robot simply]] [[OhCrap grabbed JB's laser lance (while it was lit) and tossed him aside and prepared to suck him up]], in order to win, JB had to use the VR Technobazooka to finish him off, something normally reserved for Grimlord's air forces and not a MonsterOfTheWeek.

[[SpiritualSuccessor In the spirit of, on the heels of, and by the makers of]] ''Franchise/PowerRangers'', the ''Franchise/MetalHeroes'' {{Toku}} series was adapted by Saban into a new show known as ''VR Troopers'' in 1994.

* {{BFG}}: JB's VR Technobazooka, and Ryan's VR Shoulder Cannon; unmentioned in dialogue, but the Skybase and Ryan's unnamed airbase would transform into these.

* CutShort: Our heroes never got to defeat Grimlord or learn that he was Karl Ziktor.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Considered by fans to be much Darker and more serious than Franchise/PowerRangers, some of the Story Arcs the show had were quite dark, especially when we discover who the villain Dark Heart really is.

* DrillTank: Two- the VR Battlecruiser (piloted by both Ryan and JB) and the VR Combat Module (Ryan's exclusive season 2 vehicle) had these available.
* EnemyMine: The penultimate episode had the troopers teaming up with Grimlord.

* GagDub: Supposedly, when the cast got word that the series was being canceled, some of them, including the main three and a few voice actors, went out, got drunk, came back to the studio, went into the recording booth and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8_HrVhnqNg redubbed various scenes]] to be more mature and... [[ToiletHumor vulgar.]]

The show has a rather interesting production history, to say the least: originally a vehicle for [[Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers Jason David Frank]], an unaired pilot was both shot and sold to several stations, who proceeded to buy it due to the popularity of Power Rangers , but at the last minute Saban decided to bring JDF back to PR, which meant that the starring role had to be recast with Brad Hawkins (who was originally set to play the White Ranger in the second season of ''Mighty Morphin''), although the show by that point was deemed highly unsalvageable and was filmed only for contractual obligations with the TV stations who had already bought the series. To the surprise of many, the first season was actually quite successful and a second season was soon green-lighted by Saban. However, during the second season all the ''Metalder'' action footage ran out and Saban was forced to use footage from a third and drastically different (and much older) show for the Ryan Steele segments. Eventually all the remaining ''Spielban'' footage, as well most of the ''Shaider'' footage, were used up too.

* FollowTheLeader: No, ''not Franchise/PowerRangers;'' {{Toku}} is a genre of its own. However, high schooler heroes use pendants to fully transform into robotic forms? Sounds suspiciously like the new-at-the-time MarvelComics character ComicBook/{{Darkhawk}}.

* DecompositeCharacter: Kaitlin's clone and Red Python were the same person in Spielban. Since Diana Lady and Helen Lady both wore the same armor, the atoner plotline was converted into a power-up for Kaitlin.

* GagDub: Supposedly, when the cast got word that the series was being canceled, they went out, got drunk, came back, went into the recording booth and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8_HrVhnqNg redubbed various scenes]] to be more mature and... [[ToiletHumor vulgar.]]

* GratuitousJapanese: As with ''Franchise/PowerRangers,'' Japanese footage in the background is an occupational hazard of using StockFootage from Japan-original shows. It's most obvious in one episode where a monster kidnaps a little boy. There is a kanji sign in the hallway to his apartment. {{Justified|Trope}} on this occasion, as the boy was Japanese-American (in order to match up with the kidnapped boy from the Japanese footage), and the place might have been in a Japanese community within Crossworld City.

* ThinlyVeiledDubCountryChange: This is also done, up to the point where a kanji sign was visible in one episode when a monster kidnaps a Japanese boy. The story justifies it due to the presence of a Japanese-American community in Crossworld City.

* TheDragon: Season 1 didn't have Dragons per se, but Grimlord had his go-to recurring monsters and his assistants as Ziktor, as well as sub-villains who handled the technical end of his plans or prepared the MonsterOfTheWeek, such as General Ivar, Colonel Icebot, and Decimator. Season 2 had warriors Doom Master and Despera, and the monster-maker Oraclon.
** Decimator beat the crap out of Ryan Steele almost every time they met, was explicitly said to be Grimlord's second in command, and usually either guarded Grimlord or acted as field commander. He's a full-on Dragon.

* NoEnding: Due to running out of MetalHeroes footage the show never had a proper finale

* ShowWithinAShow: In one episode Jeb was watching ''Anime/SamuraiPizzaCats'' on the base monitor.

The premise is basically that via AppliedPhlebotinum created by Tyler Steele, Karl Ziktor, and Professor Horatio Hart, anything created in virtual reality actually ''exists'' in AnotherDimension, and can be brought forth into the real world. Tyler Steele goes missing, but left behind the means for his son and friends to defend the real world from Ziktor, now a CorruptCorporateExecutive with a virtual army ready to conquer the world. [[CityOfAdventure Crossworld City]] is a weak point between dimensions and as such, the front lines in the battle with Ziktor, aka Grimlord (Ziktor's super-powered virtual world avatar), and his forces. Professor Hart, his body mortally wounded by Grimlord, exists inside the base's computers and acts as TheObiWan.

As of June 2011, the entire series (along with ''[[Series/{{Beetleborgs}} Big Bad Beetleborgs]]'' and ''Franchise/PowerRangers'') is available for streaming on Netflix. It's also released on DVD in Europe in the 1990s and in North America in the mid 2000s. But due to mediocre sales, ShoutFactory has released a statement that they cannot release the last DVD that has the remaining episodes in the series, though they later released it exclusively through their online store.

* ButtMonkey: Percy, courtesy of Jeb.