Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Video Games: The Definitive Review – 12 Full Reviews for Famicom, Sega Genesis, Sega Game Gear, Sega CD, Nintendo Game Boy, and Super NES)

My #1 favorite television show from my childhood was Power Rangers. The show started up around the time my memory started working. Not so much the first season. I was only 4 when it aired, but as my parents remind me, I was frightened of many elements from the show. Rita had this skull in her castle that had spooky flashing eyes that had me hiding behind my mother. I was scared of most of the monsters, memorably one that was half octopus, half pineapple. Yes, really, and to my infinite credit, it’s a lot scarier looking than it sounds. I don’t remember any of that, but I distinctly remember being terrified of Lokar. He was a recurring disembodied head different from the nicer disembodied head that told the Rangers what to do. Lokar is introduced on the show by a pair of gigantic goddamned eyes that open up and it’s actually still, to this day, the scariest visual the show has ever done. Seriously, watch this. The clip should start at 17:16. That’s some pretty intense visuals for a children’s show.

Now, we must be misremembering the order of events, because that clip above is Lokar’s THIRD episode, but I know for sure it’s the above clip that had me clutching my mother while crying hysterically at the age of 4. He debuted in the two-part Island of Illusion about three weeks before that. My hypothesis is that I never made it past the “TODAY ON POWER RANGERS” segment for Island of Illusion when he was shown, and I never saw Part Two either. Back then, with the exception of Goldar and Scorpina, Rita’s monsters never returned. When Lokar returned for what was originally intended as the season one finale, Doomsday, I didn’t see it coming and that sh*t traumatized me as a child. Seriously, I almost quit watching the show. If any producers of Power Rangers are watching this, chances are one of the angry letters you got was from my father.

That’s really the only negative memory I have. I loved Power Rangers. I never missed an episode.. except those ones with Lokar. Unlike Saturday morning shows, a new episode of Power Rangers was on every weekday. It was such a big cultural phenomena that season two premiered in prime time, which I watched with my parents! And the lead-up to the big screen movie was every bit as exciting for me as Christmas was. I saw it twice in theaters. The second time was on my sixth birthday. No, I can’t explain why Lokar frightened me but Lord Zedd didn’t. I even remember my father say “poor man” when he married Rita. The thing is, Power Rangers was part of my life long before video games were. I had a couple of the Game Boy Advance Power Ranger games, and I had Dino Thunder for my GameCube, but I never really played them. If I had been a little older, I probably would have had all the games in this feature. I’ve previously only sampled them all. This time, I played every single game I could find that featured the words “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” plus the two Sentai games that came before them, until the end credits rolled. Below are full reviews for the following games:

• 

  At least they got the Shogun Megazord scale right.

  
  Chōjin Sentai Jetman (Famicom)
• Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger (Famicom)
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
  for Game Gear
  for Game Boy/Super Game Boy
  for Sega Genesis
  for Super NES
  for Sega CD
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie
  for Super NES
  for Sega Genesis
  for Sega Game Gear
  for Game Boy/Super Game Boy
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Fighting Edition (Super NES)

Now that my friends at Digital Eclipse are doing a Power Rangers game, I figure I’ll do my part by making this review, which can serve as a guide for where Power Rangers went wrong in video games. And it went wrong, wrong, WRONG, almost universally. I have faith they can do better. Throw a rock and you’ll hit a game developer who could do better. But, they’re a good choice. I promise no rock throwing.

GAME REVIEWS

For those not familiar with my way of thinking of how retro games should be reviewed, I take NO historical context into account. I don’t care how important a game was to the industry, because that doesn’t make a game worth playing today. The test of time is the cruelest test of all, but every video game must face it. I might not be here if not for Pong’s success, but I wouldn’t want to play it today. Not when there’s better options. Therefore, when I review retro games, every game gets either a YES! or a NO!

YES! means the game is still fun and has actual gameplay value when played today and is worth seeking out.

NO! means the game didn’t age gracefully and is not worth seeking out, and certainly not worth spending money on.

Chōjin Sentai Jetman
Platform: Famicom
Released December 21, 1991
Designed by Hirohisa Ohta & Tomoko Okamoto
Developed by Natsume
Published by Angel
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

This is the first ever Sentai or Power Rangers game for consoles, and frankly, it’s shocking that it took until 1991 to happen. Even more shocking: Chōjin Sentai Jetman is actually a pretty solid action game, though one that certainly feels paint-by-numbers. You can pick any of the first five levels, and then pick any of the five Rangers to tackle those. In theory, this is fine, even if there’s functionally only three choices. The Red and Black Rangers each use the same sword and have 8 health points. The White (Pink) and Blue Rangers use blasters and have 6 health points. Only the Yellow Ranger is unique, as he has a power-punch wave, along with 7 health points. There’s actually balance to this, as the two full-range weapons require more shots to take down enemies than the other weapons do. And in a way, this is all moot since all five Rangers have a kick move that can be done by holding UP when you attack. So, it’s not THAT deep, but the combat is satisfying, with good collision and just enough OOMPH to be immersive even with smaller sprites. Chōjin Sentai Jetman is apparently a close cousin to a semi-famous NES game by developers Natsume called Shatterhand. It shows.

As decent as Jetman is, it feels like a huge missed opportunity. The five levels, action packed as they might be, are samey, with no set-pieces and the same enemies. There’s also zero difficulty scaling through the first five levels. Why not give all five Rangers unique weapons and different attributes, then tailor the level design around that concept by having players take control of each Ranger once? Natsume was handed the ability to give players a one-of-a-kind action platforming experience on a silver platter and they blew it. And I haven’t even gotten to the boss battles. Actually, let me talk about the mecha in general. A unique aspect of Jetman is that each of the mecha (aka Zords in the US) flies. This was a golden ticket for each level to be split into the platforming bits and then brief shmup bits. Since the platforming action is solid, I imagine Natsume could have thrown together solid space-shooting segments. Nope. Like so many Ranger/Sentai shows, the action cuts straight to the Jet Icarus segments. Yes, that’s what this Sentai’s Megazord is called. Jet. F*cking. Icarus. Damn, that’s badass. If only the boss battles lived up to that name.

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The boss fights are really simple, clumsy one-on-one fighting games with only a basic punch move, a useless jump move, and blocking (which is done by holding down). To the game’s credit, the action is so stiff and lifeless that it legitimately feels like two rubber suit giants fighting, just like in the show. Of course, in the anything-goes realm of video games, that’s not a positive thing anymore. The bosses are indeed the weakest links in the game. It’s a VERY stripped down tournament fighter where you block moves and counter-punch, only without satisfying impact. You get a special meter that builds up as the battle goes on. Any attack but the most powerful one is basically worthless, so just wait for it to fill-up all the way. Only the final boss puts up any challenge, but it’s still basic and incredibly dull. It’s such a downer, because the action stages themselves are well done. This might be the most unhappy YES! I’ve ever given out. Chōjin Sentai Jetman is fine, and dammit, that’s so annoying. There’s nothing more depressing for me on this job than a game that plays well but got there without any risks or ambition. Natsume did the absolute bare minimum, and actually, the end product is still alright. It’s so frustrating, because imagine what they could have done with an actual vision.
Verdict: YES!

And “doing the absolute bare minimum” will be a reoccurring theme for the rest of the Power Rangers/Sentai gaming franchise. You’ve been warned.

Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger
Platform: Famicom
Released November 6, 1991
Designed by Michito Okamoto, Masako Araki, and Yūji Watanabe
Developed by Arc System Works
Published by Angel
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

I’m playing a less-strobe-heavy version of this made specifically for me by Tetrahedrus at the request of Garrett Gilchrist. It’s not 100% strobe-free, but in the original build, the game flashed constantly from weapon use, enemy slaying, etc. This version’s strobes only happen during cut-scenes. Have you ever had a game made just for you so that it won’t risk your health? I hope people know how much that means to me. No matter anything else, it means the world to me. And if you want to hear about my history with epilepsy, go here. I do NOT speak the Queen’s English. They edited in phrases like “mum” because they’re from the UK and people there don’t love their mothers enough to call them “mom” which sounds more dignified than “mum.” I kid.

Before firing up Zyuranger, I couldn’t believe they didn’t bring this game out in America at the start of the Power Ranger toy craze of 1993 – 94. Even if the NES was dying, how many millions of Nintendo kids out there would have wanted a Power Rangers game for their NES? More importantly, how many parents would have bought said NES game for their kids? I think a million seller was on the table. I really do. Except, Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger really wouldn’t be as easy to adapt to the NES. In Power Rangers, Rita’s minions on the Moon, with the exception of Goldar, rarely get involved. In this game, Witch Bandora’s gang are all the bosses. There’s a few rubber suit monsters of the week, but they appear as normal baddies. Remember Pudgy Pig from the sixth episode? That’s a basic monster you fight in bulk along the way. Golem Soldiers, aka the Putty Patrol, rarely show up. Do you know who else doesn’t show up in playable form? The Green Ranger. Or Megazord, aka the Guardian Beasts. Just in cutscenes and a pong-like mini-game. Now that I’ve played through Famicom Zyuranger, I really don’t think American audiences would have gone for any of this. As disappointed as I was in the combined mecha battles from Jetman, and as basic as they are, it IS better than nothing.

The strange thing is, Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger does exactly what I wanted Jetman to do. The game is divided into five stages, and instead of being taken in any order, you play as one Ranger per stage. The object isn’t just traveling from point A to point B, but finding ten power coins per stage which grants you the metaphysical powers of the Guardian Beasts, aka the Zords, which in case you didn’t know, are actually gods (lowercase g) in the original Sentai version. And again, you don’t get to pilot them or use them in any meaningful way. They don’t even defeat monsters in cutscenes. You want your giant robots? We got your giant robots right here, playing hot potato and video table tennis. That’s why every copy of Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger came bundled with an empty bottle, so you could mail in the tears of disappointed children for a coupon good for 10% off* select Zyuranger toys.
*Offer good only for the versions of the toys that don’t let kids combine them. Ain’t nobody having fun on our dime.

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Instead, each cutscene at the end of stages shows the Rangers finishing off everything with the handheld Power Blaster. AKA “no giant monster fights this episode? Well, that sucks.” And you don’t even get to fire it yourself! I’m shocked they even allowed you to fight enemies at this point. Why stop where they did? Why not just have the game be a picture of the producers pointing and laughing at the idiots who bought this? Anything that a child would want in a Sentai or Power Rangers game is simply not here. The most you get is the Rangers acquiring and using their individual components of the Power Blaster. Each level starts by using a generic blaster, but eventually you’ll come across a door that grants you the use of that Ranger’s power weapon, usually around the time you find that stage’s fourth coin. All the five weapons do successfully manage to feel unique, and they also defeat enemies much faster. Sadly, the OOMPH is pretty poor in general thanks to some haphazard collision detection and poor sound design. You’ll notice the character sprites are massive in Zyuranger, and yea, the graphics can be pretty okay, but compared to Jetman, the action is just not good.

For the most part, I was just kind of bored playing Zyuranger. With the exception of the Blue Ranger’s level, which does the barest minimum to quality as a maze, as I actually didn’t find all ten coins the first time, the levels are boring and basic, and the challenge comes largely from bad collision and cheap enemy placement. In the thirty or so minutes it took me to finish, the game produced one lone highlight: the second boss battle. It’s fought with the Pink Ranger on two moving platforms. She has the most fun weapon: her bow, and this boss is actually built around how you use that bow. That’s it. That’s the one and only “this ain’t bad” moment of this entire miserable excuse of a Sentai game. The rest of the Rangers often have these strange double-swinging animations that might make no contact at all and kill enemies, while other times (especially against bosses) they go right through them and register nothing.

Now, the million dollar question is could this have been translated to English, brought to the United States in time for the 1993 Christmas season, and become the last ever bestseller for the NES? As bad as this is today, in 2024, I think this might have been considered more acceptable in 1993. Some things would have been ridiculed either way. Megazord and Dragonzord playing Pong would have been a farce, and some of the between-rounds actions being trivia questions would have been as dull here as it was in Disney’s Adventures in the Magic Kingdom. Funny thing, too: you can play any of the mini-games in the menu. If you pick “trivia” you will be asked one single question, then it dumps back to the game’s main menu. One question, and one only. Why even bother to include it on the menu? While I do think this, converted to MMPR, would have been a bestseller, it’s only because the property was as hot as any toy craze had EVER been. But, as a video game, I’d be fine with burning this game’s green candle at both ends.
Verdict: NO!

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Platform: Sega Game Gear
Released in 1994
Directed by Koji Ishitani
Developed: SIMS Co.
Published by Sega
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

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I’m not a fighting game expert by any means, and the Game Gear version of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is structured like a tournament fighter. But, for what it’s worth, from my casual fighting game fan perspective, this actually surprised me by being a better than decent game. This version of MMPR is a 1 on 1 fighting game that, at times, takes the structure of a brawler. Before each stage’s main rubber suit monster, you have to defeat a wave of putties, one at a time, that each only takes one or two blows to kill. My biggest complaint about the game is there’s too many putties. I think they could have cut it by more than half and retained that “true to the show” feel. Like, four to six would be fine, right? Remember, this is not a side-scrolling brawler. It shares more DNA with the Street Fighter franchise than something like Streets of Rage. So, how many putties are you slaying in that first stage? Fifteen. It’s just too much, to the point that I could totally understand why a game with quality fighting mechanics like this could still earn middling reviews.

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Now, with that out of the way, while the volume of the putties is tiring, the way they’re used isn’t. At least after a couple stages. When you hear about how the putties are part of the game, you probably expect that you fight all of them in one long segment, then the boss. That’s how the TV show was. But, actually, there’s no set level formula. At least once per stage, Goldar will show up to pester you. Even though he has a full health bar, ignore it. He flees after a few hits, which is pretty true to the MMRP Goldar character who never won, but also never lost. Or, sometimes the boss starts the stage, then vanishes until the climax, sort of like me in bed. Like a boss. Sometimes Goldar alternates with the putties, or there will be a fake-out where a putty jumps on the screen, but it teleports away and then Goldar swoops in for a chicken-sh*t cheap shot before vanishing. Forget being a critic. As just an ordinary gamer, I appreciate they didn’t stick to one specific recipe for the levels. I actually think that decision saved the game, because no amount of awesome mechanics can overcome that much mindless repetition. I just wish the putties were trimmed by at least half, and maybe give the early ones a little bit more health so they’re not just fish in a barrel. The game starts with TEN PUTTIES that all are killed in a single hit, and you can literally kill them as they enter, before they even get a chance to throw their first punch. It’s cannon fodder, but there’s nothing exciting about it. I was fine when the putties beefed up, and by the end of the game, they were just as fun to fight as everyone else.

And really, Power Rangers on Game Gear puts the two-button, 8-bit Mortal Kombat games I played to shame. Probably because it was built around the hardware and not against it. The combat feels legitimately impactful, with violent striking moves and very satisfying OOMPH. For my new readers, that’s my pet term for games creating the illusion of real world impact, velocity, weight, etc. All games benefit from OOMPH, but only fighters and brawlers absolutely need it for immersion. Power Rangers has it, and it’s well done for an 8-bit fisticuffs game. Also, despite four of the six Rangers using the same sprite (Pink and Green are unique), all the characters feel different from each other. In addition to the basic special moves, each character gets three special moves. All of them are done the same way you throw a fireball in Street Fighter II, with the final button being 1, 2, or 1+2. I’m rapidly losing the ability to press two buttons at the same time, and so that was a LITTLE annoying. There really was no reason to not do DOWN-BACK instead. While I’m actually happy that all the moves are done the same way, I know that hardcore fighting fans might not enjoy that as much.

But, let it be said, I was VERY impressed with the variety of moves and different fighting styles. And the game doesn’t bind you to only one Ranger per run. You’re given the option to change between every level. Not just the Rangers either. Megazord is here, and they didn’t even bother trying to create a bullsh*t sense of scale. That was wise. He has his own unique moves. Then, you earn the Green Ranger after beating him and his Dragonzord in the third level. After this, you get THREE options for the giant monster battles: Megazord, Dragonzord, and Dragonzord in Fighting Mode, complete with his badass sword that’s actually a giant f*cking drill. I really didn’t know what to expect when I saw the Game Gear MMPR was a tournament fighter. The AI isn’t too hard. It felt just right. Controls are responsive. Excellent OOMPH for an 8-bit game. Hot damn, Power Rangers on Game Gear ain’t bad at all. And, in fact, I actually ultimately believe this is the best Mighty Morphin Power Rangers game of the era. I’m happy for Game Gear fans, but damn, that is a sad fact, isn’t it?
Verdict: YES!

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Platform: Game Boy – Super Game Boy Enhanced
Released August, 1994
Directed by Takeshi Yasukawa
Developed by Tom Create Co.
Published by Bandai
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

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I haven’t reviewed a lot of Game Boy titles, so it’s a safe bet the worst I’ve done yet is Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. A reprehensibly lazy game with no redeeming value. Choose one of the original five Rangers and play five boring levels against a tiny handful of Putty variants. The first two stages are very basic walk right, punch baddies types of design. They’re so uninspired and dull that I think they’d get a failing grade as the first assignment in game design school. Then, level three introduces spikes and blind jumping around those spikes into the equation, and MMPR-GB becomes an actively bad game. There’s sections where you have to scroll downwards, with multiple blind leaps to platforms below that are riddled with spikes. Thankfully, they’re not instakills, and in fact, they don’t cause all that much damage by themselves and only pose a threat because of how many there are in the stage. It’s still crap design, but it’s not even the worst example of the spikes.

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In the last stage, you have to do climbing sections with platforms that have almost imperceptible spikes on their sides. Again, the spikes don’t really do much damage, and health refills are plentiful, but you do recoil from the spikes, and so it creates busy work. This is then amplified by having putties who throw explosive footballs at an alarmingly high pace. ON TOP OF THAT, they angled the platforms so the footballs go between the gaps while you’re coming from the wrong direction to defend against them. It’s like someone built a Rube Goldberg machine that tears the wings off flies.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Game Boy is one of those rare games that I have nothing positive to say. There’s no redeeming value at all in this one. You can utilize all the Rangers handheld weapons by pressing SELECT, but utilizing them drains your health. Very, very slowly. In fact, so slowly that I don’t even know why they bothered at all. Also, unless I’m mistaken, all the enemies are one-hit kills, so the only advantage the weapons hypothetically give you is added range. Except, most of them are barely longer than the standard punch or the effective jump kick. The only time SELECT matters is during the Megazord fights that cap every stage. Megazord fires a beam from his sword that will quickly drain your health, but the fireball does a lot more damage than the basic attack does. I’m stunned that they actually balanced the risk/reward element of that nearly perfectly. It’s the only thing the game does right, but it’s still not a point in the win column, because the boss battles are boring anyway. MMPR on the Game Boy is one of those games that makes me feel sorry for the children who got this under the Christmas tree. It really is a soulless cash-grab with minimum effort and game design that could have been, frankly, any property.
Verdict: NO!

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Platform: Sega Genesis
Released November, 1994
Directed by Hajime Ishikawa
Developed by Nova Co, Ltd.
Published by Sega
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

How on Earth did the Sega Genesis version of Power Rangers end up so much worse than the Game Gear version? Like its 8-bit little sibling, this is a tournament fighter. But, unlike the Game Gear game, no effort is made to make this feel remotely like you’re playing the TV show. No waves of putties, or variations on the tournament fighting structure. It’s just another run of the mill Street Fighter II wannabe that saturated this era, and not one the better ones. First you fight a monster as one of the five (eventually six) Rangers. That’s round one. Round two is the same monster, only you’re either Megazord or Dragonzord if you played as the Green Ranger in round one. And those really are the only two options. Dragonzord in Fighting Mode only shows up as a special move for the standard form, which makes zero sense. On the positive side, this is a true, blue fighting game. Each character gets their own set of special moves that require their own unique button inputs. Each character also has their own fighting style. So, effort was made. It just feels like the concept was flawed from the very start. Is this what Power Ranger fans in 1994 really wanted?

I suppose I need to remind people I’m not a fighting game expert. With that said, I found this to be a boring, basic SF2 knock-off. Special moves are nice, but most of them (especially projectiles) come at too high a cost thanks to them having too many frames. Take the Pink Ranger’s bow projectile. Input the attack and you’re stuck watching her pull out the bow, aim, then pull back on the string before the projectile is fired. Dragonzord’s Fighting Mode attack has you turn into the humanoid robot, then the attack happens, then you turn back. On the normal difficulty (4 out of whatever) the computer doesn’t fall for it, and as a two player game, I feel that even the most casual of fighting fans would have enough warning the special move is coming to respond, even if only to block. While the character sprites are great, this is so uninspired. If this wasn’t a Power Rangers game, nobody would have wanted this. It’s a generic Street Fighter II rip-off made at the height of that game’s popularity and attached to a trendy license. It doesn’t get more cynical than that.
Verdict: NO!

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Released November 23, 1994
Directed by Hirohisa Ohta
Developed by Natsume
Published by Bandai
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on the Super NES is a textbook example of competent blandness. It really doesn’t do a whole lot of things wrong from a technical point of view. The combat feels high impact, so that’s good. Actually, that’s pretty much all that’s good. MMPR-SNES is boring. I mean seriously boring. On the six-button Super NES, you are given one lone attack button. One. If you want to count the bombs, it’s two buttons, but bombs are sort of separate from combat, aren’t they? It’s not like you can string them together with the attacks. Besides, you can only carry one bomb at a time, because god forbid anyone have any more fun than the barest minimum. Bandai ain’t running some kind of entertainment charity here.

Now, some games manage to get a lot of mileage out of single button combat. MMPR doesn’t. The biggest mistake it makes, by far, is that the best combat happens when you’re unmorphed. Each stage starts out without the suits on. You don’t morph until about one-third of the way in. This is the only time when it feels like each Ranger really has a unique personality, and they all attack much faster anyway. Even worse is you don’t feel like you’ve been empowered when you morph, because the putties are still every bit as spongy with or without the suits on. The only difference is you attack much slower in the costume than you do without it. Oh, and you use your weapons which in theory gives you more range, but in reality, it takes longer to fight bad guys because it’s so much slower. You can hold UP when you attack to do a sort of smash attack. But, it doesn’t do enough damage and really only slows the combat down, since it knocks the Putty you hit down and you have to wait for it to get back up. A superhero game where you feel more powerful when you’re powered-down is lame a f*ck. What were they thinking?

Normally, I’d chalk this type of thing up to rental-proofing. That’s the phenomena of buffing-up difficulty in games to make them impossible to beat in a single weekend rental, thus hypothetically increasing the chases of kids who rent games ultimately buying the game at a later point in order to finally have enough time with it to beat it. Except, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers isn’t remotely hard. There’s only five normal levels followed by two Megazord battles. There’s also no adjustable difficulty, which might have come in handy. The putties are so absurdly clockable, with simple, predictable attack patterns, and not enough of a variety to become anything but busy work after a while. Hell, sometimes the environment kills them for you. If there’s something on the ceiling shooting lasers down, it usually harms the putties, who will walk right into them again and again. I didn’t lose a single life playing MMPR. The only time I came close, at least in the first five stages, was when I cheesed a boss without attempting any finesse.

I found it annoying that some of the background stuff hurt the putties and sometimes, like when barrels roll onto the stage, it goes right through them. Ultimately, none of it matters because the putties take longer to defeat using the slower Ranger attacks than the unmorphed human attacks. Who the hell wants to play a superhero game where the parts featuring the superhero are the boring parts? There’s some VERY minor platforming sections, and hell, there’s even wall jumping in MMPR SNES, but it’s kept to a bare minimum. What little platforming there is feels like it’s baby’s first video game. It wasn’t until the first Megazord battle that I actually felt there was a chance I might lose a life. That’s the other big problem: the Megazord battle, perhaps fittingly, is just an updated version of the Jet Icarus fights from Chōjin Sentai Jetman. As in literally the same set-up, with basic attacks, blocking and counter-attacking, and a meter that slowly fills up regardless of how the fight is playing out that gives you four tiers of super attacks. You’ll remember those were the worst parts of Jetman, and the best thing I can say about MMPR is at least there’s only two giant battles. Sort of three, because they did keep the “monster changes” bit from the show, sans Lokar.

I’m beginning to think, whether it’s called Power Rangers or Sentai, that this has to be the most frustrating licensed game franchise out there. Unlike many of the worst licensed shovelware, these Power Ranger games (except the Game Boy one) aren’t exactly doing anything wrong. They’re all just so unambitious. That we’ve made it this far and the Game Gear version is head and shoulders above all others is absolutely shameful. There’s nothing bold or imaginative. Power Rangers isn’t exactly high art. But, there’s some imaginative things that happen on the show, and the games don’t capture any of it. They’re so effortless, and I don’t mean that in the positive sense. The Super NES version is the worst offender because, again, it got a lot of the basics right. The combat is violent, hard-hitting, and has good collision detection. And it’s SO boring and repetitive. The levels are too basic, and so are the enemies. But, for me the deal breaker was the lack of power. It seems like it takes as many hits with your weapons to take down putties as it does bare-fisted without the costumes on. It tells me Natsume didn’t get that superheroes in superhero games need to feel SUPER! In Power Rangers, you don’t feel super. You just look ridiculous.
Verdict: NO!

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
Platform: Sega CD
Released in 1994
Designed by Tony Van
Developed by Sega and Orion Technologies
Published by Sega
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

I hate FMV games, and by reputation, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on the Sega CD is one of the worst games the genre has ever seen. It’s a well earned legacy. The obvious comparison is Dragon’s Lair, but at least that was created specifically to be a video game. In the Sega CD version of the MMPR, you’re “playing” clips from the first season of the show via moderately well-synced inputs. And yes, I’ll concede that the syncing isn’t badly done. The problem is there’s absolutely no effort made to create the illusion of interactivity. If you mess-up an input, or you press anything when there’s no prompt, the screen shakes, and that’s it. There’s no “choose your own adventure” clips for failure. Take for example, when you fight Goldar as Megazord. It’s a sequence taken from the pilot episode. At one point, Goldar swings his sword, and the game commands you to block by pressing B. Regardless of whether you hit the button or not, Goldar’s sword hits Megazord right across the torso, showering the screen with sparks. Why? Because that’s what happens in the episode. I guess it’s the thought that counts?

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Now, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Sega CD is not the first game that just copy-and-pasted inputs over existing footage. The most famous example is probably Stern’s Cliff Hanger, which stitched together footage of a couple Lupin III movies. With all the Power Rangers AND Zyuranger footage available, I refuse to believe they couldn’t have stitched together a handful of sequences that create even the most rudimentary illusion of interactivity. They literally just took clips from the show and laid ugly button prompts over them. And then even that element isn’t all that great. While I feel what to press matches the footage pretty well, the when is often too big an ask. There’s just not enough reaction time, and since it’s not staged for a video game, like Dragon’s Lair, it’s not always predictable what the next action will be.

If your character is knocked down, it’s safe to assume you’ll press UP. But, in the stand-up fight sequences, those punches and kicks come in fast, or sometimes you have to press a direction and then a button. It’s the catch 22 with FMV games: the closer you watch for the prompts, the less you focus on the action, but the less you focus on the action, the less likely you are to be able to anticipate the next prompt, thus canceling out the appeal in an FMV game in the first place. I suppose the best games in the genre are the ones that allow players to do both, which is why I gave Dragon’s Lair a YES! but Space Ace a NO! For this FMV Power Rangers, I don’t think you can do both. Really, you have to memorize the prompts. I find it unlikely anyone could ace this on their first attempt. Where I took most of my damage was the button mashing sequences. It usually happens when the camera cuts to a villain charging-up some kind of attack. Okay, at least it’s not just pressing the same prompts over and over, right? Well, except the fact that you take damage every time you press a button when there’s no prompt. So, when the button mashing prompt ends, if you’re still mashing buttons, you can actually inflict more damage from continuing to mash than you would have just letting the damn thing hit you. It’s so badly done. 

Why did they even bother with the Sega CD to begin with? And don’t say “to make money” because EVEN THAT doesn’t make sense. Unlike the Sega Genesis or Super NES, the demographics for Sega CD owners tended to skew much higher. That’s why the port of Mortal Kombat that was on Sega CD has no blood code, like the Genesis version required. In fact, that version is rated MA-17, because Sega didn’t stress it. Sega CD was arguably the first console marketed towards adults, with games for adults, or for teenagers who wouldn’t be caught dead with a children’s property like this. So, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on the Sega CD is a bad idea, for the wrong console, and what little “gameplay” is here is executed very sloppily. What else could go wrong? How about gating out most of the levels unless you play on the highest difficulty level, which is pretty dang difficult?

Indeed, there’s three difficulty settings and nine levels, but four of those levels are gated on the easiest setting, and the final two levels are gated on anything but the hardest level. As a reminder, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is a children’s television show. This is a game that would be enjoyed most by kids under 12. What the hell are you doing, game? The only kindness is that you can earn extra continues as you go along. Golly, thanks. Being awful, I made my nieces and nephew play this. Actually, they volunteered. They’re good kids. They range from ages 8 to 12, so the perfect target demographic. They became overwhelmed pretty quickly. Since the moves come in fast and don’t pause when you take damage, the screen-shaking when you DO get hit makes seeing the next move harder. I noticed when they died, it was always as the result of an extended damage streak. Gating kids with high difficulty is kinda crass. Assuming kids would even want to play this. Even in 1994, the Sega CD wasn’t exactly the prettiest console to play. I mean, look at these, and mind you, I haven’t tinkered with any of them.

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Why does it look so grainy? For the uninitiated, the Sega CD is still just a Sega Genesis, only with a substantially increased storage capacity at a lower cost to physically produce. A 30MB game on cartridge would cost several multiples more than a 650MB CD to manufacture. That’s literally the only reason to even attempt a CD platform at this point, because the game contained within would still be a Sega Genesis game with all inherent visual limitations. So, unless you were incorporating full motion video or an orchestral soundtrack, there was no point. It didn’t beef-up the graphics capability of the console, which has a selection of 512 colors and a MAX of 61 colors on-screen at any given moment. Hence the footage looking grainy at best, and splotchy at worst. Like that one of Tommy’s face..

Yea. Honestly, it doesn’t bother me because gameplay is king, and hell, I’ve enjoyed writing about Atari 2600 games. If I can deal with that, I can deal with graininess. What I think is the bigger problem is that the Sega CD provided all this extra storage, but very few games for the platform were better for it. Wouldn’t a Sega CD-owning child have been more happy with a Power Rangers beat-em-up, maybe with FMVs taken from the TV show of the Megazord assembly? Or maybe just use the CD format to include the soundtrack from the TV show. Not just the theme song, either. Imagine playing a side-scrolling stage as Tommy with Go, Green Ranger Go! from the TV show playing. Don’t you think children would have rather had that instead of a really awful FMV game where, yes, the button prompts actually do match the footage, but it still never feels even a teeny tiny bit interactive? So, no, this wasn’t the worst game I’ve ever played, or even the worst FMV (that honor goes to #Wargames). Hell, it’s not even the worst Power Rangers game, which is especially sad. Do you know what Power Rangers for Sega CD is? A glorified clip show. Nobody likes those.
Verdict: NO!

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie
Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Released June 23, 1995
Directed by Hirohisa Ohta
Developed by Natsume
Published by Bandai
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

This direct sequel to the SNES Power Rangers fixes one big thing: the putties are less spongy when you’re morphed. Since these are Lord Zedd’s putties, in theory a single blast to the Z on the chest should kill them. And, sometimes it does. There’s putties that duck, and you have to duck and kick them to make them stand up, at which point you hit the Z to kill them. Oh my god, it’s like the TV show! I mean, that’s not strictly true. I should have said closer to the TV show. Hey, that’s progress, right? The problem is the name of the game is MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS: THE MOVIE. And that’s a lie, because it’s got nothing at all to do with the movie. I’m not being sarcastic, either. This isn’t your typical “what does THIS have to do with the movie?” situation, like asking why Marty McFly is throwing bowling balls in the Back to the Future game. I mean literally zero events that happen in the movie happen in the game. It’d be like if you called Mortal Kombat 1 “The Boys” because Homelander is in it. That’s not how it works.

What’s particularly amazing is the movie has actual set pieces that seem like they would lend themselves perfectly to a video game. The fight in the construction site with Ivan Ooze’s Oozemen? Doesn’t happen, and the Oozemen aren’t in the game. Traveling to another planet? Doesn’t happen, though something kinda sorta not really similar to Dulcea shows up, but then goes away. Fighting the dinosaur skeletons? That doesn’t happen, and there’s no skeletons in the game. Fighting the stone gargoyles to retrieve the great power? Doesn’t happen, and THEY’RE not in the game. Battling Ivan Ooze’s Ecto-Morphicons with Zords? Not only does that not happen, but THERE ARE NO PLAYABLE ZORDS IN THIS GAME! What kid in 1995 would have wanted a Power Rangers game where the Zords don’t show up until literally the last second? Ivan Ooze is the only aspect of the movie that shows up, and there’s no level before you get to him, making this feel like it was stitched on at the last second. Once you defeat him, you have to do a Metroid-like “ESCAPE BEFORE THE BOMB GOES OFF” sequence. At the very end of that, with one second to go on the countdown, Ninja Megazord’s hand reaches out and grabs you, ending the entire game. ONLY their hand, then a picture of a celebrating Megazord before the end credits. Absolutely shameful.

Really, this should have been called “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers 2” and the last boss should have been Lord Zedd. That’s who all the kids would have wanted to defeat at the end anyway. You know, the villain who stuck around for a year and didn’t die in his literal second encounter with the Rangers? I’d be a LOT more forgiving if this had been Power Rangers 2. It sure as sh*t wouldn’t feel like a sleazy, cynical con-job that targets children, which is exactly what this is. There’s aspects of Power Rangers: The Movie for the SNES that are a big positive. Especially the set-pieces. They have NOTHING to do with any episode of Power Rangers at all, but they’re fun settings once you get past the ultra-bland first level. Even the commonplace evil space factory setting that every game like this has is well done. There’s a snowboarding section that turns into a surfing section that honestly isn’t bad. Also, this time around, when you beat the putties, they drop little lightning bolts that fill up your power meter. When the meter fills up, it’s Morphin Time! And now, YOU control when to morph, which is so much more immersive. The graphics are better, and there actually are a couple good levels. It just takes a while to get to them.

The biggest gameplay change by far is the fact that there’s now two planes of existence. You use L and R to hop between the foreground and background. This could have been SO satisfying if they had allowed you to spring off bad guys when you do the transition. Well, they got it halfway right. While you do damage enemies if you flip onto them while switching planes, you also take damage yourself every time. You can’t press a button to turn that move into a dropkick. Having thought about it, it might have been too easy, but who cares? For the second straight SNES game, I didn’t have to cheat, because MMPR: The Movie is a cinch. I did lose a few lives this time, since instead of having a massive health meter, you get five hits and only five hits. While the background/foreground thing is a welcome addition, it also causes severe pacing problems. Bad guys and even bosses will hop back and forth between them, and since there’s a big pause while you flip up and down, it completely wrecks the game’s tempo.

The other problem is that the Rangers now feel even more interchangeable than in the first game. Hell, they even use the same sprites as before. This time, you only get your weapons if, after you morph, you gather enough lightning bolts to fill your power meter again. Until then, all six rangers have identical punches, including an uppercut that’s done by holding UP when you punch. Once you fill your meter up, you regain your weapon, but only temporarily. The meter automatically activates and begins to drain. This is also the bomb, too, and if you want to use the bomb, you have to use it before the meter runs out. Oddly, it doesn’t matter WHERE in the meter you activate it, so it’s a viable option to wait until the very last sliver of energy remains before hitting the bomb button. All boss battles except Ivan Ooze will occasionally have large energy refills fly across the screen, but not fast enough to not help make the boss battles anything but a slog.

I wouldn’t actually go so far as to say Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie for the SNES is a bad game. It does feel like a cruel trick played on children. Nobody could complain about the total lack of connection to the film if they had just called this Power Rangers 2. They opened themselves to scathing complaints, and for what? Power Ranger fans would have been interested in this game either way. There was nothing to be gained from calling it “The Movie” except ridicule for not having anything from the movie except a shoehorned last boss. But, that’s not why I’m giving it a NO! I’m doing that because every single improvement made over the SNES original was undone by bad game design decisions, and because the combat is just plain boring. They didn’t improve that part at all. If anything, it feels worse this time, as the plane switching can slow things down so much and make boss battles miserable. Even though it’s a gameplay improvement over the first SNES Power Rangers, it also feels even less connected to the franchise. Not just the movie, but the larger media property. “This could have been anything” is common in 8-bit/16-bit licensed games, but this is nearly as removed from the source material as such all-time laughing stocks as the NES Back to the Future or Platoon (WTF, they made Platoon? PLATOON? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?). Imagine a 6 year old child in 1995 who gets this game, and it’s not based on the movie, and it doesn’t have any Megazord battles. Just tell them Megazord went to a peace conference, which is where this game ought to go.
Verdict: NO!

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie
Platform: Sega Genesis
Released July, 1995
Designed by Yoshihide Ando
Developed by SIMS Co. Ltd
Published by Sega
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Power Rangers: The Movie for the Sega Genesis DOES follow the movie’s storyline. For, like, the first two levels. Then it goes back to Season Two stuff. And.. it’s the worst 16-bit Final Final/Streets of Rage style brawler I’ve ever played. I mean HOLY CRAP, wow. It’s actually jaw-dropping how boring this game is. Want to know what to expect? At one point in the second level, you fight NINETEEN of the same one baddie, the ooze monsters from the film’s construction scene, who have been the game’s only bad guy up to this point. Each cycle of fights has a strict 60 second timer (it’s 45 seconds if you want to play on hard). Now, that section of NINETEEN enemies (I mean seriously, what the hell?) only happens in the second level, but mind you, about twenty seconds of that gets eaten up waiting for the enemies to become vulnerable to attack. They enter the screen as invulnerable puddles, then they swap back and forth between the puddles and the humanoid forms. ON TOP OF THAT, one of your attacks is grabbing, which does the least damage and creates an extended gap before you can attack again since you’re throwing the enemies away from you. This move, which you absolutely DO NOT want to do, happens automatically when the enemies get near you. Oh, and the baddies grab you too and their favorite tactic is to get behind you while you’re fighting another one an interrupt your attack.

This is such a weird game in general in terms of structure. You start off with terrible action bits taken from the movie, fight two of Ivan Ooze’s giant robots as either Ninja Megazord or the Falconzord, then it cuts back to the beginning of Season Two with Jason, Zack, and Trini back and piloting the Thunderzords. Yes, you can actually play as the three peace conferenced Rangers in the middle of the game, before they go on strike leave for a peace conference and their powers are given to scabs three new teenagers with attitude who will work for $40,000 a year. Then it switches back to Rocky, Aisha, and Adam for the finale. I wish anything along that journey was fun, but MMPR: The Movie for Genesis has some of the worst enemy AI I’ve seen. Because of the strict time limit and the fact that enemies, especially the bosses, tend to linger off screen, most of the parts that should be the exciting, cinematic parts are instead your character standing at the edge of the screen blindly mashing buttons and hoping they hit. It’s always fun to play video games against enemies who run away from you, or in the case of Goldar, fly above you.

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Oh and speaking of running away, the fights with Goldar don’t end, because Goldar never dies. Fair enough. I guess that’s true to the show. But then in the grand finale against the final Ivan Ooze robot, which looks nothing like the robot Ivan infects in the movie, you don’t get the satisfaction of finishing HIM off either. He flies away before his last tick of battle, THEN you input your initials, then a final cutscene happens where you knock Ooze into the comet. But they cut out the gag where they knee Ivan Ooze in the balls, like in the film, because that would have probably taken a lot of extra effort to animate. Instead, they clumsily play fight until the comet arrives. There’s also a hidden boss battle against Lord Zedd, for no reason, in the middle of one of the stages. You have to smash a rock that reveals a cave that he’s inside. You fight him by attacking his hand, and then.. the level just continues. What. The. F*ck? And it even uses the exact same sprite for Zedd as the cutscenes do. It’s really remarkable how lazy this game is.

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The brawling action in Power Rangers: The Movie for Genesis is the bottom of the barrel for this genre. All the Rangers feel samey, and all of them have this powered-up hurricane kick that causes you damage to utilize. That changes to a powerful sword strike if you’re a Megazord. While it does have decently impactful OOMPH, it’s really boring because it really is just walking right and fighting one enemy type until you get to a boss. There’s no set pieces at all, really, and nothing to break up the action except boss battles. The only bone it throws is a couple times it puts a reusable barrel you can throw at enemies. Then the second-to-last level has flaming rocks rain from the sky that kill you and the putties. Since there’s so little variety, even if the combat had been good, this game would have fated to earn a NO! because it would have worn thin quickly. But the combat is really bad. The grabbing is too sensitive. Hell, at one point I grabbed an enemy falling onto the stage before his fall animation was complete, like he teleported into my arms. That’s how sensitive it is. It’s absolutely bonkers, and it’s ALWAYS unwelcome because the throwing eats up that precious time.

Without hyperbole, I actually had a much better time playing the Game Boy or, yes, even the Sega CD versions of Power Rangers than I did Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie on Genesis. As bored as I was playing those, they didn’t make me angry. And hell, the Super NES version looks like Ocarina of Time compared to this. Remove any one horrible deal-breaking element in this game, and it wouldn’t be enough to improve “The Movie” on Genesis because there’s so many other deal breaking elements. There’s not enough basic enemies. I counted two models total: putties and ooze monsters, and from what I could tell, there’s no variations between them. They all fight and act the same. So, that’s a deal breaker. The strict timer is also a deal breaker, given the sheer volume of enemies and the fact that they actively linger at the edges of the screen. The constant grabbing, by you and the enemies like it’s a heavyweight boxing match is a deal breaker. The fact that lining-up to even land a strike is. I could swear many times I was punching right through enemies despite being lined-up perfectly with them. I have nothing positive to say about this. It’s underrated only in the sense that it belongs on any worst licensed game list. It’s telling that the closest I came to smiling was seeing Serpentera in the background of a level. Then I smiled again when the game ended and it never showed up again. I didn’t want the game to ruin it too.
Verdict: NO!

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie
Platform: Sega Game Gear
Released July, 1995
Directed by Koji Ishitani and Takanobu Terada
Developed by SIMS Co. Ltd
Published by Sega
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

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Well, this is heartbreaking. The Game Gear version of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie just copies the engine from the first Game Gear game, shrinks the roster, removes the choices from Megazord battles, and adds a power move that’s almost never useful halfway through the campaign on the normal difficulty. Seriously, the AI blocks it or avoids it every time. Unlike the previous Game Gear title, I got bored this time around really quick. First off, I’ve basically already played it. Second, it’s nowhere near as clever with the pacing, as only the first two levels really feel like they’re structured like the TV show. Level four is just Ooze Men of increasing sponginess. Third, the AI is much tougher on NORMAL difficulty. Fourth, the roster of monsters you fight are just so random and uninspired. Finally, when you get to THE MOVIE part in level four and face the Ivan Ooze clones, there’s so many of them that I almost turned off the game. That’s the entire level and it’s SO boring. I might as well have quit, since the game ends with two fights using Ninja Falcon Megazord where your special moves are so worthless that you’re forced to just spam kicking and hope for the best. I was so bored playing this that I wondered if I made a horrible mistake earlier. So, I went back and checked the Game Gear original and it just FEELS better. I don’t know what went wrong here, but this rehash feels like the same type of cynical cash grab that plagues this franchise’s video game output.
Verdict: NO!

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie
Platform: Game Boy – Super Game Boy Enhanced
Released August, 1995
Directed by Hitoshi Muto
Developed by Tom Create Co.
Published by Bandai
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

I’m stunned by how many of these Power Rangers games feature no playable Zords. They don’t even make a cameo in the Game Boy version of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. What were any of these developers thinking? “Kids watch the show for the costumes and the karate, not the kickass giant combining robots. If we know anything about children, and we must know something since companies keep hiring us to make games for them, it’s that the kickass giant combining robots has very little to do with the success of the show.” Not that any of the Megazord battles in any of these games have been amazing or anything, but doing a Power Rangers game without Zords is like doing a Superman game without flying. It’s what defines the characters. Even the worst Superman games have gotten this, including the coin-op by Taito that’s awful. It’d be STUPID to make a Superman game without flying, because nobody would want that Superman game. And it’s stupid to make Power Rangers without the Zords.

Like its Super NES big brother, this is technically an improvement over the original, and for the same reason: there’s actual set pieces this time. The combat is still awful and, this time around, often unresponsive, but hey, progress! Like the SNES game, you now manually morph when you fill-up your energy meter. Unlike the SNES version, when you fill the meter up a second time, you can activate the bomb it grants you at any time. Using it on bosses takes half their energy, and since you can’t get more energy against the bosses, you might as well save it until then. Once you’re morphed, all the putties are slain in a single hit. Sometimes they back away from you and refuse to be hit, but on the off chance you actually take damage, don’t worry: they drop life refills constantly. They also drop lightning bolts that give you a lot more energy than a single box, but I didn’t find this out until the fourth of six levels. It took that long for such a drop to happen. Oh, and you can take levels 1 – 5 in any order, even though they actually scale in difficulty as if they were linear. This includes the bosses. What was the point in letting players choose?

“The Movie” is a masterpiece compared to the original Game Boy title. There’s actual effort in the level design. There’s even one of those “pick a door, any door” type of labyrinth stages, though it’s not THAT hard to find your way through it. There’s a section where you ride a hoverboard, and some average but fine platforming bits. All the bosses but Ivan Ooze rise to the level of decent, though any goodwill that would have earned the game is undone by the area before the battle with Ivan Ooze being a boss rush where you fight them all again. Still, if the combat were better, I’d probably been inclined to give MMPR: The Game Boy Movie a YES! But that combat is just too basic, too repetitive, and too inelegantly programmed to make this a fun game. It really speaks to how badly made the first Game Boy Rangers adventure was that The Movie could improve upon it by several factors and still not even be a good game. The best thing I can say about it is that they’re on an upward trajectory right before Game Boy as a brand takes over as the home of yearly Power Rangers releases. Here’s hoping the two Game Boy Color and five Game Boy Advance Power Rangers games are halfway decent.
Verdict: NO!

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Fighting Edition
Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Released September, 1995
Designed by Kunio Suzuki
Developed by Natsume
Published by Bandai
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Oh, hey wait. I get it. THIS is why there’s no Zords in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie for the SNES. “If the little bastards want to play with giant robots, they can pay extra for it.” I’m guessing I’m right on this one, and that they left the Zords out of The Movie to incentivize SNES kids to buy this game. Gross. Unlike the previous fighting-centric games for the Genesis and Game Gear, this one has no Rangers at all. This is 100% giant robots and rubber suit monsters. The best way I can describe this is “imagine Street Fighter II where every character is a Zangief-type of heavy.” Hey, the OOMPH is fantastic, but the combat is slow and dull. The big innovation is this “power meter” that looks like the type of gauge you would see in a golfing video game that quickly fills up and resets non-stop during battles. If you execute a special move at the very moment it fills up all the way, you “level-up” and hit harder. You can’t even say “this sounds good in theory” because the inevitable result, especially if you’re playing with mostly fighting game novices like myself and my family, is just fumbling with trying to execute special moves at “the right time” instead of just enjoying the fight.

While the fighting is plodding, what really irked me is that the roster is absolutely pitiful. Eight total fighters. Nine with a secret code that lets you play as Ivan Ooze. In the campaign mode, your only options are Thunder Megazord and Mega Tigerzord. Mind you, Ninja Megazord and the gigantic Shogun Megazord are in the game, but not available for the campaign mode. Instead, YOU FIGHT them. Yea, the roster is so thin of Zedd & Rita’s monsters that you actually have to fight nearly as many Zords as you do the monsters. Four battles are against other Megazords (including a mirror match), while five are against Goldar (naturally), Lord Zedd, and Ivan Ooze. The other two spots go to Silver Horns, which is fine because he was the monster of the week in one of the most important episodes ever, where Rocky/Aisha/Adam become Rangers. The final roster spot? Lip Syncer, aka Trini’s tube of lipstick turned evil. And that’s the whole roster. F*ck you, game. This is the most depressing Definitive Review I’ve done yet, because as a gaming franchise, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers has to be one of the worst. A series of lazy and cynical cash-grabs. I have to stop here for my own sanity.
Verdict: NO!