Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind (Review)

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind
Platforms: Everything. I think even refrigerators have it.
Released December 10, 2024
Developed by Digital Eclipse
$34.99 has a headache in the making of this review.
The Nintendo Switch version was played for this review.

That’s not Zordon. That’s the sit-up champion of the 27th century. Hold on, this DOES have time travel! Holy sh*t, is this a Bill & Ted game? HOLD ON, Bill and Ted are teenagers with attitude too! Dude. Someone make this crossover happen.

Last year, I reviewed all twelve Mighty Morphin Power Rangers games of the 1990s. Of those twelve games, two out of twelve scored YES! votes and ten scored NO!s. And hell, one of those YES! votes was for Jetman, a Super Sentai with no ties to the “Mighty Morphin” era that I only included because “why not?”  So the bar to clear for “best Mighty Morphin Power Rangers game” is set so low that I’m pretty sure the Tyrannosaurus Zord breaks through the bar when Jason summons it. There’s NO WAY Digital Eclipse could screw this up. They’re Digital Eclipse! They ran the table for original games in Atari 50! They did Alice in Wonderland for the Game Boy Color, a difficult movie to translate to video game form, and they nailed it! They seem to know what they’re doing! Sigh. After playing Rita’s Rewind, I’ve come to the conclusion Power Rangers is a cursed video game franchise. There’s no other explanation. I would have bet all the money in my pocket against all the money in yours that Digital Eclipse would have knocked this f*cker out of the park and created the hands-down best Power Rangers game of all-time beyond any dispute. They didn’t, and I’m still going with the Game Gear release for that title. What happened?

Oh right, that happened. And a lot of other “that happened” happenings happened.

When it sticks to the brawler parts of the game, Rita’s Rewind is mostly okay. Mostly. The combat, borrowing liberally from the classic arcade Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle games, has a nice high-impact OOMPHfulness to it that feels weighty and violent. The puddies make for good Foot Clan stand-ins and come in a wide variety, including three-headed giant-sized ones. They could have done the whole game like this with a single Megazord sequence and I think the reception would have been much more enthusiastic. By that, I think people would have universally said “meh, it’s fine” and yeah, it probably would have been the best Rangers game. Don’t get me wrong: Rewind’s brawling segments are nowhere near as good as Shredder’s Revenge. Don’t expect that. Not even close. The level design isn’t as strong, the combat is a step below, and some of the level settings are pretty damn dull. The best stage is easily one set in a carnival. As for the rest? Well, um…….. Oh boy, that carnival level was nice!

The big hook, the “time disruptors” are bombs you have to ping to death before they blow up. When they do, the action is rewound and you have to do everything in that screen again, only the damage you caused to the jar remains. The good news is, if you used a bomb before the explosion, you get the bomb back. Either way, the kids hated this part. Even Sasha the Kid says if she could cut one thing, this would be it, even more than the instakills or the length of the zord levels.

And there’s some really irritating decisions that were totally unnecessary, like losing every drop of your bomb charge if you fall off a pit. That’s too damn stiff a penalty for such a mundane thing. If your meter is charged all the way and you fall into a pit, you lose the bomb. F*ck that sh*t! Just take a tick off health! That’s tradition! Sucking possibly a whole bomb bar dry is borderline player abuse. Digital Eclipse made a big mistake there, because, get this, BOMBS IN BRAWLING GAMES AREN’T JUST BOMBS! They’re monotony breakers. When the same old fisticuffs start to wear thin, the meter is charged and you can unleash a satisfying, screen-clearing mega shot, and suddenly the punching and jump kicks aren’t as dull as they felt a second ago. Taking THAT away from your players as a penalty for such a run of the mill screw-up as falling into a pit is absurd, especially when a health slap makes sense on every possible level. Why would falling into a hole take away power from the f*cking Power Rangers?

And the bombs are SO cool too.

Having a variety of rangers doesn’t help thanks to an especially annoying level-up system. Their heart was in the right place, but if someone doesn’t finish a stage, they earn no XP and thus no upgrades. The system also discourages switching characters between levels because the stats are linked to the characters and not the players, which in essence blocks players from freshening up the experience. I know Sasha and I wanted to change rangers BUT we didn’t want to reset our stats, locking us into the Pink and Red Rangers for the full length of the quest. So an element that in theory should keep the game fresh and engaging instead does the complete opposite. Again, great in theory, but not so great when you factor in the ramifications of it.

There are a few cute touches, like if you smack a swing hard enough, it’ll go around the top bar. Cool.

But the brawling is still the main attraction, warts and all, and sometimes it does rise above average. There’s plenty of health refills and just enough moves to change things up. Decent boss battles with plenty of platforming-like timing attacks. The final boss, Robo Rita, incorporates the classic “knock the enemy’s energy blast back at them” trope, which I’ve never seen done in a brawler before but it worked wonderfully. In general, the brawling is never bad, but it never wowed me, either (outside of the Robo Rita fight. A very well done final boss). On the other hand, there’s tons of hidden stuff to find. Stuff that’s more well hidden than in Shredder’s Revenge. In that game, only once did we have to replay a stage to find something we missed. In this game, we never found everything, so they must have actually put effort into it. If you have a better time than I did, that should add to the replay value.

I really did enjoy most aspects of the brawling bosses, which often lean heavily into forcing players into timing-based jumping sequences to avoid their hits. Like here, Turkey Jerk spins around with this laser and it’s like the Sweeper event from Wipeout. I do think some of the attack sequences went too long or had too many invincibility frames but, meh, the brawling bosses are fine. They just never “do it” for me the same way TMNT does.

If they had just left it at the brawling, I could end the review here and call Rita’s Rewind a YES! and maybe, possibly, the best Power Rangers game ever. But the game does a lot more than brawling. There’s multiple other gameplay styles in Rita’s Rewind, and not as mini-games. Oh no. We’re talking either full levels or extended sequences within levels. The best of them is probably a section on a roller coaster fashioned like a shooting gallery. You move crosshairs to blast puddies out of the sky and ultimately fight a version of Eyeguy on the ride. Even though it lasts longer than I expected, it’s fun. The one kid who stuck with me for the full length of the game, Sasha the Kid, also enjoyed it the most of any of the non-brawling stuff. It controls great and there’s no sponge to the enemies. The roller coaster setting worked. This was arguably the highlight of the game.

Everything else is kind of a (day of the) dumpster fire. The Zords sequences had me so pumped the first time they started-up, a feeling that intensified when I felt how good they controlled. It’s basically Star Fox 64, only with Power Ranger zords. The excitement didn’t last very far into the first stage, though. These three levels are just not exciting at all and go twice the length or longer than they should. That’s not to mention that the Star Fox 64 comparison only applies if you’re using the Pink Ranger and flying the Pterodactyl Zord, which is, more or less, a stripped-down Star Fox Arwing. Since she flies, it makes for a much more fun, combat-focused experience where you don’t have to worry about, you know, dying instantly. If you’re curious how the other zords work, well, you have to jump like an endless running platformer mixed with Star Fox 64. This is pretty important, because the level design incorporates the occasional gap or narrow bridge you have to cross, and if you use any other character but Kimberly, you run the risk of falling into the pit. Falling into a pit doesn’t just take off a tick of health and reset you. You lose a life.

The Zord levels have their moments, but those are few and far between.

Between this and losing your bomb meter from pits in the stages, most of the kids said “peace out” and refused to continue even when we reached the Megazord sequence (more on that later). I did convince them to come back for the next brawler level, which was followed by a motorcycle level that’s sort of like Road Rash with Power Rangers. It seemed fun at first, until even more instakill traps that come on faster and are harder to spot arrived. The kids’ lives drained out and it was at that point they were done for good. And I mean for good, as they didn’t even want to hop on and off for the brawling levels because they were furious about the penalty for the pits. Sasha and I started over with me as the Pink Ranger and her as the Red Ranger and we did finish the game, and it was just barely okay as a two player experience from start to finish. “Are you giving it a YES!?” she asked, and I honestly didn’t know until I went back to playing single player to gather media for this review. I was thinking of giving it a split decision.

I didn’t discover until I switched over to a different save file that Sasha and I, by beating the game, unlocked a bunch of bonus options that include, among other things, eliminating the time disruptions that *I* thought was the game’s most clever twist but the children HATED. Perhaps the most important unlock is “Equal Rangers” which eliminates the poorly thought-out level-up system that really doesn’t mix well with levels that can end with one player dying via pits, meaning they don’t earn XP to upgrade their stats. I made one final pitch to bring the children back to the game with these options and they declined, saying “let us know when you’re ready to play Marvel Cosmic Invasion.” Ooh, did I just spoil what’s next at IGC?

Playing Power Rangers solo was a total f*cking slog that made it feel like I was watching my own green candle burn out. The game is too optimized for multiplayer, yet the Zord levels really, really don’t lend themselves to multiplayer either. One person will have the desirable Star Fox-like Zord, and everyone else has to deal with jumping on stages where jumping ain’t fun. There were only two aspects of the game that worked better while playing solo. In my opinion, the two motorcycle levels were much, MUCH stronger playing them alone. Far less chaotic, which made it easier to keep track of the barriers that are instakills. Hell, I’d even say they were the best stages in the entire solo game, like those levels were meant to only be single player all-along. The other strong design is the first-person Punch-Out!!-like Megazord sequences. Those really are just like Punch-Out!!, only from first person and with the ability to move forward and backward.

Telero-Megazord.

“How does it work in multiplayer?” You take turns. None of the kids liked that format at all, but I’m really not sure what else they could have done. When I played with Sasha the Kid, rather than alternate so we’d both be half-invested in the action, I just let her take both controllers and do the Megazord stuff herself. The format causes several extended breaks in the action and screws up the tempo because there has to be a pause to switch players. Then, after you fill up all four Power Sword meters, you have to button mash to charge up the energy of the power sword, though this seems to be a “for funsies” thing that doesn’t make or break you if you fail to score the killing blow. The stage ended either way and we still got an “S” ranking one time when we failed to destroy the boss. Let it be said we both kind of liked the Megazord stuff, especially the third and final one, which I won’t spoil for you but you can probably guess what it is. Here’s a hint: do…do-do…do-do-do.

The settings for the Zord sequences are pretty dull. I wish there had been one running through the city.

This was so tough to come up with the verdict for because it was either going to just barely be a YES! or just barely be a NO! After careful consideration, I’m going with the NO! I didn’t have more fun than not with Rita’s Rewind. Its lows are easily lower than the highest highs, but it was the mostly valueless single player side of the equation that was the deciding factor. Rita’s Rewind is one of those Jack of All Trades games that has strong aspects but, unlike Megazord, it just never comes together. Every aspect that works is rendered a little less potent by all dull sections, and NONE of the gameplay types, even the shooting gallery stuff that we enjoyed, mixes well with any other gameplay element.

Ugh, I mean look at that. It LOOKS boring doesn’t it?!

The Zord levels needed their length cut by at least half, and even then, they lack the interesting settings. They’re even more boring in single player. Like in the first Zord level, it feels like it takes FOREVER to drain Goldar’s health, turning the first Zord encounter into a chore. There’s other things that held me back. In the brawling sections, the rangers never feel distinct enough, something that could have been fixed with some unmorphed sequences. If you use the power weapons, I never noticed it, or figured out how to. There’s no Dragonzord in Fighting Mode with his sick ass drill sword. There’s no Ultrazord. There’s no Power Blaster. In the zord mode, the items wear off too quickly and having one character who flies and four who don’t feels like a good way to start fights among friends. The biggest problem of all is you need multiple people for maximum enjoyment, yet the Zord levels and the motorcycle levels are noticeably less fun because of how visually loud the explosions are. We ALL struggled to keep track of where we were in the Zord levels, even me and I was flying. Yet, YOU NEED EXPLOSIONS or it ain’t Power Rangers.

You remember how the Juice Bar had arcade machines? Yeah, you can play those. They include a combative racing game, a game I will talk about after the verdict, and this knock-off of Time Pilot (which I reviewed in Konami SHMUPs: The Definitive Review) that I didn’t really like at all. Two of the three games were really dull and one led to the absolute stupidest hour of my entire life.

I think there’s a problem inherent to Power Rangers as a franchise that prevents it from being a great video game. It’s not the cheese or being a children’s show. It’s all the crap you have to include to make it feel like a Rangers game. To Digital Eclipse’s infinite credit, they did try to fit it all in here, but Star Fox 64-like gameplay is not compatible with a brawler. Not even in a wacky juxtaposition type of way, especially if you have a multiplayer focus because some players will inevitably prefer one style of game over another, and possibly dislike another style so much they no longer want to play. That’s what happened at my house. A developer’s only other option is to, in theory, optimize to one specific aspect of the show for a game, except it’s been tried before, and it doesn’t work either.

The Zord sequences where you have to blow up these bases didn’t go over well with anyone.

There was a Power Rangers Dino Thunder Gamecube game that was pretty mediocre that was just the Zords. It was boring. The SNES disaster Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie: The Game: The Ride: The Broadway Musical was just the Rangers with no Zord gameplay at all and it was heartbreaking to the point that any lingering goodwill the game might have earned from previous highlights was totally erased. Famicom’s Zyuranger didn’t have Megazord stuff either. You kind of NEED the Megazord stuff, or it won’t feel like Power Rangers. But you also need the weapons and you need the rubber suit monsters and you probably even need the teenagers with attitude unmorphed for that sense of empowerment. They’re kids turning into superheroes, but if you don’t actually get to proactively make that change, it’s not really like the show then, is it? Hell, even Digital Eclipse skipped that part. There’s no unmorphed action at all in Rita’s Rewind. Even if it had just been at the start of first level, just for contrast’s sake, it would have been preferred to having no unmorphed action at all. So, I don’t think Rita’s Rewind is more fun than not. It’s a slightly better than average brawler with multiplayer, but it’s not JUST a brawling game. Add up all the ways this does work and subtract all the ways it doesn’t and you end up with more boredom than fun. Maybe that’s because Power Rangers just doesn’t lend itself to gaming.
Verdict: NO!

And by the way, the most fun I had with this set was one of the three arcade games in the Juice Bar, Karate Chopshop. You have to karate chop a variety of objects by using up as little of a meter as possible. Digital Eclipse could probably make some decent scratch by releasing this as a stand alone mobile game. It’s pretty addictive. It was the most fun I had with Power Rangers, even more than the peaks of the brawling sections. I couldn’t put it down. But, come on, it’s not worth close to $34.99 or even 80% off that by itself.

Bring it on.