Review – Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind

The average Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers episode had about ten minutes of fighting in a 30 minute episode. Ask anyone who was glued to their television as kids (or even adults… like me) and they’ll tell you that was more than enough time to justify tuning in every week. Perhaps the most important aspect of Power Rangers though is all of the posing, assembling, and transforming. Watching the Dinozords come together as one to form the Megazord while electric guitars shredded behind the scene was just the coolest. This was a detrimental aspect of the show’s identity. 

It’s with this reminiscing on my life as a five year-old that I want to set the scene. 1994, I’m not even a year old yet, but Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers is absolutely massive in popularity. The toy lines will go on to be the hottest Christmas gift, a feature-length movie is impending and hundreds of kids will dress as Tommy Oliver for Halloween. However, there’s one place you cannot find the Power Rangers: an arcade. And for 30 years, that didn’t change. Until now. 

Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind is an interesting piece of meta narrative. The plot goes back in time 30 years ago to when the Rangers had first been recruited by Zordon and Alpha, now fighting through a timeline of events well-known to us as fans but not to the Rangers themselves yet. In this timeline, Rita Repulsa is being led by her robot counterpart, Robo Rita, who fans will recognize from the Netflix special Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: Once And Always that debuted last year. As gamers, we are also in an alternate timeline, one where Power Rangers received a beat-em-up arcade game rendition in the ‘90s much like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men and The Simpsons. 

 

 

On concept alone, this is already an ambitious title. And thankfully, developers Digital Eclipse along with Atari and Hasbro have done their homework with past Power Rangers video games from the same era. They’ve added so much more in the process. Never before has a Power Rangers game allowed you and five of your friends to pilot the Megazord in first person, taking turns dealing blows to a gigantic Goldar. Or how about running through entire shooting levels as the Dinozords? Rita’s Rewind aims to add more to the beat-em-up formula of side-scrolling punches, kicks and jumps, doing an excellent job in the process of keeping the action fresh.

Of all the translations of the Powers Rangers series to video game format, the heavy hitters have always been the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis adaptions of the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers series and the movie. They still hold up as side-scrollers to this day, so where does Rita’s Rewind fit? For my money, at the very top. The game’s Story Mode, an arcade-style level-by-level run of 15 stages split up into 6 episodes, perfectly mimics how the show flows. You get the human teen drama before it’s Morphin’ Time, fight your way through a stage up to a boss showdown, the boss’ health bar depletes, they quip, cut to commercial break which in this case is heading back to the world map or the Juice Bar which acts as a hub. You do this in each episode until you get to a Dinozord level where you’re running and shooting in 3D to destroy a time crystal, fight the boss again then power up to the Megazord to finish them off. I was in awe of how much Rita’s Rewind captures the spirit of the beloved show. 

 

 

Some of the common criticisms of the beat-em-up genre are that it’s repetitive, recycles enemy designs and locations as well as becoming stale quickly. I can’t say that Rita’s Rewind had me feeling this way. Even when Angel Grove showed up as a level more than once, it was the context that caused it to feel different each time. Enemies don’t unfortunately deviate much from the Putties but at least there are time-altered, mutated takes on them as well. However, if you tire of beating the crud out of Putties, the bosses will be your favorite part of the game. The boss fights are so fantastic that I didn’t mind having to replay them if I died. Their patterns change drastically with each dwindling bit of health bar and they feel as big and ridiculous as their television counterparts. Goldar, Bones, Madame Woe and a few excellent surprises all made for great challenges, be they screen-filling elemental wave attacks or gigantic lasers. The fight against Bones particularly becomes one deadly game of jump rope. 

All six playable Rangers have the same moveset but their animations, poses and weapons are all individualized. This is a nice touch that I find past games just didn’t get right. The SNES featured a bulky, big-shouldered sprite template for every Ranger, hilariously even for Trini and Kimberly. A Ranger isn’t just a template, they’re a personality. That’s what makes Billy’s transformation from an intelligent nerd to fist-flying Power Ranger so interesting, for example. The moves, stances, weapons and general character traits for Zack, Trini, Jason, Tommy, Billy and Kimberly are perfectly captured and based off their TV appearances in Rita’s Rewind. You can walk, dash, somersault to dodge, jump, double jump, punch, kick, slash ground pound, dive and use your Power Coin to summon your specific animal element for a screen-filling special attack. Your special meter can be filled by finding coins in trash cans or crates. Additionally, you can find a lightning bolt which makes your moves faster and gives you super armor that cancels out any flinching you would normally do when getting hit. A tutorial that begins the game and becomes accessible from the main menu under Extras at any time shows you the ropes. At first I found the general size of the Rangers’ sprites to be a little small, but it makes sense when compared to the gargantuan villains the Rangers take down in the game. It only makes you feel more satisfaction and you definitely have the moves to kick some serious Rita Repulsa butt. 

 

 

Rita’s Rewind unfolds over the course of 15 action-packed stages with diverse locales. You’ll see plenty of Angel Grove’s city streets and roofs of its skyscrapers in addition to a nuclear waste plant, a graveyard in an alternate dimension and a show-stopping, multi-part theme park stage. The stages also include desert runs in Dinozord 3D on-rails shooting levels and motorcycle chases. These are done very well and feel just as arcadey as the beat-em-up sections. The Megazord fights that act as the finale of each boss battle take a page from Punch Out!!’s book having you dodging, weaving and alternating left and right punches to deal some serious damage. There wasn’t one part of Rita’s Rewind that didn’t capture the fun and simplicity of old arcade games that remain popular to this day. I can’t forget to mention that Juice Bar hub includes three original arcade games of its own. The most addictive of them is definitely Drive Bomber, a fast-moving vertical scroller which focuses on shooting bombs at vehicles in front of you to rack up points. 

Finally, how’s the difficulty? Beat-em-ups have been notorious for being quarter munchers. Rita’s Rewind has four difficulties, the hardest of which is unlocked by beating the game on Hard. If you plan on doing so, note that Hard gives you 5 continues with 2 lives in each level. This is actually very tough. Even completing the game on Normal, which allows for 10 continues, was a task I almost didn’t complete. By the time I reached Rita’s Palace I had one continue left. This is helped by playing with up to five of your friends in couch co-op or online of course, but I was soloing this run. I could have gone with the Easy difficulty which grants you unlimited continues, but I wanted to experience the game as intended. I didn’t have much trouble whatsoever with the first four stages, but from that point the game throws a difficulty spike your direction and doesn’t let up. Stages get longer with some not exiting to the world map between levels. One stage in particular I considered a gauntlet, but I won’t spoil which. Regardless, if you’re a beat-em-up veteran, you’ll definitely experience a decent level of challenge just on Normal difficulty. The two hard difficulties I’m positive will assuredly see some save files getting erased when the continues inevitably run out. 

The finale of Rita’s Rewind is joyous if you’re a fan of the first season of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers especially. The boss fights are spectacular and the way the final few stages play out is exhilarating. As someone who has long wanted to see what a classic arcade rendition of Power Rangers would be like, Rita’s Rewind was immensely satisfying for me. I can’t imagine it letting any fan of the show, the brand or beat-em-ups down. I’m also happy to report that the Nintendo Switch version of the game plays flawlessly, even in the busier sections of the 3D stages. 

If you’re a now 30-something year-old like me that grew up with the Power Rangers, Rita’s Rewind will awaken the inner five year-old within you that still crashes their action figures together. 

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