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

STAFF REVIEW of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind (Xbox Series X)

Thursday, December 12, 2024.
by Chad Goodmurphy

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind Box art

As a child of the 90s, I grew up in the heyday of shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers, which I watched from the start. I remember setting the VCR to record the latter show while I was at school and watching it when I got home, or getting my mom to do it. Needless to say, I was obsessed, and was the perfect audience for such a thing. I still remember going to see the first movie, and saving up to buy the VHS tape as soon as it came out.

Of course, my love of all things Power Rangers extended to other mediums, like action figures and video games. I used to rent and love the Beat ‘Em Ups for Super Nintendo, although I don’t think I played anything after that. The same goes for the show: when it started having lots of different spin-offs, with different themes, it lost me. It’s also possible that I just aged out. Either way, my last experience with this franchise was the most recent, live-action, movie, which I watched on TV within months of its release.

At least, that was the case until this morning, when I installed and played through a brand new game called Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind, which is just releasing on Xbox platforms, alongside other gaming systems, like PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch and PC.

This one comes to us from Digital Eclipse, which began life in the 90's and has created games like Rayman Advance, Tron, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection and many more. They’ve been at it for a long while, and were a good choice to helm the return of this property in the gaming space.

The story begins as Robo-Rita — who seems to be a robotic and futuristic version of the original villain, Rita Repulsa, who’s perhaps from a more recent version of the show — finds a way to travel back in time to 1993. There, she teams up with (well, bosses around) the original version of her character, and entrances the Green Ranger. She’s hellbent on taking over Angel Grove, and only the Power Rangers can stop her!

Over the course of approximately three hours, players will battle and shoot their way through around fifteen different stages set across Angel Grove. These take the form of familiar locations and archetypes, like city streets, a carnival, a graveyard, and the desert. However, there is more than one type of level, which it’s important to note. You see, Rita’s Rewind has a nice amount of variety, and is proof that its developers did not rest on their laurels. The result is a really good game. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind borrows from, and takes advantage of the momentum that the great Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge created in 2022. It’s hard not to make comparisons to that gem by Tribute Games, although this one is more varied and seemingly longer. It also offers a separate speed run mode, but that doesn’t interest me.

How is it so varied? Well, you’ll of course kick and punch your way through a number of typical, side scrolling Beat ‘Em Up stages. These will have you moving from left to right, across a particular environment, as groups of enemies come at you. Said foes take the form of Putty Patrollers from the original series, and they come in different varieties: basic, heavy (with the ability to block, and a big rock at the end of one arm), dashing (these run from one side of the screen to the other) and massive, among one or two others. Some throw bombs, and others will pick up and throw explosive barrels or boxes at you.

Of course, as is the case with this type of game, you’ll be able to use environmental things (like girders, swings and other things) to do damage against enemies. You’ll also break boxes to reveal coins, and do the same to find lost characters and uncover pick-ups. Those range from food (which obviously heals you) to lightning bolts, which make you faster and perhaps even stronger.

Each Power Ranger has his or her own special ability, too, and those can be used on occasion, after a meter fills up. I played as both Jason (Red) and Billy (Blue), the latter of whom was my favourite growing up, and both specials spammed the screen with lightning or explosions. You can pick any of the Rangers to play as, but will not be able to choose Green until after completing the game once.

You’ll get three lives per stage, and once those are emptied then it’s time to use one of ten limited continues. Dying will sometimes reset your progress a bit, too, to the last checkpoint. Not always though. Say you’re in the middle of a boss fight. It won’t happen then.

The other stage types generally involve using your chosen Power Ranger’s vehicle, like Billy’s triceratops. These levels put a new spin on what is mostly a 16-bit, Super Nintendo inspired Beat ‘Em Up. They do this by making you move vertically and use a cursor to aim your shots at enemy vehicles, robots, ships and bosses.

The vehicle levels are the most challenging part of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Revenge, and there were a couple that gave me some grief. One had me wondering if I was going to be able to get past it, at least on the normal difficulty (of which there are three), but I did after some trouble. There’s a lot going on during these segments, and it can be easy to get hit at certain times. Plus, there are no food pick-ups during them.

Those sections sometimes end in first-person, Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots type battles against large beasts, using the massive robot that all of the Rangers’ vehicles can combine to form. Thankfully, it seems impossible to fail these, because I sucked at them.

What you want to do here is move left or right to avoid incoming attacks, rockets and projectiles. You can move closer as you do so and, once the enemy is right in front of you, it’s possible to punch them up to about ten times, using A and X. One button is for your left hand, while the other is for the right. Then, once you’ve filled a meter, you’ll be able to finish them off using the great sword.

I can’t say that I was a big fan of those segments of the game, but I applaud the developers’ efforts to do something different. They definitely didn’t phone this release in.

Mechanically, this is a very solid brawler. However, I wouldn’t say it’s as tight as Shredder’s Revenge, which set a high bar. Don’t let this turn you off, though, because it’s hardly a complaint or issue. I just found that it was occasionally too difficult to avoid certain attacks, and that the dodge roll didn’t always help me as much as it could’ve. This is a very minor complaint, though, so please don’t take it too strongly. Shredder’s Revenge was an absolute gem, and this is up there too.

During downtime between stages and acts, the teen Power Rangers get together at a juice bar in Angel Grove. It’s a pretty underwhelming hub that left a lot to be desired, as there’s little to it. There are a few NPCs that you can talk to, but their dialogue is very limited. Other than that, the only things to do in the bar are to spend quarters on mediocre arcade games that feel like they’re out of the 1980's. They’re out of order until you progress, and each one unlocks at a different point of the campaign.

Players can also look at the hidden mementos that they’ve found throughout the campaign. These act as basic collectibles, and are likely homages to different episodes although I don’t remember a whole lot from the series. These were harder to find than the collectibles in Shredder’s Revenge.

It’s important to mention that this game launches with six player local co-op play, except on PlayStation, which only supports four for whatever reason. It’s also going to get two player online PvP-op through a later patch. The developers say it’ll arrive shortly after release, so the wait shouldn’t be too long.

I didn’t have anyone to play with, so I played solo as I usually do. I would like to play through this one again, though, with some friends. It would be a really fun experience while having a couple of drinks or something. After all, we all grew up with this type of game. This is big for me, because I usually don’t care about, or bother with, co-op.

As mentioned above, Rita’s Rewind is an homage to the 16-bit Power Rangers games of the 90's. As such, I’m the perfect target audience. Those of us who are in our thirties, and grew up playing this type of game on consoles and at arcades are its target audience, but newcomers will also enjoy this very good game.

Due to the above, you can expect dated but nice looking visuals, which push the 16-bit trappings to the limit with creative stages, detailed character models and great environments, not to mention well crafted animations. This is a really good looking game, and the optional CRT TV and scan line overlays add to the nostalgia.

I will be honest, and admit that I pressed mute once or twice while the game was paused. That’s because the chiptunes song that plays at the juice bar got to be a bit annoying. For the most part, though, the music was pretty good herein. I didn’t notice it a lot, for better or worse, but it fits. The sound effects were good, as well.

With all that having been said, I doubt I need to say much more about how easily recommendable Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind is. It’s a great, nostalgic, trip back to some of the best years of my life, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Due to its challenge level, at times, I did regularly fear not being able to beat it solo on normal, but I managed to with several continues left. I wish that I wouldn’t have let that anxiety through, because it admittedly did mar my experience with this wonderful game somewhat. Still, I truly enjoyed and was thoroughly impressed by it, despite not loving the first-person machine battles all that much.

If you’re a fan of 2D Beat ‘Em Ups, loved TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge and/or simply grew up with these types of games, you’ll love Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Revenge. Digital Eclipse has delivered a love letter to the Power Rangers’ heyday of 1993-1996. It’s a nice treat for the holiday season.

**Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series S**

Suggestions:
Please make a sequel

Overall: 9.0 / 10
Gameplay: 9.0 / 10
Visuals: 9.4 / 10
Sound: 8.7 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind (Xbox Series X)

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