Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers

 After focusing on one of my son's latest obsession last week, it's time to talk about one from my own childhood.

Let's be honest, I wasn't the only one.  Back in the early 90's, it seemed like everyone between the ages of 4 and 10 was in full blown love with the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.  This was much watch stuff every time it was on television for 90's kids.  Every time these five warriors, who were actually just five ordinary teenagers in glorified space suits, took on the diabolical Rita Repulsa and her intergalactic monsters, we had to watch. Everything about it was just so cool, the explosions, the giant, colorful monsters, the robots that turned into even bigger robots, it was tailor made for me and and every other 90's kid. This show put many a karate instructor's kids through college.

It really is amazing when you think about it.  Who would have thought a teen drama written around repurposed footage from a random Japanese TV show (Super Sentai, which was already in its 16th season when MMPR hit stateside) would become the biggest merchandising juggernaut in the world?  The Power Rangers were everywhere, and video games were no exception.  There were tons of video games, but this one, a side scrolling beat em' up for the Super Nintendo, was the first one I remember.  I don't remember where I got it from, but I am sure it was a result of pushing the patience of my parents past its breaking point.  Back then, I didn't care whether or not the game was actually good.  It was Power Rangers, so I wanted it.  That's how they get you with these licensed games, it's their sole reason for existing and why so many of them aren't any good...because they don't have to be.

Fortunately, that wasn't the case here.  Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers wasn't revolutionary by any means. It's far from the best game I've ever played, but it's well made and presents a solid effort from developer Natsume and publisher Bandai. They could have absolutely phoned this in and still made money hand over fist, but there was actually a lot of thought put into the presentation and making the game feel like the show. The gameplay is lacking, but it isn't necessarily bad.

The biggest positive here is the presentation.  As soon as the game starts up, you are greeted with the all-to-familiar Power Rangers Logo and song.  And this isn't some stripped down version either.  It sounds just like the TV show, with vocals and everything.  Dare I say, this might be the best digitized speech on the entire console? The music in the rest of the game is a little more stock-y, but I actually like it a lot.  For one, the sound quality is great.  But something about it just seems like it fits perfectly with both 16-bit gaming and Power Rangers.  Graphics are really strong too, the stages don't have a whole lot going on, but the backgrounds are extremely detailed and everything is top quality.  The rangers look a little goofy outside their suits, but the animation on their attacks is very detailed and they do look better once they power up.  If I have one gripe here, it's that they recycle the same sprite and just make it different colors.  Because of this, the pink and yellow rangers look like men, and the pink ranger's suit is the same as the others' even though its supposed to be slightly different. (Fun fact, the yellow suit isn't different in the show because the yellow ranger is a man in Super Sentai.  Weird.)

You get the choice to play as any of the five original rangers, Zack (black), Kimberly (pink), Billy (blue), Trini (yellow) and Jason (red).  No Tommy here, which is a little surprising since he had been on the show for about a year by the time the game had released.  Each ranger plays pretty much the same, though the animations on their attacks are at least different.  They also attack with their appropriate weapons in ranger form, though again they are all relatively similar.  Kimberly can shoot an arrow with her bow and Billy can spin his lance for a few extra hits, but that's about it for differences.  Controls are simple, a jumps, b punches.  Hit the enemy with a combo and your ranger will pull off a pseudo-special move.  You can also grab and throw enemies and background objects and you are granted a screen clear attack once you morph.  It's simple and straightforward, probably too much so, but at least it works as it's intended. The hit detection is fair and at no point did I ever not feel in control of my character.

The problem though is there is not much depth to any of this.  This is as simplistic as a beat em' up can get, and that's saying something in a genre people already think is too simplistic.  All you do is walk to the right and beat up enemies.  You can only walk on a straight line, it's not like Streets of Rage or Final Fight where you have free reign of the screen.  This removes a fairly substantial portion of the challenge, as you no longer have to account for where enemies are coming from, you pretty much always know.  Sometimes you will have to do some basic platforming or swimming, but that's about it for variety.  There are seven levels, five of which are standard beat em' up stages and two of which are megazord battles that play like a fighting game.  These aren't particularly long levels, leading to a fairly short game.  I beat it in exactly an hour. For better or worse, the game is incredibly easy.  There aren't too many tricky jumps and with the exception of one of the boss fights, I never felt like I was really challenged.  Even that boss fight wasn't THAT hard.  I think the only time I died was when I accidentally unplugged my controller mid jump.  I can't complain about this too much, it's supposed to be targeted at kids after all, but a little more challenge would have been nice.

I also take issue with the enemy selection.  For your basic foes, you have putty patrollers, random robots and that's it.  I know the puttys were Rita's primary grunts in the show, but a little variety would have gone a long way.  Some of the puttys behave differently, but said differences are negligible.  The boss selection isn't great either.  Of the five normal stage bosses, I only remember two of them, bones the skeleton and the dude made out of eyeballs.  I do vaguely remember the Viking from the second level but I don't know if I ever saw episodes with a genie wolf or a ninja and, trust me, I watched a lot of this show as a kid.  The megazord bosses were similar, I definitely remember Mutitus from the Doomsday episodes, but I have no idea who the final boss was.  This was disappointing, there were so, so many unique and interesting monsters that they could have used.  Where was King Sphinx?  And more importantly, where was Goldar, who was probably the most frequently featured antagonist in the show?  You do see Rita's face briefly, but that's about it for her and her cavalcade of freaks.  No Squatt, no Baboo, no Finster, no Scorpina.  They really should have at least given lip service to these characters, they were in almost every episode. Part of what made the show unique was its secondary characters and they just aren't there.  I'm not sure how they would have figured in, but it would have been nice to just passively mention characters like Bulk and Skull.

Like so many other fads, Power Rangers was unable to maintain its white hot spotlight.  Though it isn't the global phenomena it once was, the show is still going, continuing to borrow footage from Super Sentai, which is also still on the air in Japan.  I never saw the 2017 movie, but I have heard mixed reviews.  I know a lot has come out in recent years about how the show did not offer a pleasant work environment and paid the actors poorly. The actors didn't receive royalties and Austin St. John, who played Jason, was briefly homeless after leaving the show.  David Yost, who played Billy, has been particularly vocal about the homophobia he experienced while working on Power Rangers.  Still the original cast makes appearances on the convention circuit and there have been talks of a original cast involvement with a new movie reboot currently in development.  There could never be a full reunion of the original rangers, Thuy Trang, who played Trini, was tragically killed in a car accident in 2001, but it would be nice to see these actors involved with the franchise again. It's always sad to hear that something that made me, and so many kids like me, so happy was such a nightmare for the people that worked on it.  It would be awesome to see these actors get to leave, or even continue working on, the Power Rangers franchise on their own terms.  

But anyway, back to the game. I can't say it's bad and honestly, I think it's good that a game targeted at kids is a little simplistic.  This was a reasonable challenge for me in 1994, I was 6 and I was the target audience.  That it isn't for me today can't be held too harshly against it  Still, it. lacks variety and I really think it needed more levels, more gameplay types and more characters from the show.  There was definitely more good than bad and it was nice to see the developers didn't just turn out something ASAP to make money. Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers won't go down as an all time classic video game. But it's a good entry point into the beat em' up or 2D action genres for young or new gamers and it's worth a quick playthrough for the nostalgia factor alone.

7/10