Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Mega Battle sent me down a nostalgic trip that I wasn’t expecting to take. A simple beat’em up with colorful graphics, Mega Battle is inspired by the original Power Rangers, which began airing back in 1992, and brings back the original Rangers and their villains: Goldar, Rita Repulsa, and Lord Zedd, along with some infamous monsters that fans will recognize.
Mega Battle starts off with an awesome opening that mimics the opening of the TV show with the Power Rangers theme song and Zordon’s infamous line “find us teenagers with attitude.” It sent nostalgia chills up and down my arms. Mega Battle puts you in control of one of the five original Rangers as they try to stop Rita Repulsa from taking over the world. After practicing martial arts in the park, you’re attacked by Putties, accompanied by their signature wobbling sound they make.
As a beat’em up, Mega Battle doesn’t do anything radical, but then again it’s targeted for a younger audience as well as those who watched the show as children. You can link attacks during combat by launching enemies into the air and juggle combos, as well as use each Ranger’s unique weapons and martial arts to mix and match your attacks. Each Ranger has different stats that indicate what they’re good at in combat. The Pink Ranger is exceptional at long range attacks with her bow but much weaker at martial arts and close combat, while the Red Ranger is a great martial artist but not so potent at long range.
Even though each Ranger has different stats, I never really payed much attention to it in combat, and in all honestly the only differences I saw were how quickly each enemy was defeated using certain attacks. Defeating enemies nets you experience orbs that you can collect to level up your Ranger. Running into Alpha-5 during a mission allows you to unlock new skills and abilities. These skills greatly improve the experience of the game. You can unlock extra combo attacks, upgrade your attack and defence, and, best of all, you can upgrade tag team moves if you are playing with your friends. Sticking with nostalgia, you are even be able to upgrade the Power Rangers’ super weapon attack, where they combine all their weapons to form one magic crossbow cannon that just destroys everything in its path.
Mega Battle spams six levels that are separated into three stages. Each level takes you to new locations like Angel Grove Park, a mall, and even Lord Zedd’s home dimension. Some of the stages also do some fun and unique things like riding a wave board while fighting Putties and running away from a giant laser beam as it chases you through a level. It’s a shame these moments don’t happen as often as I would have liked, because it helped freshen up some of the longer dragged out battles in the game.
Each stage is accompanied by its own boss fight. The boss battles themselves aren’t too hard, especially once you learn the boss’s attack patterns, but they can be chaotic when playing with your friends. After defeating the boss, in typical Power Rangers fashion Rita makes her monsters giants at which point you get to watch your Rangers summon their Dino Zords. Although it’s great to see the the Zords, Mega Battle drops the ball on the actual Zord battles. The first part of the Zord encounters sees the game switch to a light-gun game where you have to shoot targets on the boss while also destroying their projectiles. These sequences just seem strange and out of place and at some points just seems like the developer is just trying to show off their art design on the bosses. The second phase of the Zord battles is the one that I was completely stoked for. Seeing the Zords combine into the Megazord was awesome, and seeing the two giants standing face to face got me pumped as I was expecting to go into this one on one duel–only to have my expectations completely betrayed by none other than a QuickTime Event. That’s right, the Megazord battle is nothing but a long, boring QuickTime Event. It was a complete letdown in almost every way. The only redeeming factor about the Megazord battle is that it actually looks pretty cool.
Mega Battle, like most beat’em up games, isn’t very long. It took me about three hours to finish the game on my own and even faster with some friends. You do unlock some new game modes upon completion, such as Boss Rush Mode and Rita’s Tower, which sees you ascending fifty floors facing wave after wave of baddies. I should also note that Mega Battle doesn’t have any online multiplayer, so for those looking to play with your friends will actually have to go hang out with them and play the game in local couch co-op.
Visually, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Mega Battle looks good. The colorful environments stand out and the various enemies are taken straight from the TV show. The game actually looks more like a modern day Nickelodeon cartoon. Animation-wise, Mega Battle looks a little weird in places. Some of the combos look fine, but they have this mannequin movement to them as if they were being controlled on strings. It’s not always like that though, only when you are combining a lot of different attacks together. When it comes to the sound design though, Mega Battle nails it on every note. The music is straight out of the TV show and the sound effects fit perfectly. You even get that weird metal sound when you strike the Putties.
Mega Battle may seem like a simple cash in that’s playing on your nostalgia strings, but the game is fun to play. Mega Battle is a competent beat’em up that accomplishes what it sets out to do while also delivering on that sweet nostalgia.