Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind

Developed by Digital Eclipse and Atari in collaboration with Hasbro, the game is something of a reboot, presenting itself as an origin story akin to the first season of the show. Zordon and Alpha 1 get word that Rita Repulsa has returned after 10,000 years, ready to conquer Earth. They recruit five teenagers with “attitude” to fight back. This time, Rita is joined by Robo Rita, who has a plan to travel back in time, eliminate the original Power Rangers team, and erase them from existence. Why? Because time travel, that’s why. Honestly, they could’ve called it Rangers in Time and called it a day.

The game starts with the iconic "Go Go Power Rangers" theme song. Lower your expectations, though—it’s not the original. It also opens with a CRT filter already applied, leaning hard into nostalgia. At first, I thought the whole game looked like this, and I was instantly Red Ranger-level angry. Thankfully, you can turn it off as soon as you get into the options menu. Speaking of options, there are four: adjust music volume, toggle vibration, select a language, and—here’s the kicker—deal with the fact that the character voices play through both the PS5 controller and the speakers. You can NOT adjust the audio for the Playstation 5 controller. I tried not to be annoyed by it, but I am. If you want to avoid this problem, get it on another system. This is the pits. It doesn't ruin the game, but equate it to one of those Power Ranger episodes you missed. It's not important, but it stinks that your friend keeps talking about it, as if it's the holy grail. 

So all five rangers are here, and they are the season one variants. That means you get Jason, Billy, Trini, Kimberly, and Zack. They all have their own "personalities" from the show. Trini doesn't take any mess. Jason is the overbearing leader, Billy is your nerd, Kimberly is...Kimberly, and Zack is Hippity Hop man. I hated it then, they could've retconned it, they didn't. I love you Amy Jo Johnson. I just wish they gave you more depth in the series. You don't have much here, either. Do we care? No, because none of the actors reprised their roles. Again, lower your expectations. You wanted a Power Rangers beat 'em up. This is what you get. 

I'm going to say that the rangers, are slow. They all share the same move set. Punch button presses lead to combos, and you're going to find your own here. There's a jump, and an upwards attack for the flying enemies. If you build up enough combos, you do get a super, and when you activate it, your character says their Morphing line, and a super attack eliminates all enemies on the screen.  There is this invincible dodge move, that is usually in a form of some cool tricks and flips. This is not invincible on start up, nor is it invincible when it ends. There's a middle ground where you can't take damage. You can and will flip yourself right into an enemy's punch, and they will keep punching you over and over again. There's no stopping this once you're caught up. I got jumped by three putties in the corner, so they know how to punch you over and over again. Some throw things. Some do an air stomp. And some more throw things. 

The AI, is kind of lacking the intelligence portion. If there are pitfalls, or open graves to fall into, you can just push down on the controller to lead them, and they'll fall right in, from the other side of the screen. They just off themselves. I've taken a good chunk of putties out this way. Maybe it's an early build, but the putties are super stupid. Even the super putties are easy to take down. Once you get the hang of it, you can punch, dodge, run, punch over and over again. Speaking of that, every now and then, the enemies bring out a time disruptor. They throw it at you. It can hit you. You have to destroy it. Failure to do so will rewind the game back to right before the time crystal comes out. All the enemies you defeated, and all the damage you've taken returns to you. The only thing that doesn't change, strangely, is the Time Disruptor's life bar. Even if the time disruptor takes one of your lives, you get it right back, like it never happened. I know this game is based on time, but this seems like a weird mechanic.  

Now the fun begins when you get your Dinozords going. These stages become third person rail shooters, sort of like Space Harrier, or After Burner if you have Kimberly. These have power ups, and enemies that you just tear through while holding your button down. You can still dodge, but you can also just move out the way for an easier experience. Enemies come out in rows similar to Gradius, and some enemies explode with absolutely no slowdown. The pixel art here is pretty cool, and there's no question that this will separate the game from the previously mentioned heroes in a half shell. The graphics here makes me feel like this is on the Sega Genesis instead of the Super Nintendo, and again, they're fantastic. But wait, there's more. 

After you get through the stage, you become in complete control of your Megazord. The animation leading up to this fight is pretty slick too. Then the game becomes Punch-Out. You can dodge left and right, and even hit combination moves with a left and right punch. The goal here, is to avoid the enemy attacks, and counter when you can. In multi-player, one of the players takes control unless they are defeated. Then it goes to the next in line. Once you've beat the gold off Goldar, you can summon your sword. Megazord here even picks it up like he does in the show, which is hilarious to me. You then have a certain number of seconds to put the big kaiju like monster away. Then you strike a pose. These stages are super cool, and I wish the entire game was more like this. 

Back to the side scrolling stages for a moment. The first few are ok, but it's bogged down by the same enemies over and over. I think I counted about six variations of putties, and one variation of Tengu Warriors. The rangers all seem to have the same moves, except for the third or forth hit of their combo. The game walks you through the main idea of the controls, and that's typically all you need to know. You can break things to get energy and a power up that makes you faster, because side scrolling beat em up. Power coins pop up and fill your special meter, if you don't get beat down first. There are secrets littered throughout the stages. The bosses aren't cheap, nor are they easy. They have a life bar that you can trickle down, but if it turns silver, they are invulnerable. You have to dodge every attack, or you'll be a lone ranger in seconds. Some are references to the show, and some unlock the arcade games at the Juice Bar. 

The Juice Bar is where you will end up after any stage. Here you can talk to Bulk and Skull, with their music intact, and have conversations with other people. It's the same conversation over and over. Don't feel like you have to do this every time. The arcade games are pretty cool. Drive Bomber kind of feels like Spy Hunter, except your car shoots bombs to stop other cars. This includes you, as you can run into your own bomb craters. You can drive for as long as you have time, but that's short if you don't destroy the time car. Karate Workshop gives you a meter to chop up various items. Easy peasy. Lastly, Nanopilot remids me of the top down stages from Thunder Force II. Shoot bugs off your stations, and get bonus points. All these games are for high scores only, and don't unlock anything. 

The game has a save slot, and difficulty settings. Easy mode nets you unlimited continues, normal mode gets you 10, Hard is 5, and I believe "Headache" mode would probably be a permadeath, though you can't unlock it unless you beat hard mode. It is well known that online play will be limited to 2 people, instead of 5 or 6 if you unlock the Green Ranger. The PlayStation 5 will only allow 4 on couch co-op, until a future patch remedies that situation. I don't know if that gets the game a higher rating or not. I didn't see a big difference between normal and hard, and I'm not sure if the multiplayer means more of the same 5 putties. The online mode was missing, and this was announced before the game's release. 

Overall, the pixel art is well done. I can't seem to concentrate on that, because every time a ranger gets knocked down, they have a little quip. Most of the time, it's one of them saying "I could use a little help here", and this was during the single played campaign. Zach says "Hip Hop Kito", and I've never cringed so hard in my life. Again, I get it, but give me the option to take this out, or at least make it less frequent. Between that, and "I'm just gonna get back up", I didn't want to listen to anything from the game. I was so very much hyped for this game, and it could be my fault. It could be great marketing. We don't usually discuss price points in reviews, but I cannot justify it. There aren't any game breaking bugs, and the game runs beautifully, for what it's worth. I thought I would enjoy it more. I thought I was going to have so much fun. I did enjoy the vehicle and Zord levels. Those were super cool, but unfortunately it's a one and done for me. I feel like this game lit my Green Candle.