It's Morphin Time!
It feels like the 90’s all over again with the thought of a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie in the works. What better way to piggyback off movie talks than with a video game? Might Morphin Power Rangers: Mega Battle is a classic beat-em-up that allows you to play as the first generation of Power Rangers. You can also unlock and play, as the second set of Power Rangers but Jason, the Red ranger, was always my favorite so I played with him.
Gameplay is pretty straightforward and that is usually the case in button masher/beat-em-up type games. Mega Battle also has RPG elements built into the gameplay. While you’re fighting, you level up the ranger you’re playing with at the time. One of the issues I had was that you need to level up each character separately, you can’t achieve a level by having a profile or allowing the Ranger you happen to be playing with at the time be that level. I know leveling up in RPG’s don’t happen like that often but that would have made playing much easier.
Another aspect of the game is an attack leveling-up system. You need to locate Alpha 5 in each level. He’s easy enough to find in each level because as you progress in each level, you happen upon Alpha 5. You earn experience when you kill puddies and other enemies and you use those experience points to level up attacks. You can either use points to level up solo moves or multi-ranger attacks.
The controls for fighting are simple enough to pick up and play right away. I found that I was using the same attacks to defeat the same 2-3 types of enemies over and over. The repetition feel is strong in this game with the level fights feel like button mashing.
Getting to summon the Megazord and fight with it is something Power Ranger fans have wanted to do forever. However, the battles feel fresh for about two seconds and then the fight becomes a point, shoot, and block attack system. There is another phase of Megazord battle that involves button combos but that has the same feeling as the first phase of the Megazord fights.
There are cut scenes in the game that have minor voice acting from the original Power Rangers TV series. The graphics have an over-the-top look to them but that’s what the Power Rangers were all about when they were on Fox Kids in the 90’s. Silly characters and monsters and teens have to save the world.
I mentioned before that the controls were easy to pick up but there were slight issues with them. The game isn’t a 3D fighting game but it was tough at times to line up attacks. I found myself spamming the same set of attacks over and over again during the battles.
Some of the time the responsiveness of the controls wasn’t as tight as it should have been. I was pressing the kick button and it wasn’t attacking. There were other instances where attacks would keep going even when I wasn’t pressing a button. These issues don’t ruin the game but would make the game even better if they weren’t visible.
I’m giving Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Mega Battle for the PlayStation 4 a 7.5 out of 10. I would like to thank Bandai Namco for the review code.