Mighty Gamin’ Power Rangers

The super Nintendo is truly the perfect retro console. The sprites and the capabilities of the system allow GOOD games to attain a timeless quality. Sprite art ages better than many of the early 3D era consoles. As such, when bored on any given day, the lure of the Super Nintendo will occasionally call to me from the endless abyss, which is exactly what spurred the writing of this article. Today we are exploring all of the Super Nintendo Power Rangers games, all of which were released in the Rangers true heyday of 1994 and 1995. 

The very first Mighty Morphin Power Rangers game was appropriately titled Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1994). In later eras you’d be privy to a further identification on games based upon famous properties (IE “the game” ending every title) but the Rangers don’t insult your intelligence. 

Developed by Natsume who had actually done an NES Chōjin Sentai Jetman game in 1991, this game is an absolute blast. It is decently balanced in such a way that it will occasionally challenge you but won’t be so undeniably hard that you’ll never get past the first stage. Admittedly I couldn’t get past Stage 4 because the damn genie boss kept demolishing me; however it still feels like a fair boss, just a difficult one. 

The sprite art is really vibrant and fun to look at. You start each round as the human equivalent of one of the original five Rangers (no Tommy Oliver here) and they all look distinct. The same cannot be said of the Ranger transformation, everyone is just a palette swapped version of a single sprite which will be especially notable when playing as Kimberly. That being said it shouldn’t be a big issue as once you transform you are liable to be so into the experience that such trivial observations will not affect you. 

You begin each area (until the Megazord levels) as one of the attitude filled teens until you run into the boss at about mid level, then you transform and get to work. The combat is fluid and fun; the same cannot be said about the platforming which admittedly gets old fairly quickly. When the boss battles begin they all feel unique and require more strategy than merely punching a boss half a million times and waiting for them to explode. The rest of the combat is pretty comparable to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the unbeatable beat-em up of the era. Complete with Putties sporting a variety of colors to better prepare you for what they are planning to dish out. The Putties aren’t messing around this time as they have freakin’ knives, good thing each Ranger comes with their own weapon. Again to make a TMNT connection Billy (the Blue Ranger) is like Donatello in that his weapon has the best reach and is by far the best to play as. The classic Megazord is playable in the final two areas but like I said I was quickly squashed before making it that far. ONE DAY….ONE DAY.

The next game, also made by Natsume, has a qualifier but this time it’s “the movie” as it is based off of the 1995 film Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. This is again a beat ’em up, however this one was much harder for me. I truly couldn’t get past the first level so I’ll make this quick. Sprites look gorgeous and the putty’s look way closer to how they looked in the show. This time we have Tommy as the white ranger in the cast, and again you start as the teen. However, in this version you need to collect lightning bolt drops from enemies until you get your power meter up high enough to transform, and then you need to collect more power in order to utilize your weapons. The only other real notable wrinkle to gameplay is the option to switch between two planes by clicking in on both bumpers. If I ever get good this may be fun but as is I enjoyed the earlier game a lot more. 

The final game we are going to talk about is Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Fighting Edition (1995) by Natsume again but this is a completely different experience from the prior two. This is a fighting game and a damn good one. 

This is a 2D fighter that is extremely accessible and easy to pick up to play. The story mode involves you playing as either Mega Tigerzord or The Ninja Megazord and brawling through a gauntlet of other zords and monsters. The game play is very simple but still offers a nice challenge when you reach the final bosses, if you’ve played a fighting game then you’ll be able to pick up the controls fairly easily. 

The sprites are again gorgeous and you get a decent variety of background stages to choose from. In the story mode you’ll be stuck fighting zords for a good chunk of the campaign and as such you’ll be trapped in a stage based upon ‘the grid’ which is fairly boring, luckily when you fight monsters you get to see a wonderfully realized sprite city to fight in, no interactable backgrounds unfortunately but the cityscapes look very cool. When you defeat the monsters you get a nice little animation showing the monsters blowing up.

While inevitably best played with friends this is a surprising gem of a SNES title. My only complaint and it’s an incredibly minor one, is that you can’t play as the original Megazord. I know this is set further in the original series but come on, even if it was unlockable it would be appreciated. 

It is worth noting that Fight Edition is the only SNES exclusive title, both of the others are on other consoles by completely different developers. This is just a nice dip in the realm of ranger video games and if people enjoy it I may do more of these game explorations in the future.

Until then have a morphinominal day!