Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (Sega CD)
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (Sega CD) | ||||||||||||
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Power Rangers... retreat.
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Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is a fighting game developed by Orion Technologies and published by Sega for the Sega CD. It was released in 1995 for both North America and Europe. Unlike the other games with the same name, this version is a FMV game in which footage of an episode from the show plays and buttons pop up for the player to press in order to complete each level.
Why It Doesn't Morph
- The gameplay is limited and repetitive.
- The game is literally just 9 episodes of the TV show, but with button command inputs.
- In some FMV games like Dragon's Lair or Space Ace, where if you wrong button, the footage will be different, here, the player hits the correct button, the footage of the episode plays exactly the same with the difference being hitting the wrong button will make a buzzing sound and lose health.
- There is no consistency with pressing the buttons correctly. At some parts of the game, the Rangers lose even though you have been pressing the correct buttons.
- False advertising: The back of the box says that it's not just a fighting game even though you don't directly control the Rangers' actions.
- The "episodes" aren't even the full episodes, just the fight scenes, not to mention they are also quite short.
- The button commands are lazily programmed in, and are sometimes not responsive, so you may miss even if you press it at the right time.
- The quality of the footage isn't great and makes you want to watch the actual show instead of playing this game.
- In order to play all of the levels, you have to play the game on the expert difficulty setting.
- Speaking of the expert difficulty, it's very unforgiving because the button prompts appear too fast and you lose health when you press the wrong button.
- Sometimes the episode may have so much stuff going on that it can be hard to keep track of the button commands.
- The game cost $50 at launch, which is incredibly overpriced for what it is, not to mention, nowadays, the game is useless, as you can watch the episodes in their entirety on YouTube for FREE.
- If you have a Netflix or Hulu subscription the episodes are also avaliable on there and you can also buy the official DVDs (the complete series on DVD is avaliable at Walmart for 30 bucks if you live in the United States)
- If you watch the episodes on YouTube with the lowest video quality set while playing with a Simon Says toy or an interactive baby toy, you basically get the full experience of this game, and for a lot cheaper.
Redeeming Qualities
- For it's time, it was very ambitious.
- The concept of a FMV based Power Rangers game is an interesting idea.
- The episodes are still good and fun to watch despite the grainy quality.
Reception
"What were they thinking?"
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Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it a unanimous score of 4 out of 10, panning the game for its poor video quality and limited interactivity. On GameFAQs the game currently has a 2.96 out of 5 with most of the written reviews from the users being negative.
In their review, GamePro remarked that the use of actual Power Rangers footage would make it appeal to fans of the show, but that the quick time event gameplay is overly simplistic and forces the player to choose between enjoying the footage and keeping an eye on the on-screen directions which they must follow to keep advancing.
In the United States, it was the top-selling Sega CD game in December 1994.