One of the mainstays of '90s children's action television was Mighty Morphin Power Rangers—the American adaptation of the Japanese Super Sentai series. However, while genre contemporaries like X-Men and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got their own crowd-pleasing arcade-style beat-em-up games, the Power Rangers never quite had a similar treatment— despite the squad-based brawler action of the show.
Now, more than 30 years since the TV debut of the series, developer Digital Eclipse is looking to fix that mistake with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind – a revival in the vein of recent brawlers like TMNT: Shredder's Revenge and Streets of Rage 4.
"Every time we approach a project at Digital Eclipse, it's about going back and contextualizing everything, being sure that when people play a game, they feel all the feels they had when they played the game back then," studio head Mike Mika says. "But if they weren't around for it before, we wanna make sure that we can instill those 'feels' into younger audiences, and so this is an opportunity to try to do that with an all-new game.”
Typically, Digital Eclipse works on remakes, remasters and living museums like The Making of Karateka and the recent Tetris Forever, rather than whole-cloth creations like Rita’s Rewind. “While it's a little bit different for us because of what we usually put out, it's all coming back for us, too, since we've done original games in the past,” Mika says. “So it was a way to exercise some of what we've learned over the years but apply it to something brand new."
Playing to the dev's strengths for setting the mood and propping up gaming from yesteryear, the core conceit of Rita's Rewind feels equal parts a lost episode of the series and a legacy sequel that celebrates the foundations of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. In the story, series big bad Rita Repulsa faces defeat from the rangers of the modern era. Desperate to win, she sends herself back to the 1990s to team up with her younger self and battle greener, less experienced rangers—with the help of an army of goons and other villains across Angel Grove and beyond.
It's a fun premise that plays to the wacky and exuberant tone of the series, while the fast and exciting brawler combat feels very much in line with genre classics like TMNT: Turtles in Time or the X-Men arcade game. Presented with some slick 2D sprites and a stylish CRT filter to illustrate that throwback aspect, this beat-em-up is best played and taken in with other players in-person, and fighting through the various stages with a couch co-op crew is a total blast. Busting out combos with the squad and tearing through stages as a team was thrilling, and seeing how much of the series' aesthetic and wacky tone has been recreated in Rita's Rewind gives this brawler such a strong personality.
But, based on my early hour of the game, Rita's Rewind isn't just a pastiche of Power Rangers lore and familiar beat-em-up tropes – it's also chock full of deep cuts and gameplay sequences that pay tribute to varied arcade genres, like quasi-3D super-scaler shooters and fighting games. One neat feature tucked in the game's hangout zone—a recreation of the show's Juice Bar and youth center—are some original arcade games made by Digital Eclipse, which can be unlocked throughout the story.
Some of the game's standout moments come from piloting the series' iconic Megazords, which dominate Panzer Dragoon-style shooter missions that culminate in kaiju-style boss fights, inspired by Punch-Out. While it took my squad some time to learn the mechanics due to the pacing and sink-or-swim style approach, it brought back those days of enjoying rowdy action with friends.
We feel a serious responsibility to represent Power Rangers in an accurate and fun way.
Dan Amrich, lead writer
Rita's Rewind certainly hits the right notes for a throwback game, but also adds in some modern touches that enhances those elements to great effect. It is a Power Rangers game that seeks to make people feel like they're in an episode of the series, as opposed to a licensed cash grab of the kind the series has seen often.
"I think people are really going to be surprised by how true to the show it is," says lead writer Dan Amrich. "I think we're going to make the fans happy, and Power Rangers fans are desperate for something cool with the series. There were some disappointments here and there; there was supposed to be a show, which didn't happen; they want more toys, but there's none in development, that kind of stuff."
"So here comes this game, and it winds up meaning a lot more to people than I think we had originally intended it would. We feel a serious responsibility to represent Power Rangers in an accurate and fun way, and hopefully in a way that the generation that grew up with it can feel comfortable sharing it with the next generation."
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind is a fast and slick brawler that revels in what made the original series so memorable and fun. Its apparent reverence for the source material and the genre it's stepping into are endearing, and I really dig seeing it all come together within a time-travel hijinks conceit. It's always exciting to see a well-deserved comeback, and Rita's Rewind looks like a brawler with the right energy to give the original rangers their due.
