Mighty Morphin Power Rangers for the Sega CD was released in 1995 and developed by Sega TruVideo. For those who don’t know the Sega CD was an add-on for the Sega Genesis allowing it to read CDs it is also known as the Mega CD outside of North America. This is quite a hard decision to how to review this game because quite simply it is clips from the first season and to keep watching you have to hit buttons along with the fight scenes. Of course all the videos are done in Full Motion Video and compared to the actual show is very pixelated and lacking in several colours due to the Sega CD only allowing 64 colours at the same time and the actual processor not being designed for video playing, imagine rubbing your eyes while watching.
The game is split into 3 modes; beginner, intermediate and expert, to play all the episodes in the game you have play in expert. Episode includes Day of the Dumpster, Green with Evil Arc, The Green Candle Arc, The Crystal of Nightmares and Doomsday. Easy ends after Green with Evil and intermediate ends with Green Candle. Personally I would have liked the option to play the whole game on easy or intermediate as hard takes a lot of quick reflexes and memorization.
As you play along with the episodes button commands will come up, the arrow directions portrayed by the famous lightning bolt from the logo, the a button used for punches and swinging weapons, B comes up for blocking and C for kicks. Luckily the buttons are spread out on the screen so you can hit without double checking. Some points will also require you mashing all the face buttons. With each fight scene you get a health bar at the bottom and lose health when you don’t hit the correct button in time. You will also get points the longer you survive and will get a bonus for your amount of health at the end of an episode, this can also earn you continues.
The main problem I have with the game is that the show wasn’t made for this sort of game, pressing the buttons doesn’t do anything to the scenes if it say block and the ranger gets hit in the show it can’t change anything because you are just watching abridged episodes. Games of this kind work better when the footage is original.
GRADE
The game just seems to be cash in for Sega to hopefully sell by using the Power Rangers name at the height of it’s popularity. If your nostalgia-holic who would love to play this sort of forgotten Full motion video style game maybe go pick it up for a bit of cheesy fun otherwise just buy the DVDs or watch on Netflix. 1/5
