Being from the UK, the name ‘Rita’ never quite sat right with us for Power Rangers. It sounds too much like Rita from down the chip shop, who might ask if you want salt and vinegar with that; or Rita from round the corner, who may or may not be a juvenile delinquent wearing altogether too much makeup. That said, Rita, the witch-like antagonist of the Power Rangers team, definitely doesn’t work in the chip shop. Too much makeup on the other hand…
Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind is a brand new belt-scrolling beat ’em up from Digital Eclipse, a developer better known for their retro remasters and collections in the form of Atari 50 and the recent Tetris Forever. Based on the original ’90s incarnation of the show — a Japanese-American co-production that mish-mashed Japan’s Super Sentai action scenes with US-filmed actors — Power Rangers is a logical candidate to join the 2D scrolling beat-’em-up renaissance.
And it delivers well beyond expectation. Rita’s Rewind is a well-engineered project that stays true to both the source material and a realistic arcade blueprint. In terms of simulating the feel of the TV show, it’s right on the money, with top-notch presentation, pacy story interludes, and dazzling camera sweeps over parallax-constructed terrain. Musically, it’s sufficiently snazzy, reworking various recognisable themes in countless different ways, and there are CRT screen filters onboard for required retro vibes.
Whether battling off hordes of encircling putty men in a blaze of acrobatic attacks or letting loose with a signature special move, the feel of the show’s frenetic fight sequences have been accurately harnessed. Stuff explodes, blazes, shatters, and ignites, all while leaning heavily into the humour of it all: one-liners, fourth-wall-breaking comedy, and a Saturday morning playfulness that will rattle the inner child in even the darkest of adult hearts. The story itself hearkens back to the show’s genesis, with Rita having built a time module that transports her back to 1993. The original cast are then thrown into a time paradox conundrum where two Rita’s are simultaneously wreaking havoc in their timeline.
The banter between team members and well-known NPCs is all here, too, and while some of the soundbites are overly repetitive (“I’m just gonna get back up!”), one can’t but help smile at the many callbacks. The love is strong with this one, and, like Tribute Games’ TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, it feels like a product with dedicated fans at the helm.
In terms of combat, your repertoire is nice and diverse. You can grab, dash, dash and attack, double-jump, and come down from the air with either an angled kick or a vertical smash. Your punch combo routine is limber in that you can quickly swing it backward and forward mid-flow, allowing you to sock enemies coming in from the rear before returning to your point of attention.
It works well, in the sense that the screen gets excitingly crowded while you stay firmly in control. You can also bounce and juggle enemies off the screen edges, which is especially fun when you catch several at the same time, propelling your combo counter substantially. The most integral mechanic, however, is the dodge somersault, which is an absolute essential for certain boss patterns, cagey enemies, and incoming projectiles.
With all of these elements combined, the stage is set for some versatile-while-not-overly-complicated fisticuffs. Elsewhere, there are power-ups that will temporarily speed up your ranger and grant invincibility, and each character has a gauge-regulated signature special that gloriously decimates the screen in times of need.
It’s a reasonably challenging game, too, featuring tons of bosses with unique attack patterns to navigate. It’s both longer and tougher than Shredder’s Revenge on defaults, requiring active reflex and well-timed dodges to navigate its pitfalls, and all the better for it.
Were that all there was to it, Power Rangers would be a decent arcade-style homage to the ’90s TV show. But, by stage three, things switch up considerably. The 2D side-scrolling format is suddenly ditched in favour of a dazzling pseudo 3D rampage where the Rangers, seated in their combined Megazord, give chase into the screen firing guns and missiles with explosive result. Here, you need to jump over obstacles, avoid lasers, and then go head-to-head in a Megazord fistfight against Goldar, dodging his fireballs.
It is, for people with a love of 2D gaming, nothing less than spectacular. Riffing on the look of Sega’s Super Scaler technology, which they used in the likes of After Burner, Out Run and Rail Chase, the whole thing really cooks. And it’s not a one-off, either, returning throughout in the guise of haunted theme park rollercoasters and chaotic motorcycle chases down war-torn highways.
The variety doesn’t quite end there, either. Throughout the adventure there are plenty of obstacles to destroy, some useful in smashing foes out of the way, others revealing life-ups and even character cameos from the show – and certain collectible mementos will give diehard fans a buzz. The time rewind aspect certainly isn’t just in-name, with Rita’s minions regularly throwing vortex machines into the fray that require speedy destruction. Failure results in a 10-second action rewind, requiring you to start the process again – but thankfully the damage inflicted to the machine carries over.
During the campaign you collect scattered coins, and between stages a press of the ‘X’ button will take you to the Juice Bar hangout where you can chat with NPCs for a little comic relief. There are three arcade machines beside the wall labelled ‘Out of Order’, but finding arcade parts hidden in various stages will repair them. Each offers a retro arcade minigame to play, and this is where those coins come in handy. We especially enjoyed the kung-fu chopping one, and they’re all really authentic score-hunting diversions that break up the action.
While Streets of Rage 4 had plenty of gamers sitting upright, it was really Shredder’s Revenge that kickstarted a renewed interest in the 2D scrolling beat ’em up, and Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind can’t escape some comparison. The tactility of the combat isn’t quite on par here, with Turtles feeling that bit snappier and more accurate. Rita’s Rewind is certainly good enough, but there are times when you find you need to slightly readjust your plane to land blows, with a touch of fuzziness around smacking certain objects and engaging grabs.
There’s also very little diversity between the rangers, who all command the same movesets. The only difference is in their aesthetic and individual speed and strength balancing. And, like most in the genre, it does become repetitive and could have used a few more enemy types to mix things up. The absence of wieldable weaponry, too, is always a missed trick where variety is concerned.
On the whole, though, there are few real complaints. Even though its replayability factor is questionable, those outstanding Super Scaler stages are a one-up on TMNT and just about any other scrolling beat ’em up in recent memory. Six-player multiplayer, as one would expect, is a predictably messy all-out blast, but there is no online co-op functionality at launch. This is promised in a future update.
