Being from the UK, the name 'Rita' never really suited us Power Rangers. It sounds too much like Rita from the chip shop, who might ask if you want salt and vinegar with it; or Rita around the corner, who may or may not be a juvenile delinquent who wears too much makeup. That said, Rita, the witchy antagonist of the Power Rangers team, definitely doesn't work at a 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 series' original 90s incarnation — a Japanese-American co-production that mixed Japanese Super Sentai action scenes with actors shot in the USA — Power Rangers is a logical candidate to join the 2D scrolling beat-'em-up renaissance.
And it delivers results far beyond expectations. Rita's Rewind is a well-crafted project that stays true to both the source material and the realistic arcade design. In terms of simulating the feel of a TV show, it's bang for the buck, with top-notch presentation, fast-paced story interludes and flashy camera pans across parallax-built terrain. Musically, it's charming enough, reworking various recognizable themes in countless different ways, and there are CRT screen filters for the necessary retro vibes.
Whether you're battling hordes of besieged trinkets in a blaze of acrobatic attacks or letting loose with a signature special move, the feel of the show's frenetic fight sequences is precisely exploited. Things explode, burst into flames, shatter and burn, all of which leans heavily on the humor of it all: lyrics, fourth-wall-breaking comedy, and Saturday morning playfulness that will shake the inner child in even the darkest hearts of adults. The story itself harkens back to the show's origins, with Rita building a time module that takes her back to 1993. The original cast is then thrown into a time paradox conundrum where two Ritas wreak havoc on their timelines at the same time.
The banter between team members and well-known NPCs is also here, and while some of the soundtracks are too repetitive (“I'll just be back!”), one can't help but smile at the many callbacks. The love runs strong with this one and, like Tribute Games' TMNT: Shredder's Revenge, it feels like a product with dedicated fans at the helm.
As far as combat is concerned, your repertoire is nice and varied. You can grab, dash, dash and attack, double jump and land from the air with either an angled or vertical kick. Your combo routine is flexible as you can quickly swing it back and forth mid-flow, allowing you to hit enemies coming from behind before returning to your point of attention.
It works well, in the sense that the screen becomes excitingly crowded while you're firmly in control. You can also bounce and juggle enemies from the edges of the screen, which is especially fun when you catch a few of them at once, increasing your combo counter significantly. However, the most complete mechanic is dodging somersaults, which is absolutely necessary for certain boss patterns, tricky enemies, and incoming projectiles.
With all these elements combined, the stage is set for some well-rounded but not overly complicated fistfights. Elsewhere, there are power-ups that will temporarily speed up your ranger and give them invincibility, and each character has a special signature with a regulated meter that decimates the screen gloriously in times of need.
It's also quite a challenging game, featuring tons of bosses with unique attack patterns to navigate. It's both longer and harder than Shredder's Revenge on default, requiring active reflexes and well-timed dodges to navigate traps, and all the better for it.
If that was all, Power Rangers would be a decent arcade homage to the 90s TV show. But by the third stage, things change considerably. The 2D side-scrolling format is suddenly ditched in favor of a flashy pseudo 3D rampage where the Rangers, sitting in their combined Megazords, charge the screen firing cannons and missiles with explosive results. Here you have to jump over obstacles, dodge lasers, and then engage in Megazord fistfights against Goldar while avoiding his fireballs.
It is, for people who love 2D gaming, nothing less than spectacular. Riffing on the look of Sega's Super Scaler technology, which they used in After Burner, Out Run and Chasing the railroadthe whole thing really cooks. And it's not a one-off either, it's coming back in its entirety under the guise of haunted roller coasters in theme parks and chaotic motorcycle chases on war-torn highways.
The diversity does not end there either. There are many obstacles to destroy during the adventure, some useful in knocking enemies out of the way, others revealing lives and even characters from the series – and some collectible scrapbooks will delight die-hard fans. The time-rewind aspect is certainly not in name only, with Rita's minions regularly throwing vortex machines into conflict that demand quick destruction. Failure results in a 10-second rewind, requiring you to restart the process – but luckily the damage done to the machine carries over.
Throughout the campaign you collect scattered coins and between stages pressing the 'X' button will take you to the Juice Bar hangout where you can talk to NPCs for some comic relief. There are three arcade machines by the wall marked 'Out of order', but finding the arcade parts hidden in the various stages will fix them. Each offers a retro arcade mini-game to play, and that's where the coins come in handy. We particularly enjoyed the kung-fu hacking, all of which are authentic score-seeking diversions that break up the action.
While Streets of Rage 4 had plenty of players sitting upright, it was Shredder's Revenge that sparked the renewed interest in 2D scrolling that beat it, and Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind can't escape the comparison. The tactility of combat isn't quite up to par here, as the Turtles feel a little faster and more precise. Rita's Rewind is certainly good enough, but there are times when you realize you need to adjust your plane a bit for landing strikes, with a bit of ambiguity around hitting certain objects and grabbing.
There is also very little variation between the rangers, who all command the same move sets. The only difference is in their aesthetic and individual balancing of speed and power. And, like most in the genre, it gets repetitive and could have used a few more enemy types to mix things up. Not having any usable weaponry is also always a missed trick when it comes to variety.
On the whole, however, there are few real complaints. While its replayability factor is questionable, those awesome Super Scaler stages are some of the best on TMNT, beaten by any other scroll in recent memory. The six-player multiplayer is, as you might expect, a predictably messy all-around game, but there's no online co-op functionality at launch. This is promised in a future update.
