After you fight through two levels of minions, a boss fight commences. First the Rangers must fight the boss at normal size (exactly like the show). Following this, the boss grows to colossal size (also exactly like the show) and the Rangers must summon their Zords to take the big bad guy down. First there is a shooting gallery fight with the Megazord in Tank mode (rarely used in the show) and finally you team up to form the giant robot Megazord in order to take the boss down once and for all (again, exactly like the show). Sound fun? Only if you like cooperative quick time events. We found the Megazord fights very easy with two, but when you add in more players, especially those who are younger, these boss fight events are much more difficult. That’s the opposite of what you want to happen in a teamwork-based game, unfortunately. Instead of being a nice change from the minion bashing, boss fights feel more like a chore.
Remember earlier when I said you start every session (even a continue) unmorphed? Good luck getting enough energy to change to Ranger form on the last levels. You don’t have access to your upgraded, fancy attacks in normal form, so you deal little damage and can’t take a hit. For younger or inexperienced players, especially, this can be frustrating, though thankfully there is a revive mechanic that helps.
Mega Battle is extremely repetitive, even when you consider that brawlers tend to be that way anyhow. Fight through tons of boring minions. Endure a simple pattern-based boss fight in Ranger form. Rush through a shooting gallery fight, and follow it up with simultaneous button pressing. That’s the pattern for the first level, and it’s the same on levels two through six, with the only change being that the minions get tougher and take even longer to fight. It’s not that the gameplay is bad, really, it’s just tremendously stale. Mega Battle is a very short game, around three hours to beat the campaign, but it still seems to overstay its welcome.
By the time we had waded through Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Mega Battle, I was more than happy to be done with it. It looks good, and has the classic brawler gameplay that I usually enjoy, but there’s not much meat to it. I wouldn’t say Mega Battle is a bad game, but it certainly isn’t good either. It is merely adequate. By no means is it the worst Power Rangers game I’ve ever played, but that is faint praise indeed. In the end, if you are a big Power Rangers fan, and have a few hours to kill, it might be worth picking up. But if you’re looking for a compelling, modern brawler, Mega Battle is not it.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: Play through the game with up to four players locally. Players can combine their powers to execute special attacks and spectacular displays of martial arts power
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.