Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge kicked off a wave of nostalgic beat ‘em ups that shows no signs of slowing down. While none of these challengers have managed to match Shredder’s Revenge in quality, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind, from Digital Eclipse and Atari, comes the closest so far. With a stellar presentation, an impressive mix of gameplay styles, 6-player local co-op, and online co-op, Rita’s Rewind promises a morphenomenal time for Power Rangers and beat ‘em up fans.
Rita’s Rewind opens with an animated introduction that features the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers theme song. The animation itself looks a little on the cheap side but still worlds better than the cartoon sequences of G.I. Joe: Wrath of Cobra. Further cinematics mostly come to life using Rita’s Rewind’s excellent pixel art portraits and text-based conversations. The story involves Robo Rita (the villain of the Netflix movie, Mighty Morphin: Once and Always) traveling back in time to team up with the original Rita against the newly-formed Power Rangers. It’s an excuse to revisit some early episodes of the show while mixing things up with new threats and fun, authentic dialog.
The game consists of 15 stages, 10 of which feature beat ‘em up gameplay. Players can initially select from the five original Power Rangers, with the green ranger unlocking after completing the game for the first time. All six rangers play identically in the beat ‘em up stages but vary in combat and special move animations. More diversity between characters would be better, but at least the core gameplay is strong. Our heroes have a robust arsenal of moves, including standard punches and kicks, dashing attacks, uppercuts, ground pounds, and throws. They also have a dodge move and a super move that charges up over time.
The on-foot stages feature a fair amount of variety (though there could be more types of enemies) and usually end with a bout against a boss monster from the show. Most stages also task the team with destroying one of Rita’s time disruptors, large devices powered by green crystals. If the disruptor isn’t shattered quickly enough, time will loop back to when the device first appeared on-screen, and players must continue attacking it. The game’s narrative involves time travel, so the time-based mechanic of the disruptors is appropriate.
Two of Rita’s Rewind’s stages are motorcycle levels. Thankfully, these aren’t nightmarishly long and unpleasant bike levels like those found in River City Girls Zero. The rangers race down windy highways while shooting at foes, collecting coins, and jumping their bikes over obstacles. The flashy “super scaling” visual style and fast pace make these stages both exciting and fun.
Rita’s Rewind’s three Zord-based stages are more controversial, but that largely owes to some difficulty spikes that have been patched out in the weeks since launch. The main part of these stages consists of auto-scrolling rail shooter segments. Each ranger pilots their own unique Dinozord from the show. Character choice matters here since Kimberly’s Pterodactyl Zord flies around the screen while the other Zords just run and jump along the ground. Although the Zord stages sometimes get overly hectic (and the missile power-up seems worthless), the overall shooting gameplay and cool bosses make for a worthwhile diversion.
Each of the Zord stages culminates with the Dinozords combining into the humanoid Megazord. The team then engages in a first-person battle against one of Rita’s kaijus. In co-op games, players take turns piloting the Megazord while the inactive players sit back and watch. The goal is to dodge attacks and get close enough to punch the boss. By alternating the two punch buttons, the gamer can score a combo and deal more damage. Once a player has reached their damage target (or taken three hits), control shifts to the next player. If the team fills up the damage meter, everyone gets to jam on the buttons and perform a (slightly underwhelming) finishing move. The Punchout!-like gameplay of the Megazord battles can be stressful, but the team gets unlimited tries at them, so they’re far from insurmountable.
Co-op support is an important part of almost every beat ‘em up, and Rita’s Rewind rises to the occasion. Locally, the game supports up to 4 players on PlayStation and up to 6 on all other platforms. Well, 6-players become possible after beating the game and unlocking the green ranger. Multiple players can’t select the same ranger. There are no co-op moves or revival mechanics, but fighting a crowd of Putties as a team of rangers is still an authentic and action-packed experience.
Online, only 2 consoles/devices can play together, so you can’t play online with 6 people in different locations. That said, Rita’s Rewind does allow up to three players to join an online game on each device, so it’s technically possible to play a 6-player game from two systems. This online implementation is not as strong as that of Shredder’s Revenge, but it’s still pretty good when you consider that most beat ‘em ups don’t even have online multiplayer. One annoyance with the online mode here is that prior to unlocking the green ranger, the game doesn’t save the team’s progress. The team has to beat the game in one go! After beating the game in solo or online, however, stage selection unlocks for online play.
After Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind is the second great modern Power Rangers game. The one great weakness here is that of replay value. Beating the game unlocks the green ranger and a speedrun mode, but otherwise, there isn’t much to do post-game other than go back for collectibles and Achievements/Trophies. Perhaps Digital Eclipse will add a survival mode or other new content in the future. Even if they don’t, Rita’s Rewind looks and sounds so good and plays so well that it will be worth revisiting from time to time – especially with friends.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind sells for $34.99 on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and Steam. The Steam version is fully Steam Deck compatible.
Xbox and Steam download codes were provided by the publisher for this review.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: Up to four friends can join in at any time and take control of one of the color-coded Power Rangers.
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.