Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

The Good
Power Rangers on SNES follows a typical side-scroller beat 'um up (for those who don't know what that is its just going to the right side of the screen and punching anything that comes near you), which is probably the best use of the Power Ranger's license in the past 14 years.

As with all beat 'um ups, Power Rangers allows you to mow down countless enemies (who provide just enough challenge to keep you going) and makes you feel like an unstoppable fighting machine. When you're not mowing down thousands of bad guys, you get to do some platforming stages, then finally reach the boss at the end-- pretty standard stuff.

The graphics are pretty good and look decent even today. The frame rate is excellent and the game can easily handle multiple enemies on screen at once. The backgrounds also serve their job well and items that you can interact with and ones that you can't interact with are clearly defined.

The controls of the game are nice as well. While it doesn't make use of all the buttons on the SNES, the ones that it does use are responsive and work well. You never catch yourself making excuses for loosing because you know that it wasn't the game that made it happen.

The Bad
Despite how the mechanics of Power Rangers work, the game itself is on the shorter side. There are only SEVEN levels in the game (compared to Super Mario Bros. 32 levels-- and that was on the NES), and each level only takes a few minutes to beat. If you can make it past the final level in the game (which is much harder then the other levels combined but not impossible) it should only take an experienced gamer a small chunk of the afternoon to complete the game.

As with most beat 'um ups, getting ganged up on will happen a lot of times. Although it won't kill you as long as you're mashing the (only) attack button, it can drain your health enough to make the boss fights a little more challenging. The robots of questionable allegiance (little robot things that come up and shoot lasers) do damage to both you and computer opponents but for the most part they just make things more difficult then they really ought to be-- not by much by enough to warrent a complaint.

The controls work but, again, are very limited. There is only one attack button and sometimes it can be a little hard to perform certain functions (such as lifting a park bench) in the heat of combat. The jumping controls work okay but again, sometimes they aren't what you need at the moment.

While the platformer stages do break up the punching stages, they just feel tacked on and largely void of challenge. You just have to make sure you are not in the way of any of the obstacles and just get to the other end; repeat add boredom. Since any experienced gamer could easily complete these platform stages they can become very tedious.

The Bottom Line
Power Rangers is a game that knows what is expected of it: its a beat 'um up with guys in colored spandex. And really, what more could be asked for in terms of Power Rangers? If given the choice between using cluncky Zords to fight stationary monsters, race Power bikes around tracks, or punching bad guys in the face, I would go with the one where I get to use my fists.

Basically, it's not great but far from bad. If you can find Power Rangers at a Flea Market and you have the afternoon to kill, give it a go cause you can do a lot worse for $10.