Review #741: Power Rangers Samurai(Nintendo DS)

 Leave no lone ranger left behind.

 Let me tell you about my two favorite Sentai series, they are Gekiranger and Shinkenger. Lucky for me, it seems like the American version, Power Rangers Samurai, was popular enough to warrant a few games, this here being the DS version. It's pretty much what you'd expect from a Power Rangers game, no more, no less.

 The game covers, I think, the first season of the American adaptation of Shinkenger, basically, it goes over the Rangers recruiting the Gold Ranger and ends with the Red Ranger dueling the Demon Dekar. It's 10 missions short, the game lasts 2 hours and there's nothing to unlock, not by traditional means anyways. Every unlock is tied to a password and not to a collectible or feat, and among these extras are Mega versions of the rangers. They look different, but they play exactly the same, and it seems like they even have the same stats as their basic versions, but at least they look different. The five original rangers play exactly the same but with different stats, the only thing setting them apart is their Strong special move, once the Gold Ranger joins, on mission 7 or so, he plays exactly the same, but has different animations and special moves, making him extra special. By the by, the Gold Shinkenger is one of my favorite rangers of all time since he fights with his very unique Iaido-sheathing style, and his in-game animations accurately captured his fighting style, which is something I adored.

 Gameplay is very simple, you get a 3-hit weak attack combo, a strong attack that changes properties depending on when you use it during your weak attack string, a jump, a block and two special moves, done by pressing Block plus either strong or weak attack, that consume energy. The only difference between characters, besides their stats, is their Block+Strong special moves. Stages are your standard left to right 2-D beat'em up, although you can swap characters on designated spots. There are collectible discs waiting to be found, usually gated behind barriers only a specific Ranger can break, but they appear to add nothing but points to your total. There's a dumb touchscreen minigame before each mission, get it right and you get unlimited energy for a few seconds. There's also a disc on the bottom screen that you can spin around, keep it spinning and you'll be stronger and your attack string will extend to five. It's pretty dumb. Each stage ends with a boss battle, which then turns into a Megazord battle.

 There's something that most Ranger games get wrong every single time: Zord battles. Instead of making these battles an extension of the main game, they always try to turn it into a minigame of sorts, and they always fail spectacularly, being the worst part about most Ranger games. This game is no exception. Firstly, a dumb minigame before each battle, get it wrong and you lose half your health bar. Fun times. As for the battle itself, you have to use the touchscreen to slide across a disc in order to spin it a fill a gauge. Once full you have to touch the Attack button with proper timing in order to deal damage. When the enemy fills their gauge, you have to block, which is done by touching the BLOCK buttons on the touchscreen. These battles are lame, and are needlessly boring.

 Power Rangers Samurai is your average, run of the mill Power Rangers game that have been plaguing the handhelds since times immemorial. It's not bad. It's not good either. It's just a shelf filler. Fans of the franchise, like me, might get a few kicks out of it, everyone else shouldn't even bother.
 5.0 out of 10