Sometimes, just sometimes, I wonder why I subject myself to such terrible games. Well, this time it's because of nostalgia, as I used to play these games and actually enjoy them. In this case we've got a two-in-one deal, featuring Power Rangers Ninja Storm and Power Rangers Time Force, both bland beat'em ups in their own way.
Power Rangers - Ninja Storm
This is one ugly beat'em up, featuring large, ugly digitized sprites that move as stiffly as they look. You have three campaigns to choose from: The Red, Yellow and Blue ranger trio, the Magenta and Deep Blue ranger duo and the Green ranger lonesome, although each campaign is made up of the same 5 stages. Rangers are pretty much identical between each other, the Crimson/Deep Blue Rangers can charge their Super attacks and basic attacks, the main trio have alternate super moves(The Red Ranger has an aerial alternate super, the Yellow Ranger has a sliding super and I wasn't able to figure out how to pull the Blue Ranger's alternate) and the Green Ranger has.... nothing. In each campaign you can swap rangers with the select button, but all characters have the same animations, sprites and stats, only differing on their super moves. Oh, and the Crimson/Deep Blue duo having electricity on their basic attacks.
B is your standard attack or projectile, but in order to swap weapons you have to find and collect the weapon power up, but why would you? As grabbing the same weapon icon(Sword or gun) will power it up, up to level three. I don't know how the projectile weapon evolves, since I didn't care about them, but the sword goes up to level 3, and each level unlocks a new attack, turning your basic slash into a three hit combo. You have alternate combos, such as B-B+Up which pops up your enemies and B-B-B+Side which throws them forward, but they are pretty useless. I guess B+Side ender is useful to knock down a wave of enemies if they are encroaching towards you. A special gauge fills over time, and once full you can press R for your super move. A jumps and L blocks.
Combat is fairly dull and unsatisfying. Bosses have mercy invincibility, so the one enemy that would make sense to use your three hit combo is immune to it. That said, it's easy to get bosses into a attack-block pattern, and if they get out of it, getting them into it again is fairly simple. As per usual, we've got Zord battles after every boss, and, as per usual, they are the worst part about the game. They are slow, boring and very time consuming, because they are a tug-o-war. You have to be on the look out for button prompts(QTES!) and press either B or A, depending on which button appeared, and hold down a direction on the DPAD, depending on which side of the screen said prompt came from. It's dumb, it's boring, and it can take way too long since it's a tug o' war.
As a whole it's one boring way to spend your time in. There are better games and even better licensed games on the console.
3.5 out of 10
Power Rangers -Time Force
Let me start off by saying that I LOVED the way this game started in, the Red Ranger gets murdered and your navigator nonchalantly tells you not to worry since you can 'find a replacement for him on the next stage'. Once that hooplah is over, the game starts and it's just another boring beat'em up with ugly, lazy digitized sprites. The game is five stages long, but this time around you get all five rangers at once, can swap between them by pressing Select and each Ranger gets their own health and energy gauges, as well as their own stats, but everything else is identical between them.
B is your basic attack and A jumps. If you find the Sword and Gun icon on every stage you'll be able to use said weapons, R for the Sword and L for the gun, but they spend energy from the energy gauge, energy better spent with you screen-clearing super attack by holding down the B button. If you find the Quantum Ranger icon you can play as him until he dies or you beat the stage's boss, but be careful, just pressing the select button will lock you out of the character until you find the Quantum icon again. I understand they didn't want you to swap characters as not to save him for bosses or tough areas, but just pressing select takes him away from you! I just wanted to check his stats!
The game is very slippery, and combat feels unresponsive and wonky, it's not a fun game to play. Level feel carelessly slapped together, featuring those loveable leaps of faiths towards the unknown. By stage 3 I figured that defeating enemies was just a formality, and most of the time just avoiding them and running towards the end of the stage was more fun than mindlessly mashing B. As per usual, after each boss you have a Zord Battle, thankfully, this is the first Power Rangers game that kept the basic gameplay for those, and no crappy minigames. That said, it's just about mashing B to fill your energy gauge, once that's done you'll automatically defeat the boss.
Time Force is even more boring than Ninja Storm, but also feels worse to play. At least it has the best Zord Battles in a Power Ranger game I've played yet.... which isn't saying much all things considered, and they are still pretty bad, just not as bad as the other Power Rangers games had them.
3.0 out of 10
They are a bland couple of games, they really are. There's absolutely no reason to care for these games unless you've some weird sort of emotional or nostalgic attachment to any of these games, like I do.
3.5 out of 10
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