Post by glisp on Mar 3, 2010 0:35:05 GMT -5
Anyone who has been around since the 90s will remember the MMPR games released on the 16-bit consoles.
The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive (Name depending upon if you lived in America or Japan/Europe.) had two games.
The first one was just called Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
The game is a fighter. This game has Dragonzord and Green Ranger as playable after you defeat them in story mode. If you beat the game on a higher difficulty setting, you'll unlock the Evil Green Ranger Variant complete with Sword of Darkness attack as playable for 2P battle mode. Its a fun game. However, Bandai and Banpresto, didn't really spend a lot of time making use of the Genesis/Mega Drive's sound capabilities and so the music isn't really bad but its kind of eight bitish in some areas. Interestingly, this game uses the same Sega Genesis/Mega Drive sound driver as Sonic the Hedgehog 2 which is the SMPS Z80 (though the version used in Sonic 2 is a custom version.)
Super Nintendo Entertainment System Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers game was a very simplistic beat em' up side scroller that only allowed you to move in two directions: Left or right. You could also jump and duck. You did small little combos that varied with characters. You start each new level out unmorphed. When the boss appears at the end of the first part of a stage (there are a total of three parts to the Ranger Stages. Unmorphed, morphed, and Boss.) your character morphs and the boss flees and sicks a couple of waves of putties on you. The last two stages are stages where you fight as the MegaZord. There are special passwords you get for beating the game that allow you to play these stages as a two player game, with the second player controlling the Monsters which are Mutitus and Cyclopsis. (yes I know Cyclopsis is Goldar's Battle Zord and not actually a monster. However, the game doesn't mention Goldar. He still transforms after his first defeat though.)
Despite the appearances of these monsters, Green Ranger is neither mentioned nor even playable in the game. This game is good but the lack of Green Ranger is a bit disappointing.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers the Movie got games as well. Both games try to also take aspects from Season 2. (though this ruined the SNES game and made the story completely warped from how it was in the Movie as more Season 2 aspects were used than Movie aspects. I'll get into this in a bit though.)
The Sega Genesis version is probably the best of the two. Its a beat em' up but is very much like Streets of Rage and Final Fight making it unique. Developed by Bandai and Banpresto, this game does a great job of following the movie's storyline while also being able to put in aspects from season 2 (three Season 2 based stages to be exact based off of three episodes from the season, including power transfer.) Complete with Thunder Megazord and Tigerzord battles. The Ninja zords are based off of the ones from season 3 rather than the movie. However, despite this, Ninja Megazord is also able to use the Power Sword from the movie even though it has the glove things from season 3 on it.
Ectomorphocon Ivan Ooze looks different but probably looks better than he does in the movie.
As for the soundtrack, it uses some very nice YM2162 chiptune looping synth versions of various MMPR Seasons 1 and 2 themes. Its got Fight, Go Green Ranger, 5-4-1 and others from those seasons. All of this done with the SMPS 68K Sound driver which is the same kind of sound driver the original Sonic the Hedgehog game uses btw.
Worth checking out even if you are a huge Power Rangers fan but a Nintendo fanboy/girl as well.
The SNES MMPR Movie game doesn't even try to follow the Movie's storyline at all. I was very disappointed when I played this game. The game seems to use Monsters from season 2 but refuses to actually tell the story correctly. Its just a mess. Plus, you don't even get to participate in any zord battles at all. The Ninja Mega zord does appear in the good ending to rescue you.
Ivan Ooze appears at the end of the game and doesn't get big. There are two endings. After beating Ooze, his lair starts a self destruct sequence and you have a limited time to escape. You can guess what happens if you fail.
The gameplay is the same as the first SNES game except that you can now press the R (or was it L) button to move from the top of the screen to the bottom. This game's difficulty is very high. I couldn't even get passed the first stage without a game genie. You can play this if you don't care about the accuracy of the story and are looking for a challenge. Otherwise avoid this game if you can.
Oddly enough, when Tommy teleports into the level, his teleport color is green instead of White like it should be since he's the white ranger in this game. All of the rangers in this game look like the Red ranger recolored (except for the white ranger who had special sprites made.) just like the original SNES MMPR game. Each of these recolors has their own TV show weapons as usual. Pretty lazy of Bandai if you ask me.
Unlike the original SNES game, you can now morph into a ranger at any time you wish as long as your energy meter is high enough. Each unmorphed ranger also has a special attack that they can use when the energy meter reaches a certain point lower than the amount of energy required to morph. If you make it to the boss without morphing, the Ranger will automatically morph.
There aren't any Oozemen in this game like the Mega Drive Genesis game. Instead, your standard enemies are various differently colored Putty Patrols and robots. (just like the first game.) if you hop from the top of the screen or vice versa with the R button (or was it L?) and you land on a putty Patrol or Robot, you both take damage.
The SNES has one more MMPR game: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Fighting Edition. Its quite a fun game and makes up for the terribleness of the Movie adaptation on the SNES. Pretty much you get to fight with various monsters and Megazords from seasons 2 and 3 as well as Ivan Ooze, who is the final boss. In story mode, you can only play as Mega Tigerzord or Thunder Mega Zord. (you might be able to unlock the Ninja and Shogun Megazords for story mode if you beat the game on the hardest difficulty setting possible but I'm not sure. You can play with the Shogun and Ninja MegaZords in two player mode just about anytime though and you get to fight them in story mode.
There is one more SNES Power Rangers game but its not MMPR. It is a Power Rangers Zeo game called Power Rangers Zeo: Battle Racers. Basically its like Super Mario Kart and makes decent use of the SNES's Mode 7 feature.
The Sega Mega Drive/Genesis add-on Sega CD/ Sega Mega CD (depending upon the region you are from) had an MMPR game. However, its kind of fun but probably not a game you'd want to play more than once after beating it on the highest difficulty setting.
Basically, its an FMV (Full Motion Video) game that uses clips from the first season of MMPR. However, hardware limitations make it so that only parts of the episodes were added. (the maximum size of a Sega CD/Mega CD game is around 400 MB and this game is 310 MB or so.) Here is a list of the episodes in the game (though they are severely broken down) some levels are only accessible on certain difficulty settings:
Certain levels can only be p
Day of the Dumpster
Green With Evil: Part One
Green With Evil: Part Two
Green With Evil: Part Three
Green With Evil: Part Four
The Green Candle: Part One (Normal and Hard modes only)
The Green Candle: Part Two (Normal and Hard modes only)
The Crystal of Nightmares (Hard mode only)
Doomsday: Part One (Hard mode only)
Doomsday: Part Two (Hard mode only)
The gameplay itself is similar to the old laser disc arcade FMV game thingy called Dragon's Lair. You must press buttons and directions according to the ranger's movements in the episode footage by pressing the buttons at the correct time when the pictures of what button or direction to press are displayed on screen. The penalty for missing increases with the game's difficulty setting.
The FMV sequences themselves are watered down Cinepak movies built into the Sega CD game's Rom data. The picture quality had to be watered down in order for it to run on the Sega CD/Mega CD hardware correctly. The video is also kind of choppy at times as well due to how it runs on Sega CD hardware.
The Sega Genesis/Mega Drive (Name depending upon if you lived in America or Japan/Europe.) had two games.
The first one was just called Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
The game is a fighter. This game has Dragonzord and Green Ranger as playable after you defeat them in story mode. If you beat the game on a higher difficulty setting, you'll unlock the Evil Green Ranger Variant complete with Sword of Darkness attack as playable for 2P battle mode. Its a fun game. However, Bandai and Banpresto, didn't really spend a lot of time making use of the Genesis/Mega Drive's sound capabilities and so the music isn't really bad but its kind of eight bitish in some areas. Interestingly, this game uses the same Sega Genesis/Mega Drive sound driver as Sonic the Hedgehog 2 which is the SMPS Z80 (though the version used in Sonic 2 is a custom version.)
Super Nintendo Entertainment System Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers game was a very simplistic beat em' up side scroller that only allowed you to move in two directions: Left or right. You could also jump and duck. You did small little combos that varied with characters. You start each new level out unmorphed. When the boss appears at the end of the first part of a stage (there are a total of three parts to the Ranger Stages. Unmorphed, morphed, and Boss.) your character morphs and the boss flees and sicks a couple of waves of putties on you. The last two stages are stages where you fight as the MegaZord. There are special passwords you get for beating the game that allow you to play these stages as a two player game, with the second player controlling the Monsters which are Mutitus and Cyclopsis. (yes I know Cyclopsis is Goldar's Battle Zord and not actually a monster. However, the game doesn't mention Goldar. He still transforms after his first defeat though.)
Despite the appearances of these monsters, Green Ranger is neither mentioned nor even playable in the game. This game is good but the lack of Green Ranger is a bit disappointing.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers the Movie got games as well. Both games try to also take aspects from Season 2. (though this ruined the SNES game and made the story completely warped from how it was in the Movie as more Season 2 aspects were used than Movie aspects. I'll get into this in a bit though.)
The Sega Genesis version is probably the best of the two. Its a beat em' up but is very much like Streets of Rage and Final Fight making it unique. Developed by Bandai and Banpresto, this game does a great job of following the movie's storyline while also being able to put in aspects from season 2 (three Season 2 based stages to be exact based off of three episodes from the season, including power transfer.) Complete with Thunder Megazord and Tigerzord battles. The Ninja zords are based off of the ones from season 3 rather than the movie. However, despite this, Ninja Megazord is also able to use the Power Sword from the movie even though it has the glove things from season 3 on it.
Ectomorphocon Ivan Ooze looks different but probably looks better than he does in the movie.
As for the soundtrack, it uses some very nice YM2162 chiptune looping synth versions of various MMPR Seasons 1 and 2 themes. Its got Fight, Go Green Ranger, 5-4-1 and others from those seasons. All of this done with the SMPS 68K Sound driver which is the same kind of sound driver the original Sonic the Hedgehog game uses btw.
Worth checking out even if you are a huge Power Rangers fan but a Nintendo fanboy/girl as well.
The SNES MMPR Movie game doesn't even try to follow the Movie's storyline at all. I was very disappointed when I played this game. The game seems to use Monsters from season 2 but refuses to actually tell the story correctly. Its just a mess. Plus, you don't even get to participate in any zord battles at all. The Ninja Mega zord does appear in the good ending to rescue you.
Ivan Ooze appears at the end of the game and doesn't get big. There are two endings. After beating Ooze, his lair starts a self destruct sequence and you have a limited time to escape. You can guess what happens if you fail.
The gameplay is the same as the first SNES game except that you can now press the R (or was it L) button to move from the top of the screen to the bottom. This game's difficulty is very high. I couldn't even get passed the first stage without a game genie. You can play this if you don't care about the accuracy of the story and are looking for a challenge. Otherwise avoid this game if you can.
Oddly enough, when Tommy teleports into the level, his teleport color is green instead of White like it should be since he's the white ranger in this game. All of the rangers in this game look like the Red ranger recolored (except for the white ranger who had special sprites made.) just like the original SNES MMPR game. Each of these recolors has their own TV show weapons as usual. Pretty lazy of Bandai if you ask me.
Unlike the original SNES game, you can now morph into a ranger at any time you wish as long as your energy meter is high enough. Each unmorphed ranger also has a special attack that they can use when the energy meter reaches a certain point lower than the amount of energy required to morph. If you make it to the boss without morphing, the Ranger will automatically morph.
There aren't any Oozemen in this game like the Mega Drive Genesis game. Instead, your standard enemies are various differently colored Putty Patrols and robots. (just like the first game.) if you hop from the top of the screen or vice versa with the R button (or was it L?) and you land on a putty Patrol or Robot, you both take damage.
The SNES has one more MMPR game: Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Fighting Edition. Its quite a fun game and makes up for the terribleness of the Movie adaptation on the SNES. Pretty much you get to fight with various monsters and Megazords from seasons 2 and 3 as well as Ivan Ooze, who is the final boss. In story mode, you can only play as Mega Tigerzord or Thunder Mega Zord. (you might be able to unlock the Ninja and Shogun Megazords for story mode if you beat the game on the hardest difficulty setting possible but I'm not sure. You can play with the Shogun and Ninja MegaZords in two player mode just about anytime though and you get to fight them in story mode.
There is one more SNES Power Rangers game but its not MMPR. It is a Power Rangers Zeo game called Power Rangers Zeo: Battle Racers. Basically its like Super Mario Kart and makes decent use of the SNES's Mode 7 feature.
The Sega Mega Drive/Genesis add-on Sega CD/ Sega Mega CD (depending upon the region you are from) had an MMPR game. However, its kind of fun but probably not a game you'd want to play more than once after beating it on the highest difficulty setting.
Basically, its an FMV (Full Motion Video) game that uses clips from the first season of MMPR. However, hardware limitations make it so that only parts of the episodes were added. (the maximum size of a Sega CD/Mega CD game is around 400 MB and this game is 310 MB or so.) Here is a list of the episodes in the game (though they are severely broken down) some levels are only accessible on certain difficulty settings:
Certain levels can only be p
Day of the Dumpster
Green With Evil: Part One
Green With Evil: Part Two
Green With Evil: Part Three
Green With Evil: Part Four
The Green Candle: Part One (Normal and Hard modes only)
The Green Candle: Part Two (Normal and Hard modes only)
The Crystal of Nightmares (Hard mode only)
Doomsday: Part One (Hard mode only)
Doomsday: Part Two (Hard mode only)
The gameplay itself is similar to the old laser disc arcade FMV game thingy called Dragon's Lair. You must press buttons and directions according to the ranger's movements in the episode footage by pressing the buttons at the correct time when the pictures of what button or direction to press are displayed on screen. The penalty for missing increases with the game's difficulty setting.
The FMV sequences themselves are watered down Cinepak movies built into the Sega CD game's Rom data. The picture quality had to be watered down in order for it to run on the Sega CD/Mega CD hardware correctly. The video is also kind of choppy at times as well due to how it runs on Sega CD hardware.