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At a glance, it’s pretty easy to get an idea of what Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind is: a co-op arcade style beat-em-up with gorgeous sprite art, bearing some very clear similarities to 2022’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, all the way down to the title. However, after kicking, punching and morphin through the first two episodes, I’m happy to report that it’s more than just a palette swap, and developer Digital Eclipse clearly understood the assignment, but also wasn’t afraid to get creative in the margins.
For starters, the premise is a fun fan-fictional remix: in the far off year of 2024, Robo-Rita Repulsa (who apparently has the same plastic surgeon as Frieza) is facing defeat by Angel Grove’s teenage protectors. Assuming these are the same Rangers from the original series, they’re at least in their late forties at this point. In any case, that’s a non-issue, because Robo-Rita decides to travel back in time and join forces with her younger, less-cybernetically augmented self to put an end to her enemies back when they were still in high school.
There’s no shortage of easter eggs and fanservice, but Robo-Rita isn’t going back in time just to make the same mistakes again, so Rita’s Rewind is really more of a Remix. Anyone who knows the original series inside and out is in for some surprises. For instance, a boss fight against Chunky Chicken, an early monster of the week villain from the first season has a second phase where a second poultry-themed enemy appears, Turkey Jerk. It’s a cute joke at face value, but the deep-cut reference here is that in the original series, Chunky Chicken’s costume was repainted and retooled to make Turkey Jerk’s – basically, the analog kaiju suit equivalent of a palette-swap. Like I said, the team Digital Eclipse did their homework.
If you’ve ever played a sidescrolling beat-em up, you’re already familiar with the core gameplay. Up to five players team up, locally or online, and gradually move their favorite Power Ranger toward stage left. Our heroes have to stop about every twenty feet to beat the crap out of a small army of Rita Repulsa’s goons, like Putty Patrollers and Tenga Warriors, as well as any trash can, crate or mailbox that looks like it might have health-restoring junk food inside. Combat is one basic attack that can be combined with directional inputs to string together rudimentary combos, plus one ultimate attack that can be activated when a meter is full. The ultimate attacks are appropriately over the top, and triggering one for the first time put a huge grin on my face. If I was seven, I would have been jumping up and down on the couch.
Periodically, a Putty Patroller will show up holding an enormous cylinder with a green crystal in it, and if the Rangers don’t destroy it in time, it’ll trigger an explosive time-warp effect that deals damage, but also rewinds the game to moments earlier, a la Braid. The game’s visuals generally do a really good job creating the illusion this is a retro game, all the way down to a CRT filter. The time warp effect breaks this illusion in a really cool way, making it seem for moment like you’re playing on an arcade cabinet that’s about to short circuit.
Where Rita’s Rewind really sets itself apart from Shredder’s Revenge is its super-scaler levels, which shake up the 2D side-scroller formula with fast-paced pseudo-3D sequences reminiscent of classic SEGA arcade games like Outrun or Afterburner or the Super Nintendo’s Mode 7 technology. As much fun as beat-em-ups are, these act as palette-cleansers between levels, and they’re really cleverly utilized in the context of Power Rangers.
The original television show regularly followed a familiar format: a monster-of-the-week would appear, and after the Rangers seemingly defeated said monster in hand-to-hand combat, Rita Repulsa would utter those infamously suggestive words “make my monster grow!” At which point the fight would continue on a much larger scale, with the Rangers first making use of their individual Dinozord mechs before inevitably joining them together to form the Dino Megazord and save the day.
Rita’s Rewind is broken up into “Episodes.” The first one featured two stages of inner city beat-em up gameplay culminating in a boss fight against Goldar on a rooftop. After he was sufficiently pummeled by lycra-clad teens, Robo-Rita super-sized him and he flew off. A brief cutscene showed the Rangers hopping into Zords and the next sequence was a 3D shoot-em-up, which was immediately reminiscent of the original Star Fox on Super NES. This is fitting, since that released the same year Rita’s Rewind takes place, when Power Rangers was at peak popularity, and serves up a nice double-dose of nostalgia.
After using the Zords to blow up a generator in some suspicious mining operation while dodging lasers, the moment had arrived: it was time to form the Dino Megazord. But wait, the same lingering question that I had after so many Power Rangers episodes also applies to Rita’s Rewind… How do multiple people cooperatively pilot a single humanoid mech? Not sure what the canonical explanation is, but in the case of the video game, it takes a cue from a different type of couch co-op: passing a controller back and forth when someone dies or beats a level.
After a satisfyingly low-poly transformation sequence, the perspective shifted to the Dino Megazord’s cockpit, squared up to duke it out with Goldar, Punch-Out! style. Rather than Goldar having a conventional health bar that’s depleted, the Dino Megazord’s Power Sword is instead displayed at the top of the screen with several small sections running along the blade.
Landing enough punches against Goldar will gradually fill one of these sections up, at which point, it’s the next Ranger’s turn. Conversely, a player’s turn will also end abruptly if Goldar lands an attack. Completely filling the meter will activate the Power Sword, which is then used to finish off the bad guy with a quicktime event where everyone cooperatively button mashes.
Nobody actually has to pass the controller, it just switches between players, but the idea is the same. It’s entirely possible a similar solution for cooperative Zord-piloting has been implemented in one of the many Power Rangers games released in the last 30 years, but I still thought it was a clever solution. Waiting your turn might not be quite as fun as getting to drive the Megazord yourself the whole time, but if you’re playing with friends, you’ll likely find yourself cheering each other on – or groaning when they get hit.
In between episodes, the Rangers change into their civvies and regroup at the Angel Grove Youth Center. While knocking back a few cold ones at Ernie’s juice bar, they can listen to Bulk and Skull take credit for defeating the previous episodes’ villains. In case Rita’s Rewind wasn’t arcadey enough already, playable arcade cabinets can also be unlocked. We got to see “Drive Bomber,” a made-up racing-shmup in which a car can launch bombs into its own path, and will promptly explode if it drives into them, which is hilariously difficult, but also entirely optional.
Controls-wise, the basic beat-em-up combat is very satisfying, though at times it can be hard to tell what’s going on when the screen is flooded with enemies. It was chaotic with three of us playing, I imagine the full five-person team is borderline comical. The driving sequences are appropriately hectic while the Megazord boxing match is a bit clunky, but so is the source material. Serious gamers with a trained eye for hitboxes and frame data may find something to nitpick, but ultimately, that’s missing the point. Rita’s Rewind is a game for people chasing that high of renting the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Super Nintendo game and staying up too late trying to beat it at a sleepover. Or for people who grew up wishing there was a Power Rangers arcade cabinet at their local pizzeria wedged between The Uncanny X-Men and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Despite Power Rangers’ rise to popularity in the heyday of arcade beat-em-ups, it somehow never got a proper one. From what I’ve seen of Rita’s Rewind, Digital Eclipse is making a valiant and long-overdue effort to remedy that, and best of all, you don’t have to ask your mom for quarters every time you die.
