Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind is a nostalgic letdown
It’s hard not to get excited when you start up Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind and hear the nostalgic guitar riffs of the theme song. The game starts by sending the gang back to the ’90s before diving straight into the action: blasting and fighting their way through waves of putty patrols deployed by iconic villain Rita Repulsa. The rangers (or Ranger, if you’re playing alone) fight their way through a sand valley and over a series of rooftops before hopping on a speeder and blasting away bad guys in a chase through the canyon in the first few levels. It all leads to the first big battle, where the rangers transform their vehicles into the Megazord. What should be a great battle is actually just a watered down, timing heavy version of it Punch out!! – a major letdown that lasts for the rest of the game.
It’s not Rita’s rewind is bad, but the good parts are limited to the repetitive side-scrolling levels that are largely due to nostalgia for the genre and franchise. The locations and art are stunning re-creations of iconic locations from the series, but there’s ultimately not enough variety in what you do in those locations: enemies and movesets are both limited, and, frustratingly, there’s very little evolution of the speeder chase and Megazord battles. While Digital Eclipse will be released in 2022 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge felt alive and vibrant, Rita’s rewind feels slow and stale – it doesn’t have the iteration or depth you expect from a reinterpretation of the 1994 classic. Shredder’s revengeAlso was a modern take on the classic TMNT fighting game, with mechanically interesting combat and enemy variety; Rita’s rewindIt feels clumsy in comparison. It’s that comparison that can be harmful Rita’s rewind: I came into the experience expecting an evolution of the classics, as in Shredder’s revengebut what Digital Eclipse has created is more like what it used to be like to play a 16-bit brawler. It doesn’t feel like a game made in 2024.
If you’re looking for a simple experience that’s a true throwback, you’ll probably enjoy it more Rita’s rewind. In that case, you’re in for a nostalgic treat: the colorful world is full of references and grotesque enemies you’ll remember, like Chunky Chicken and Turkey Jerk. The best parts of Rita’s rewind are the aesthetics of the environment and its characters, and seeing where the game takes you next. The big “change” compared to other fighting games is the Time Disruptor, which is occasionally carried to the battlefield with putties. There’s a timer set and if it’s not destroyed before it self-destructs, the timeline will briefly rewind, meaning you’ll have to fight again against the bad guys you’ve already defeated. However, it doesn’t add much difficulty or meaning; it only fills the time.
And maybe that’s what the Digital Eclipse team needed: Rita’s rewind it took just over two hours to beat. It’s not much shorter than Shredder’s revengebut repetition made everything fade away. Rita’s rewind Ultimately, it leans far too heavily on nostalgia, creating something that’s perhaps too close to the SNES game it spawns from, rather than pushing the genre into greater depth.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind was released on December 10 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One. The game was reviewed on a Windows PC via Steam Deck using a pre-release download code from Digital Eclipse. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions on products purchased through affiliate links. You can find Additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy can be found here.