Power Rangers: Super Legends Screenshots

Let that fantasy realm in your mind run wild and free and imagine your perfect game. A cast of mesmerising and thought-out characters. Intuitive gameplay and responsive control mechanics. Gripping story with a riveting orchestral score to boot. Visuals that take your breath away, with the breadth of imagination and scope of their design mind numbingly surreal. A game that wears it’s heart on its sleeve, with the developer’s blood, sweat and tears oozing from it’s very core.

Now imagine nothing. Nothing. A complete waste of life, a waste of money for all those involved and consequently a waste of words to review such a pitiful excuse for interactive entertainment. A video-game that strikes your inner consciousness, allowing your aspirations to suddenly soar, because maybe one day perhaps, you’ll become part of our law-writing council. Only in such an authoritative position of course will you be able to create new laws to ban such filth.

And now relax. No one made you play the game. In fact, someone else had to play the game for you and because of that, you’re able to heed their warning. Power Rangers: Super Legends is one such game to steer clear from. You’ve read all you need to know now. For those of you who for some odd reason curiously want to know exactly why this game is to be loathed, let’s delve deeper.

Mediocrity. It’s a noun used to describe (and I quote Princeton University here) “ordinariness as a consequence of being average and not outstanding”. It’s something made or done without effort, resulting in an average, so-so, meh feeling. In Super Legends’ case, it would have been mediocre had it been released on the SNES in 1992. On the competitive Nintendo DS marketplace in 2008, it’s simply a pathetic attempt to cash in on a brand that also happened to peak in the 90s.

The story, if you can make sense of it, involves collecting some sort of forbidden crystal, which the Omega Power Ranger from the future may or may not have lost. Now the evil monsters, hell bent on taking over the world are after the crystal and you have to play as various Power Ranger colours to stop this from happening, cause it’ll mean the bad guys will destroy the good guys in the past! If they destroy them in the past, they’re not going to be in the present and the bad guys can finally just walk up to their pedestal and take over the world. Get it? It’s all told in comic book pane form, and you might actually have to sit there for minutes on end reading the various characters’ monologues. It’s gripping stuff. It’s played by pressing the x button and moving left and right. Sure, you could press the other buttons, but that would mean you punch or shoot your gun, which both happen to be worthless when compared to the sword. Yes, you can get through the whole game without even coming close to a death screen by simply using your sword. Hack and slash, read some mundane text, hack and slash. Admittedly, you could make it more interesting for yourself by pressing the other buttons but it’ll just waste even more of your time and I’m sure there are more interesting things for you to do, like working on that hate email to the developer of the game (who happen to call themselves “Handheld Games”, so we can probably expect some more DS outings).

You have to give it to them though, the visuals are consistent with everything else about the game. Backgrounds blend with the foreground so you don’t even know what you can and can’t jump onto. Colours are dull, characters have a handful of actual animations and the levels themselves appear to as short as the lazy developer’s imaginations. You stop maybe three times within a level for a swarm of enemies to appear, once you’re done with them you move on.

On the odd occasion in between the platforming levels there’s the inclusion of a vertical shooter mode in a helicopter of some sort. The graphics become a little more 3D, it may have begun as a different game or maybe a different team worked on it. In any case, the gameplay is just as lifeless with even less AI given to the enemies onscreen. They follow a pattern until they’re shot. Sometimes they just wait to be shot. You can send bombs through by touching the screen. It’s a nice addition, but like the extra buttons during the platforming sections, unnecessary to get through the game.

It would be nice if the sound was great. Alas, the sound is horrid. Don’t use headphones with this one, it’ll drive you insane. The music repeats itself within 20 seconds in loops and they're ugly loops. It won’t get stuck in your head because it’s senseless sound. What ever happened to the “Go Go Power Rangers!” theme song? It’s been replaced with your six year old sister’s interpretation of music using your dusty keyboard from the 80s. The characters each make different sounds when grunting, which is great and must have taken the team a long time. Obviously though, you’re playing one character at a time and when all you do is attack, well, just don’t wear your headphones.

There’s not much else to say about the game. It’s a chore to play, has looks only a mother could love and muting the volume may be your best option in avoiding the ensuing insanity. It’s not the worst thing to have ever made it on the DS, but the developers cannot be proud releasing an early 90s game (that would have received scathing reviews back then as well). In an era when quality video games are a dime a dozen, the audience’s tastes mature with the times – they expect wonder and awe. Game developers should at least aim to give their audience a smile while playing the title they should feel proud to release. This effort should be a lesson for Handheld Games in how not to make a game and Disney should expect more from its franchises. Not recommended.