Avoid like the plague!
The Power Rangers have starred in a number of games over the years, their brightly colored but shallow adventures being perfect material for the gaming world. However, it shouldn't be a great surprise to find that most of these titles are absolutely dire, and this one doesn't do anything to buck that trend. It's an abysmal action platformer that can be finished in less than an hour and which doesn't offer anything to anyone but the most undiscerning of gamers. There's a typically bonkers plot, involving a shattered crystal of strange power, so the Rangers have to venture into a labyrinth to get it back, but of course the evil Machine Empire wants it for itself, so you're going to have to fight its hordes of minions if you have any hope of victory. What follows is a basic action platformer, a bit like Trantor or Ghosts & Goblins but without the charm of either, where you control the various Rangers as they explore the maze. On each stage, you have to collect crystal shards while fighting the bad guys, jumping and climbing up ladders. In theory, this could have been a decent enough game, despite the low budget nature of the license. However, in practice, it gets just about everything wrong. The controls are awful, being sluggish and unresponsive, while the general pace of the game is equally slow and turgid. The visuals look okay when they're not moving, with chunky, colorful sprites, but as soon as they start moving, you realize how bad the animation is. The platforming is also overly precise, making the game a frustrating mess from start to finish.
