Power Rangers Megaforce (Nintendo 3DS) Review

In theory, a beat-em-up based on a popular and fitting franchise such as Power Rangers with some fan service thrown in sounds like a good idea. What could possibly go wrong? Well, in the case of Power Rangers Megaforce, everything possible went wrong. The overall presentation is very poor with constantly looping music in the main menu and an abundance of loading screens for things that really shouldn't require them, such as going into a sub menu. Each stage typically starts with a bunch of passable cut-scenes before players are thrown into the mess that is the actual gameplay.

One major flaw that immediately becomes apparent is the frame-rate. It's very unstable and feels like the game could crash at any given moment. Even if it was actually at a remotely acceptable level, the 2D beat-em-up gameplay is nothing more than a joke. The controls feel very stiff, animations are sorely lacking and the combat consists of mindlessly mashing the attack button to kill dozens of enemies that barely resemble a threat. There is only one standard combo per character and a button for a single long-range attack. There are cards that can be collected and used as special attacks but these attacks always trigger an annoying cut-scene that can't be skipped and once it's all done the effect is not even worth the effort as simply mashing the regular attack button proves to be just as effective.

The mission structure is as annoying and pointless as possible. The flow of the game is regularly interrupted by mission goals that pop up and stop the player dead in their tracks, often with objectives that can't possibly be missed in the narrow corridors all the stages consist of. Once a goal is accomplished, it only takes a few steps for another one to show up again. All the Power Rangers are playable and play slightly differently but some missions require a certain character for no apparent reason and randomly switch out the currently selected one.

As if all of this wasn't already infuriating enough, the other Power Rangers will constantly and relentlessly bombard the player with the same hints over and over again or simply utter completely irrelevant remarks. There are few moments when one of them isn't currently speaking and these lines of dialogue are sometimes triggered at such a rapid rate that new ones start before the previous person even finished their sentence. It's downright ridiculous and makes playing it almost unbearable.