Let's review Power Rangers: Beats of Power

Can't believe I'm doing this, but I've been curious as to how a review would work. Well, let's see how this goes.

Power Rangers: Beats of Power is a fan-made computer game by Merso X. It's a 2D beat-em-up that takes place during the events of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, specifically around the second season. Most of the events take place before the power transfer. Playable characters are Jason, Kimberly, Zack, Trini, Billy, and Tommy as the White Ranger. Move off the character select screen, and Tommy as the Green Ranger is selectable. Nice choices, and while most of them play the same, they do have different attack animations and special attacks. Co-op play is available, but I haven't had a chance to try this with my brother.

Here's what I found neat; voice clips for each character are present, and even video clips for when they morph. The zord segments also have a corresponding video clip. Available zords are the Thunder Megazord and Tigerzord Battle Mode. Like with the green ranger, move off the screen, and the original Megazord and Dragonzord are usable. While true to the show, those things are unbelievably clunky!

Most of the levels begin with the selected ranger in their civilian attire, beating putties in order to proceed. Once the middle point is reached, Alpha will appear and grant the ranger their morpher. I really loved the use of morphing video clip! After beating the boss(es) at the end of the level, most will then show the monster grow, which leads to the zord battle.

Fighting is simple, though I don't think beat-em-ups have to have elaborate controls. There is a charge meter that fills over time, and when full, the civilian rangers and zords are allowed to use a mid-range strong attack. As a morphed ranger, it doubles in size. Filling halfway grants a similar mid-range attack with their weapon, but completely charged gives a different attack; Jason has a long-range dashing slash, Billy does a multi-hit close range attack, Zack, Kimberly, Trini, and both Tommy's have projectile attacks. Decent variety, I think.

A few issues, but note that I played on a now outdated version of the game. Have yet to see if these were fixed in the more recent update.

The first boss didn't seem to have a hit box at all. He didn't seem to be able to hit me at all, leading to an incredibly easy fight.
Update: New version fixes this issue.

The rangers own hit boxes seemed smaller than the rest of the enemies. Or I just suck at getting in the right angle to hit, either one could apply.

One of the final levels had a pretty bad glitch. I hit the boss right when he appeared, knocking him off screen. Usually not a problem, as enemies can do that, and can actually be an advantage since you could trap them like that, leading to a much easier boss fight. But this guy couldn't be hit like that, and he wouldn't come back on screen. Thankfully, I was playing as Kimberly, so I kept using the Power Bow projectile around where he disappeared, which managed to hit him. Haven't tried it again to see if it repeats, though.

Little tip, once you run out of lives while playing alone, you have a fraction of a second to hit the pause button to bring up a character select screen, otherwise you'll get a game over and have to restart the level. What I do is just mash the pause button.

A lot of the sound clips do sound rather synthetic, which is especially noticeable while playing as Tommy. According to the credits, these were ripped from the show, but I'm guessing the conversion into the game wasn't perfect. Still cool, though.

It's a rather short game, but I found it enjoyable. Tried playing it with the default keyboard controls, but I was no good. I'm more of a console gamer. So I bought a wired Xbox 360 controller, alleviated most of my issues.

I'd recommend it as a Ranger fan, and as a decent game overall.

Download here gamejolt.com/games/arcade/powe…

Alright, first ever review. Not sure if I'll get around to others. Thing is, there's little I outright don't like, so not sure how I'll be reviewing stuff.