“Let’s make a 90s arcade game.” This seemed like a pretty good idea to us during Digital Eclipse in 2022 when the first seeds appeared Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind took root.
Arcade gaming was in full swing when MMPR debuted in 1993. The era of 16-bit home gaming was already well underway, and it was still a year after the original PlayStation console launched in Japan, so coin-operated games were still raking in tons of tokens. So if we wanted to give the Power Rangers the high-energy arcade game they always deserved but never got, let’s create the ultimate version of the game that never existed.
The result is Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind, a love letter to the series that will be released on December 10 on PS5 and PS4. When we announced the project last summer, we hinted that the game was more than just a fighting game, and with about 70% of the gameplay focused on taking down Rita Repulsa’s army of Putty Patrollers, anyone looking to neat house with melee attacks and combos should feel very comfortable . The rest of the gameplay draws inspiration from Sega’s creative super-scale games like Space Harrier and Out Run. Before polygons ruled the Earth, these games simulated 3D motion using a series of fast-moving 2D sprites. They’re designed to provide fast-forward action that pops, and we thought they’d be the perfect way to let MMPR fans take on some of the Rangers’ most eminent foes.
Case in point: Players can expect to travel through the canyons and rooftops of Angel Grove in the first Rita’s Rewind, exploring a twisting time-travel plot and encountering enemies that simply shouldn’t appear so early in the Rangers’ history. However, after brawling and defeating Goldar, Rita Repulsa predictably throws her magic wand from her moon palace to give her master a second chance – and turn him into a skyscraper-sized monster.
This is where superscale gameplay comes into play. Each Guardian hops into their respective Dinozord and charges into the Z-axis in pursuit, destroying all obstacles and enemies with enhanced weapons such as missiles and dual lasers. The gameplay really draws on Sega’s heritage, harkening back to games like Galaxy Force and After Burner – constant movement, waves of persistent enemies, and powerful attacks that knock them out of the way.
After catching Goldar, the gameplay changes again, this time towards a first-person fighting game, where the Power Rangers create a powerful Megazord to fight the boss directly. It’s his face versus your fists, once again using the 2.5D visual approach known from venerable arcade games. Each player has the chance to wear down the boss by contributing to the cause and ultimately defeating the bosses with Power Rangers’ greatest weapon: teamwork.
Mixing all these different genres seemed like the right thing to do to keep Rita’s Rewind fresh, but it was also a lot of fun for us. We love brawlers, but they can become repetitive; We hope that the combination of racing, shooting and punching will make Rita’s Rewind an thrilling experience for players who have always dreamed of what Jason, Trini, Zack, Billy and Kimberly would be like if they walked into the arcade halfway through 90’s.
In fact, one of the concepts that drives a lot of what we do at Digital Eclipse is the desire to make games the way you remember them, even if your memories make those experiences a little sweeter and more fun than they might actually have been that day. Our goal with Rita’s Rewind is to create a game that could exist and certainly should exist, but probably wouldn’t exist with all this diversity in one place. Since we’ve had the advantage of keeping arcade games in the rearview mirror for 30 years, we’ll employ that to try and deliver something better than you might remember.
Rita’s Rewind launches on PS5 and PS4 on December 10, and you can pre-order now. We hope that when that day comes, you’ll enjoy revisiting the ’90s with us, both in terms of Power Rangers history and arcade gameplay – even if it’s your first visit.
