izigame.me

Edit: I felt bad. I knew these devs put in work, and here I took a dump on it without even beating it. Original review was done at 54 minutes. I have now BEATEN THE GAME and the patch they put out DELETED MY SAVE. So to be clear, I beat the whole ass game in 1.6 hours. 2.6 minus the 1 from original review when I had to start over. Only that is also untrue because I took some time to play as the Green Ranger after beating it. So like...they want THIRTY FIVE DOLLARS for a ONE AND A HALF HOUR LONG game. Do not buy this. Not even on sale. I'm going to try to get it refunded. This game is awful. Original review below.
This game is...bad. I'm going to be using Shredder's Revenge as a reference point here, because that game was phenomenal and should be something devs aspire to when making a game of this ilk. The music is OKAY, it does the job it sets out to do. Not brilliantly or anything, but it fits the bill. This is where my praise completely ends.
So, the bad, laid out.
Point #1: This is the #1 bad thing for a reason. It is a big one, the others won't be this long. All the characters, are EXACTLY the same. Sure, the combos are visually different due to weapons, but functionally they all behave exactly the same. They all have the same reach, they all have the same speed, they all have the same combo string of two punches, then three weapon hits. Shredder's Revenge all the characters had unique stats, unique moves, they handled differently. They felt like actual characters you were picking between. In this game, you're picking a color, and NOTHING ELSE. This is sad. Yellow Ranger should have been light on her feet darting in with daggers while Black Ranger was lumbering a bit with his giant axe he has to heft about. It would have made sense. Instead, nothing. All carbon copies of one another.
Point #2: Everything, and I cannot stress this enough, EVERYTHING you do is slow. Your attack string is slow, your movement is slow, you dodge is slow and SO SLOW to cool down. It is also unresponsive. Hit up and attack to do your rising attack? Might happen. Might just swing after walking up a bit, or swing then walk up a bit. Contrast this with Shredder's Revenge, where everything was snappy, and even if you were playing as a lumbering bruiser in combat, it felt good.
Point #3: The enemies. This is a modern game, with modern tech behind it. We aren't limited by things like space on a cartridge, and nobody is trying to make a living by making us pump quarters into a machine. So when I say this game has garbage old Beat-Em-Up enemies, understand that this shouldn't be what happens in a modern game. The enemies are FASTER than you, period, end of discussion. They will surround you, and you will get hit. "Well just use the dodge or jump out!" This goes back to the whole slow, unresponsive control thing. I want to dodge away, so I do, and then somebody else is behind me or a bird is dive bombing me, and I can't dodge again for a WHILE. I can MAYBE jump out, but the jump has no horizontal movement. The rising attack only comes out when it feels like it so that is out too. Again, go play Shredder's Revenge, this isn't an issue there.
Point #4: The zords/bikes. Boy. First off. Can we just...can we NOT with the horrific 90s CGI zords? Holy crap those look SO BAD. Just make them pixels like the rest of the game. Also, this, like everything else, is so much slower than it should be. You move side to side SLOWLY, and there are so many constant explosions that take up a bulk of the screen that you'll take hits you can't see coming. It isn't fun. Also, again, THEY'RE ALL THE SAME! The mastodon is the same as the t-rex is the same as the triceratops. Why? Why can't there be any variation? The Megazord battles are so boring too. Just move a bit then alternate two attack buttons as fast as you can. Why not make it an actual fight?
Point #5: The timey-wimey crystals of bullpucky. This just isn't fun. There are time travel crystals that get thrown at you, you CANNOT kill them the first go around. They explode, the game rewinds to just before they were on screen, and you do it again but they retain any lost health. It is ... fine ... in the normal stages. Beat up the puttys, beat on the crystal, go back in time, do it again and move on. I question the why behind it, but whatever. This becomes an issue when you're in a bike stage, and they DON'T retain any damage you do. It is my own fault, but I got hit by a semi truck right as one shows up, but then it takes freakin' AGES to get back on the screen to attack. I get two shots off on the crystal, it blows up, I go back in time to RIGHT WHEN THE TRUCK ISEKAIS ME INTO THIS HELL OF ENDLESS REPETITION. I get on screen in time to do nothing but go back in time. If the crystal would retain damage I could kill it slowly, but no. I had to restart the level because of this. Bad showing.
Point #6: The Green Ranger. Look I know he's in there...eventually. Why isn't he around from the word go? If I have to play as carbon copy characters, why can't I at least play as the color I want? "Oh buwt duh tiem pawadoxus!" shut up. Green Ranger should have been in from the start just like double Rita. It would have made it far more interesting for the inevitable fight with him.
I was so hyped for this game for so long. What an incredible disappointment. There will never be a reason to replay it once you finish. You don't level up, you don't...look there are a lot of reasons this game is bad. It isn't worth $30 by any stretch of the imagination. You WILL NOT get 30 hours of play out of it, and barring a game being super incredible - and this one IS NOT - my metric for "worth it" is at least $1/hour spent.
Wait for a sale at the very least. Game is bad.