izigame.me

Okay, no. This is Shredder's Revenge, only worse. Where to even begin?
It's monotonous, which is funny, because the game clearly wants to avoid being anything but that. The devs have elected to break up the gameplay loop into different parts and add set-pieces for extra variety. I respect that, I can imagine them going over their ideas for the game and being excited for this. It's the kind of thing that would elevate this game above the competition 30 years ago; but it's not 30 years ago. Ultimately, the beat em up levels always play out the same, the Zord levels play exactly like the bike levels which all play out the same and the Megazord sequence... why is that even there? The Rangers play all exactly the same and the only differentiation are some animations that communicate their characters. That's nice, but useless, in the long term.
Most importantly, though, the game's broken. Hit-boxes are inconsistent. Moves like the grab are inconsistent. Enemies will willingly walk into pits. You will fall through the level into pits. The backflip is borderline useless, because it seems to have very few i-frames. Actually, i-frames are a problem all around, get ready to get knocked around quite a bit. At one point, I lost four HP in a second flat. I still don't know what happened there. Also, whose brilliant idea was it for objects the enemies throw to hurt you upon contact *before they are thrown*?
The Zord sequences are pain. The screen is too busy at all times. Your vehicle/zord is too slow on the X-axis. They will have pick ups at the corner of the screen and you can legitimately not reach them in time if you're not dead-center when they appear. The vehicles are too small to tell apart from the countless hazards that fly around. It's a mess, there's too much visual noise. At some point I died during a screen-filling special attack. Did I mention it was *my* special attack?
These don't feel right to play, either, particularly the Zords. On one hand, they are too slow for the levels they're in, on the other hand they're too fast to operate like the giant robots they actually are. The design is at odds with itself. These sprites need to be bigger, the player damage output needs to be significantly increased (for solo play, at least) and the Zords need to be slower and sturdier. The jump needs to be reworked into a booster jump. They need more weight. These sequences need to be meatier in general, why even include them if all I can do is pew-pew in a substandard shmup? This is, of course, the consequence of designing around multiplayer only. You can't have 4 giant, slow robot sprites that can clear the screen with powerful attacks, so you end up with this underwhelming time-waster. You need to find a happy medium.
The Megazord sequences are nothing. They're hard to control, but stupid easy to play. I get the idea, but this isn't exactly Armored Core. Just do a beat em up mecha section. They're not entirely without merit, but can I ask something? Why even bother putting them in, if you're not even going to do the power sword right? Why am I not slashing the enemy? Why am I lightly tapping it with the sword? The Power Rangers theme does a lot of the heavy lifting in those sequences as it is, don't fumble the finisher. Never fumble the finisher. Let me chop that monster up.
Lastly -and Turtles had the same issue- this is balanced for multiplayer. Normal is torture for solo play. You'd think Easy would be the solo mode, but I'm not sure? It's still just as much of a mess, enemies just have less health. You get the exact same issues, only now the game is doubly as boring.
Also, no key-rebinding. Gamepad bindings are fine, but the option should be there. Not all gamepads are created equal.
Are there things to like here? The soundtrack is nice. On a technical level, the visuals are nice (even though those are *not* Putties, come on). The levels feel bad to play, but look very good. It has a good CRT filter. The story is nonsense, but the references are nice and it picks up from that anniversary Netflix special, which is good as far as brand loyalty goes.
Look, this isn't the worst game ever, but at this asking price? Oh lord, it's straight up rude with what's on offer. I haven't cleared the story yet, but I can't see any replay value. Don't buy this. Not right now. It's too expensive and it's *several* patches away from playing well. I feel for the devs, you can see in the details that they worked hard on this, but it's just not there right now. I wish it were.
Update: Oh, okay, I finished it. Yeah, this is embarrassing. The campaign feels short and you only unlock Tommy at the very end for level replays and you don't even get Dragonzord battles? There's literally nothing to earn in this game.