Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers review: It's barfin' time

YEAR: 1994

DEVELOPER: Sega TruVideo

SYSTEM: Sega CD

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers represents some of the worst of what FMV games had to offer, so it seemed like a fine place to start my ill-advised plan to review every FMV game.

In MMPR, you watch fight scenes from the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and you press buttons in time with what's happening on screen. That is the entire game. Your input has no effect on what actually happens on the screen. The same video will play through every time. The same experience could be achieved by watching an episode of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and shouting suggestions as to what course you think the story should take at your TV. Don't worry, there's no danger of you being overheard, because if you are conducting this experiment it's a statistical certainty that you live alone.

The "Teens" — as they are helpfully identified by the UI — have a bar that depletes when you make a mistake (or try to skip a cutscene). One would assume this to be a health indicator, but since the aforementioned teens don't seem to be taking physical damage, one can only assume it represents their collective will to live. Had I my own similar bar, it would have depleted through its lower register, extended out my living room window, crossed town and landed in the middle of the Ohio River.

When the bar is depleted in game, the scene stops, Rita Repulsa gloats and the cycle begins anew.

It's possible I'm being too hard on Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. It is, after all, a Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers-ass Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers game. It is literally nothing but. If the metric for success is "How well does this adaptation capture the spirit of the source material," we're dealing with a GOTY contender here.

The extent I'm already willing to bend in order to find silver linings is hugely troubling.

WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR COPY: Pray it morphs into a better game.