Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
The Power Rangers came to me at a weird time in my life. By the time the Rangers had reached the height of their popularity in the US, I was “too old” to be watching the show. Not that it stopped me; I pretended to despise the five teenagers with attitude on the outside, I was secretly rejoicing whenever they’d form MegaZord and whip up on whatever creation Rita Repulsa had in store for them that particular afternoon. Seriously, when the Power Rangers guitar riff hit and the “Go go Power Rangers!” song started it was like liquid cocaine and I would start jumping around all over the place.
It’s kind of funny that over a decade after my closeted fascination with the Rangers started, I’m still entranced by them… except it’s not so secret anymore.
At first glance, Luminous Arc seems like it would be a horrible game. The battle system seems like a gimped version of Final Fantasy Tactics. The controls are horrible. The graphics can’t even compare to some 16-bit era games. Even the story is subpar; it’s filled with Jrpg cliches, and the characters are really really annoying which is compounded by the horrible voice acting. And yet, the game as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts and is actually pretty fun.
Aside from maybe “game over”, no two words make gamers wince as much as “licensed games”. They have all the potential to be great; recognizable characters, backstory, built in audience, etc. But when a developer acquires a license, they feel as if they can release any old shitpile of a game upon the unsuspecting audience and expect us to gobble it up. Case in point, RoboCop for the NES.
I’ve been trying to stay away from doing “top lists” post here on popho. I used to do them all the time (i.e. hottest animated honeys, favorite comic book characters, birth control products, etc.), but it seems that everyone is doing them these days. Hell, there are sites that do nothing but top 10s or top 5s. They also seem kind of… well… like a cop-out. It doesn’t really take much writing ability or creativity to come up with top 10 lists. Saying all of this, I still wanted to write this post since I have such fond memories of these games. And also because I possess little writing ability and creativity.
Even though I was somewhat disappointed with PW: Justice For All, I was looking forward to Trials and Tribulations. I knew it was the last of the “GBA remakes,” and, therefore, wouldn’t have a lot of new gameplay mechanics… but that doesn’t really matter right? Because let’s face it, the actual gameplay of the Phoenix Wright series sucks. If we were just judging it on it’s adventure game mechanics, it’d probably score lower than I did on my SATs. Okay maybe it doesn’t suck, but who plays Phoenix Wright games for the actual “gaming” elements anyway?
