Power Rangers Samurai for Wii

Saying it makes me feel a little old, but the Power Rangers have really grown stale over the last umpteen years since the franchise begin — 1993, if you were curious. Perhaps this has become common knowledge since they keep trying to reinvent themselves, with the latest change being Power Rangers Samurai, a television show that is apparently popular enough to warrant a video game from Namco Bandai called Power Rangers Samurai Wii.

One positive thing about the game is that the character models are realistic looking, and you can even see realistic image projection from the show itself. However, the enemy character models fall into the same problem that many beat 'em up games have: far too much repetition. Once you see an enemy, you can expect to see him again and again and again. And again.

As far as gameplay is concerned, there is heavy violence that will not be suitable for very young children. In some parts of the level, you are stuck in a room where you are required to injure all of the enemies in the room before you can move on to the next part. However, fighting the standard enemies are generally pretty easy as you work your way to the boss, where the real challenge lies.

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There is no way to get lost in each level as there is just one main path. You can branch off into side paths that contain additional hidden items, but they eventually become dead ends, meaning you need to backtrack and resume the main path.

One of the challenges occurs with character control. While the controls are normally very quick for each character, there are problems trying to get your Power Ranger behind the boss and hitting him in the back. This is due to the fact that the character starts out swinging away from the boss, which is just incredibly frustrating. Other times, he would manage to hit you at the same time you hit him, which basically cancels the attack and causes you to take damage. However, a second player can join in, which helps greatly with the battles.

Overall, the game is decent enough, with the only real complaint being unnecessary difficulty for bosses. It makes sense in other games of its genre; these kinds of games would originally be in the arcade and would be designed to force you to die and insert more quarters to continue. However, as it is just a recent release and arcades are essentially no more, there is no real excuse for adding that in these days. Nonetheless, it is a good enough title to rent for the weekend, but definitely do not let young kids under ten try it out until they are older.