The story is similar to the Nintendo DS version, but has a few notably changes. Long thought to have been purified by Zordon’s energy wave, the evil Lord Zedd has returned and has begun interfering with the time stream. His ultimate goal is to eradicate every generation of Power Rangers that has ever existed, allowing him to take control of the entire galaxy. Aware of the threat, the Omega Ranger gathers a force of Power Rangers to put a stop to Zedd’s plans.
I'm late for Temple!
A majority of the game is based around side-scrolling levels. You essentially have to walk from room to room, fighting bad guys until you eventually reach the level’s boss character. To help you fight your enemies, you’ll have access to a range of combo moves, as well as a laser gun for long-range attacks. As you progress, you’ll also learn new abilities such as air-dashes, wall kicks and more powerful punches.
Similar to the DS version, the game’s combat system is very generic. Enemies feature limited AI and tend to gang up on you from all sides, trying to hit you when your back is turned. Adding to the frustration, there’s often a few troops attacking you with laser fire at a distance. It feels like a really cheap way to increase the difficulty level, but even then, you can easily knock down multiple opponents with a few punches. As you can probably guess, due to the generic combat, the game becomes repetitive, making it difficult to come back and play the single-player mode a second time.
Even unit blocks are unsafe from Zedd's thugs.
To make things a little more interesting, the game gives you a list of secondary objectives to complete. These include collecting special items, locating the letters that spell ‘Ranger,’ defeating a set amount of enemies and chaining together combos. At first, these objectives are relatively easy to complete, but later on they become more difficult. For example, the first level only requires you to perform a 15-hit combo, but eventually this figure is increased to 75. In the case of the special items and letters, they tend to be hidden more creatively and require you to find alternative pathways or utilise your wall kicking and dashing abilities. As an extra incentive for accomplishing these tasks, you’re rewarded with new playable rangers, music and concept art. While it’s only a simple addition, it at least lets you focus on something other than the generic combat, and makes the game more tolerable over the DS version.
As mentioned, at the end of each level you’ll have to face a classic Power Rangers villain. These battles are actually quite fun, as the Boss AI is more challenging than the grunts. You can’t just charge in throwing your fists around; you have to wait until they exhaust themselves from attacking you. Once their health is depleted, they’ll grow into a giant form, which sets up the stage for a Megazord battle. During the fight, you’re required to follow on screen prompts to attack and defend, which mainly involves pressing a combination of buttons. It can get a little repetitive towards the end, but because the Megazord battles last only a few minutes at a time, most players will tolerate this.
Zap! Pow! Bang!
Power Rangers: Super Legends also features drop in/out co-op support. The gameplay doesn’t really change too much, but you can cover each other’s back during ambushes and in our case, have one player deal with the annoying laser fire. During Megazord battles, both players pilot the same Zord and help each other power up attacks and defenses.
Despite the show being filmed in live-action, Super Legends adapts a cel-shaded visualisation. For the most part, the game environments look decent and capture the feel of the show, but at the same time, they don’t fully utilise the PlayStation 2’s capabilities. In terms of sound effects and music, it’s pretty standard. There are various rock tunes played in the background, accompanied by the sound of punches, enemy grunts and explosions.
Although Power Rangers: Super Legends for the PlayStation 2 is superior to the Nintendo DS version, it is still a generic beat-‘em-up. There are a few redeemable features, such as the secondary objectives and the boss fights, but they are short lived. Probably best for Power Ranger fans only.
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