Go, Go, Crippling Nostalgia!

I'm guessing that everybody who's played video games a lot, especially back in earlier times, has that one game they loved so much, they broke it. What I mean is, you played that game, and you played it, and you played it, until it simply wore out, because it is the nature of electronics to break down over time, just like everything else. Except maybe styrofoam. For me, the game was Power Rangers for the Game Gear.

Yes, once upon a time, I was a fan of the Power Rangers. This is back in the olden times, before '93 movie (I'd lost interest by then). In that regard, I suppose I've got that - and likely the crush I had on the Pink Ranger - in common with any number of other kids from the early '90s. And like a kid, when I'm interested in something, I want the merchandise that goes along with it. I was never all that interested in the action figures, or clothes, but a video game for the Game Gear? That, I was very interested in, though I can't recall whether I got it as a gift, or bought it myself. Given how lousy my allowance was, smart money's on the former.

The game had the typical story mode, with the original five Rangers as the playable characters, with the choices expanding to six when you defeat the Green Ranger and bring him back to the side of Good. Each level you select a Ranger, then spend a few minutes fighting some of the cannon fodder, the Putty Patrol (this is triggering all sorts of memories), then fighting the boss, then. . . Giant Robot Monster Fight! Whooooo! (in your best Ric Flair impersonation, natch). Repeat for the next level. I beat that story mode plenty of times, but what ultimately caused the game to falter was all the hours on the versus mode.

I don't mean multiplayer, though you could do that if you and a friend both had a Game Gear (I don't recall if you both had to have the game. It never came up). In versus mode you selected a character, then fought, one at a time, against every other character the same size as you. What I mean is, for example, if you chose the Green ranger, you'd fight the other Rangers, a Putty, and all the monsters. If you chose one of the Zords, you only fight the other Zords and the the monsters (since they could be giant-sized too). The monsters had to fight everything. For the record, this wasn't one of those endurance matches, where the foes just keep coming without your health regenerating. After you won a fight, the next battle would start fresh, full health, new, random opponent.

There was many a summer afternoon/evening I spent at my grandmother's, where I'd sit in my room, under the window and play versus mode until I'd gotten through it with every single character. That's why it was good to have the wall adapter, because batteries would never have held out the several hours necessary for that.

I even constructed an elaborate fantasy scenario, where whichever character I was playing was trying to overthrow whichever character I played last, for good reasons or ill, to take over the, well, the world I suppose. No point in just settling for the city (was it called Angel Grove?). Anyway, then the next character I picked would set forth to defeat the one before, starting out with noble intentions if it was a good character, inevitably being corrupted and corrupting those they defeated, so the whole process could start over again. That idea seemed a lot cooler back in the day. Anyway, it was a good way to pass the time during the summer, since it was too hot to be outside in the middle of the day, and my grandmother lived alone out in the country, so ways to pass the time were limited (though there was going to her friends' house to play "Marbles", which is actually very much like Sorry!, and that was fun, except their dog hated me for some reason).

Looking back, I'm surprised by how many moves the characters could have, given that you only had a directional pad and two buttons to work with. I mean, beyond the basic "punch, kick, jump kick, throw" stuff, there were flying uppercuts, shoulder blocks, weapons attacks, both for when you were already close up, and ones where you either attacked at distance, or went charging at them with some big, impressive strike. I recall Green Ranger had a pretty nasty "multiple slashes with the dagger" move. And all that depending mostly on what direction you pushed the D-pad, or whether you were tapping or holding it. They really could fit quite a bit into the games back then.