Power Rangers Rescue Ready. We'll just get the game instead.
Let's go. Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue
is here. Help all your favorite
characters battle the forces of evil in an all new video game.
Ready for everyone? Welcome to Remember 64, where
this week we're Rangers and we have the power.
Also, we have a giant robot, but we'll talk about that later.
Welcome to the show everyone. My name is David Pitrangelo and
these aren't my Rangers that I grew up with.
No, mine didn't morph, but they were mighty.
There were also two little chipmunks and animated and had a
really good and funny movie that came out just a couple years
ago. Everyone should check that out.
I will say though, that series and this series great theme
songs. If you haven't figured it out
yet, I will tell you in a minute what I'm talking about.
It's Morphin time. No, wait.
Time for time. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Lightspeed rescue. That's it.
That's where we are.
OK. That's the one.
If any of that made any sense,
which maybe it didn't, and that's totally fine, You might
have guessed that we're playing Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue
on the N64. It is one of three versions of
this game that came out in one single year in 2001 for Gameboy
Color, one for PlayStation, and one for this Nintendo console.
Jiggy, Look back. How are you, Sir?
How's it going? Oh, I'm doing fantastic.
That's good. I'm.
Doing fantastic. We if anyone's listening to this
when around its release it's we're kicking off 2024 with a
banger I would say inside. Oh yeah, I don't know this kind
of just like came to you last time we were talking about we'll
play next and I said you know what, boom, let's just do it.
Let's go for it. I have no idea why this came to
me. It's totally fine.
I saw it come up on on one of my
social media feeds, like I want to say like a couple months ago
or something. And I go, oh, oh that oh, OK
yeah. I mean, I guess, yeah, OK, I
guess we'll get to that eventually.
And and here we are, everybody here.
Hey, let me just say before we start talking about the actual
game, the cover and the actual like art is pretty cool looking,
I'm not going to lie. Yeah, yeah, I think, you know
you you put in that really cool pose that really cool like you
know yeah it's that's that's cool.
Yeah, sure. I'll.
Superhero landing. Yeah, right.
And the cartridge is black. The cartridge is black.
I wrote that down because I was like, you know what?
At least it has the black cartridge, which is always a fun
time so. And it's colorful.
It it could be worse, you know, it definitely could be worse.
How much? Not much.
So before, before we get into the game itself, I'm going to do
this a little bit off the top because I'm going to forget
later, because that's just me. But 2024, we're doing some
interesting stuff. We're not just going through the
library itself of the N64. We are going to be playing some
mods and we're going to be playing some unreleased games
and unreleased versions of games and stuff.
So I think it's going to be something a little bit different
on on, you know, every couple of episodes or something.
But we're going to have video up on their video feed of the
actual episode itself so you can see what we're playing because
they're not always accessible to everybody unless you have like
an emulation device or something like that or a way to play them.
But you know, Smash Brothers is on the list.
Banjo, Kazooie, Zelda titles like, we just have a lot that
that we can go through and and mess around with.
So I don't know. Jiggy.
Is there one in particular at least that you're like most
looking forward to or? Just out of mods in general.
Yeah. Just I would say there are two
that I'm really looking forward to really diving into Smash
Remix. That's that's a cool one.
I'm super pumped to go through Jiggy's of Time for Banjo
Kazooie. I'm so excited.
That's so excited. But the one thing I really,
really want to look at and like, probably above all the rest, is
not a mod, but it's the Dinosaur Planet N64 build.
Because Star Fox Adventures is one of my favorite games.
And just the fact that it's on the 64 in some way, shape or
form, it's like the last rare Wear game that not the last one,
obviously, but the last like of that original, like, yeah, from
like the 90s. It's like, oh, we get this
little secret game that we never played this version of and it's
just there's something about that that really draws me in.
Yeah, super excited about that one.
Yeah, a lot of this stuff I have very little or no experience
with, Like, it doesn't matter what game it is.
So I'm excited to sort of do something a little bit different
and explore these different ideas.
Like one stuff that maybe was unreleased like you're saying
like like that like that game there is is an interesting way
of of playing that game that ended up being something
different, which is awesome. But also just like the ideas
that people have now and they create mods or they create a
game that is N64 inspired and it you know released in 2022 or
something like that. Like I love it.
We're we're going to explore all that kind of stuff.
We're going to play something different and we're going to be
able to to share the gameplay itself.
So if it's not something that you can play yourself or find
online or whatever, you can see us playing it and most likely
see me suck at it because I'm not very good at games sometimes
so. But that's what 2024 has in
store, working through the library and then playing mods,
unreleased games, newer games that are 64 inspired.
So we're definitely gonna be doing something fun and new with
with the podcast, so stay tuned. Heck yeah.
And I will say that I am actually developing my own N64
style game and I am hoping that maybe remember 64 could be the
exclusive first look at the playable demo.
Ah. And what is this called, Sir?
What is this called? Abo and Sira.
It's like Banjo Kazooie crossed with well, I guess it's it's
like Banjo Kazooie. Crossed with the other Banjo
Kazooie, yeah. Yeah, I guess so.
I guess Donkey Kong 64 was what I was going to say, but yeah,
kind of similar, so. It's true.
That's that's pretty much where
it's for. I mean, and those are, those are
titles and franchises you love. So why not, you know, you know
people draw from their inspirations and from the things
that they enjoy, so, so that's awesome.
Exactly. Yeah.
OK, so let's talk about a little.
There's not a huge background with this game.
I do find it interesting. I don't know, maybe it's me.
Maybe I'm just like a nerd for this kind of stuff.
But I really love when games have a different version on
another console or handheld or whatever and they've come out,
you know, within a small window of each other.
So like I mentioned, there's three versions of Power Rangers
Lightspeed Rescue, which was ATV show that began in 2000 and then
they immediately made games or at least they were develop
developing them as the show came out in North America.
So THQ is the big name that you'll see when you when you
pull up the game and you start it.
THQ is a very recognizable name, especially through the 90s and
early 2000s. Eventually they went away, big
hole kerfuffle, they got sold or they went bankrupt.
I can't remember exactly what it is.
But then they basically rebranded themselves as THQ
Nordic now. So if you look around and you
see THQ Nordic, that's kind of where it came from.
But it's not the same studio, it's not the same publisher.
It's just a whole other thing now.
And that was only a few years ago, but the N64 version was
created by Mass Media. Mass Media was the developer.
THQ was the publisher for all three of these versions.
Mass Media made games like Namco Museum also developed StarCraft
64, which I'm super excited to try out.
I don't know how good or bad that's going to be, but I'm
interested. Are you StarCraft fan?
I don't know. I don't know if you've ever
talked about that or you or RTS. I've.
Honestly, only played it like once I think.
Hey. Interesting Okay.
StarCraft is like command and conquer, right?
Yeah, RTS. Style just like sci-fi cuz I've
played Command and Conquer on the 64 but I never played
StarCraft on the 64 but I have played a StarCraft game before.
Okay. Well, there's there's only two
and then there's. Yeah, there's only two.
And then there's the expansions. There's obviously for PC and
then then this one interesting to sort of it's such an early
time to bring a game like an RTS to a console as well.
Like I know there's SIM City and those types of things and
Civilization and that kind of stuff on unlike, you know the
SNES and Genesis and stuff like that.
But it I don't know something about StarCraft.
I'm interested. I'm interested.
So when I saw that when I was looking this up and go oh, OK,
they were they were tapped to do something like StarCraft which
at the time was a very big brand for Blizzard and everything.
OK, cool, great. They they brought that to it.
I hear that game's, you know, decent enough.
But what's interesting is that mass media closed eventually,
but before they did, they actually helped fine tune the
GPU of the PlayStation 3, which is kind of cool.
So they stopped kind of like making games and whoever was
left in the studio or whatever it is.
So they actually developed some technology to help the PS3 run
better, which is really cool. So, you know, they worked with
Sony pretty closely. Gameboy Color, Natsume, I think
Natsumi is the name of the developer for that game.
They mostly did license games such as the awesome Power
Rangers game on the Super Nintendo from 1994.
One of my favorite early SNES memories of playing a sort of
like beat em up like that. I I don't know.
Have you ever played that game? The old?
Yeah, I love it. I love it so much.
The theme song is so much better.
The theme song is great. Yeah, exactly.
Oh, Speaking of theme song, I mentioned theme songs in my
opening spiel. There I was.
I was of course, of course I was talking about Chippendale Rescue
Rangers. That's what I was referring to.
Chipmunks and Hilarious. Also the movie they came out
with. I can't remember the full title,
but it is so good. It's like, it's sort of like The
Who Framed Roger Rabbit style, where it's, you know, animated,
but also it's so funny, man. It's just, it's about them
dealing with the fact that they're old.
It's so good. It's hilarious.
OK, so And then the PlayStation version, yeah, PlayStation
version of this game was made by Climax Studios.
They began as just doing ports in the 80s and 90s and then in
the 90s and 2000s worked on a bunch of license games,
including the Warhammer franchise, which is massive for
a lot of people. And they have a bunch of listed
games. There's there's tons of
different ones. But yeah, three different
developers for essentially the same branded game, which I think
is a little bit different. I I I don't know that that's
all. That it is different.
Yeah, so I I wrote, I wrote down.
I said I mentioned all three of these studios.
Not because it's super important to the N64 version of this and I
don't. I don't like shitting on
people's work, but I think the N64 got the got the shit end of
the stick when it comes to this. Definitely, yeah.
I mean, even just looking up the reviews it it pretty much goes
Game Boy Color is the best version, followed by PlayStation
and then N64 trails behind pretty significantly actually.
Yeah, yeah, like, like, significant.
Yeah. So the PlayStation version looks
kind of like an early Marvel Ultimate Alliance game a little
bit little bit more zoomed in but it's kind of like a 3D ish
beat em up kind of thing. Game by Color is a side
scrolling platformer I I played this we'll talk about that in a
little bit and and I wrote down for the N64 it's well at least
it has a black cartridge that's what I wrote down that's that's
what it has going for so. That sounds about right.
OK, so we'll talk about the game and stuff too.
But going into this, did you have, do you have Power Rangers
love experience, nostalgia. What's your sort of, what's
your, what's your relationship with Power Rangers?
Not even just this specific one, but just in general.
I was never super into Power Rangers, but I mean, Mighty
Morphin was out when I was a kid.
That was. Everybody loved Mighty Morphin
Power Rangers. Everybody had a crush on
Kimberly. That was the thing.
Yeah, I kind of watched here and there different different series
within Power Rangers. Wild Force.
I remember, I remember Lost Galaxy, I remember Time Force
all kind of that late 90s. And then Lightspeed came out in
the 2000s and I remembered the outfits like how the actual
Rangers looked. I I actually did for this
episode. I went back and watched like the
first two episodes of the series and I gotta say like, let let me
just tell you this. OK, so so the plot the plot is.
Like tell me what the plot is. They these like explorers or
whatever accidentally open up this container that had demons
in it. I'm not joking.
And the demons like fly out and basically like gonna rain hell
on the planet. And these these Rangers are
based out in California and they basically the like, I'm not
going to see the police force but like a special forces unit
they figured out how to tap into the morphing grid and could make
Power Rangers. But like the old Power Rangers
like OG, like Mighty Morphin got the dinosaurs as like their
symbol of their zords and everything.
Wild Forest got like all different animals, like Eagle
Lion, like all these different things, right.
You pretty much had that reoccurring theme of, like, the
Zords are cool in some way, right?
And then this one, they were just like an ambulance and a
fire truck. And I don't know, there's just
something about that that's so lame.
I just, I didn't. I didn't latch into it.
I never got into it. But ironically, like, after
lightspeed, there came Dino. Gosh, I'm getting them all Dino
Thunder. And Dino Thunder was the last
one I remember like being like yeah this one's pretty good but
comparison wise and also had Jason David Frank return, which
that's the thing entirely. This is like this is its own
stand alone things. I also found the the actual like
looking back the the actual actors and everything like super
bizarre because Power Rangers is like it's about teenage kids
that get this power right. It's it's that whole thing.
They're like, we need angsty teenage kids.
And this is the first one as far as I remember, that they weren't
really kids. They were established adults
with like careers. One was a firefighter, one was
an extreme climber, one was like a water trainer.
Well, I don't know what, whatever, Not a water trainer
like Pokémon, but a water trainer like sea animals and
stuff and rescue. You're crossover, essentially.
If you took this specific series of Power Rangers and you had to
say it was Power Rangers crossed with something else to get this
specific version, it would be Paw Patrol.
That's what this is, that's what this is.
And then the bad guy just happens to be demons, but they
just like, say that. I think the actual bad guy's
name is like diabolical or diabolica or something weird
like that. It's it's the same.
It's very like, oh let's just pick a name that sounds bad,
sounds you know bad and and sort of sounds like a familiar.
It's it's like it's like Avatar doing unobtainium.
Like it's it's like it's lazy. Come on, that's lazy.
I mean, to be honest, though, that part of it doesn't bother
me as much because that's just Power Rangers.
That's true. I think like Goldar and what is
it? Rita Repulsa, Sort of like, yes,
Rita, Yeah, like the names are pretty.
They're. Pretty bad.
And that's fine. That's fine.
It's it's supposed to be kind of corny and whatever, and the
source material is a little bit like that.
So. So you watch, you watch two
episodes and it's basically just two episodes of set up and
that's pretty much it. That's kind of.
Yeah. And they, they transform one
time and fight. And it was like, I don't know,
it's it's not something I would get into.
Well, you don't have. I like their, their
transformations like later on get cooler looking, 'cause they
basically have like a shield emblem of their color that comes
up like it. It's like they're the visor and
their mask, like that specific symbol their.
Masks have different shapes every.
That's not, yeah, it's not just a color that's different.
It's the actual like visor part has a different shape to it,
yeah. Yeah.
And so that pops up with their colors, right?
And they like jump through it and it kind of stretches around
them and that's how they get their outfit.
It's it's a cool looking transformation.
But yeah, other than that, no. But that's it, yeah.
Yeah, that's so. Yeah.
For me, it's pretty much just the original.
That's it. Was I like, a massive fan of it?
No, I wouldn't say that I was. But I still had one of the
action figures. One of my cousins had them.
It was you know you watch it sometimes that I really know
what was going on. No, I think.
I honestly I think I liked it more because I really liked that
Super Nintendo version like game because I had that game and I
loved it. I played it all the time and I I
would play it now no problem. But it was it's pretty much just
that you know you I I think when we were looking up before we hit
record there's 20 something different versions of Power
Rangers. I thought maybe there was 10,
like I had no idea if it's. If this list is correct?
If this list is correct, there is 22 different series of Power
Rangers and this could be this could be slightly older.
OK, I updated October 1st, 2023. Yeah.
So as new as you're going to get probably, but it but like, to
me, I I Power Rangers just don't register with me anymore.
Like I just, I thought they were always Mighty morphin whatever.
Like I had no idea. Like I I just thought they were
always basically the same. They just look different.
I had nothing. I had no idea.
There's dinosaur thing. There was a mythic force.
There's a why. I had no idea.
So for me, I boot up this game and I'm just like, all right,
these guys look different. What are they going to do?
Yep. And just for just for the the
avid Power Ranger like fanatics that are listening to this
specific episode of these Nintendo 64 podcast, Power
Rangers Lightspeed Rescue kind of sits right in the middle of
rankings. It's #13 out of 22, so just
thought I'd throw that out there.
Yeah, so that's not bad, you know?
It's in the middle. For.
Yeah, for as many as there are. That's that's not bad.
That's not bad, right? But, you know, I I don't know, I
I kind of had an idea that this game wasn't supposed to be very
good. I've heard that before.
I've read that in places before and I'm like, OK, I'm going to
go in. I'm not going to expect much.
That's totally fine. Let's just see.
Maybe people are just saying, oh, it's bad because compared to
the other versions, for example, like, that's why it's not good.
OK, fine. But I think on its own, it's
just not good. It's.
Just. No, it's not a good game, man.
I I feel so bad. Like, honestly, I honestly feel
bad saying some people worked, did, did their job, worked hard
on these, on these games, any game really.
And it's not good. I hate shitting on people's hard
work. But man, this is not, it's not
fun, man. It's just it's lame.
It's so it's so lame, right? Yeah, I agree with you.
But I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with the positives.
First, OK, yeah. OK, sure.
That's let's. Do that.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna start with the positives.
I'm gonna go right. That beginning menu is kind of
cool and it's got, it plays the theme song, which you're going
to hear a billion times throughout this thing.
But when you first initially hear it, you're like, oh, this
is cool. You know, you're like, that's
that's cool. And then you get in and
initially you get shown this like comic book esque.
Cutscene. It's it's like a like a what are
the animated graphic novels or something kind of what it feels
like, yeah. It's really cool at first.
Yeah. What what happens is they just
reuse the assets over and over and over.
So you see the same image like 20 different times and it just
slightly different way. And they and they and they zoom
in from a slightly different location.
Like they fly into the screen from the left.
Oh, next time you see it's going to fly in from the bottom right,
but it's like the same one. Yeah, it loses its freshness.
And it's the same with the theme song, which which you get into
the first, the first level, Oh my gosh, and you know what
you're in for. It's just a wide open space.
I did a test. I can actually play this game
without looking at the game. You just look at the mini map.
Oh, I see. Yes, yes.
OK, so I did AI did a similar test on the levels cause like
the first stage, so there's there's basically 33 stages in
this game. There's you play on foot as one
of the Rangers depending on the mission or whatever, and you're
rescuing people or you're rescuing another Ranger and
you're collecting stuff and and fighting off some enemies or
something. It's another one where there's
driving levels essentially, which I think of the most like
could be the better ones, but we'll get into the differences
in sort of what they feel like, but sort of like a driving
level, you kind of going left to right and then there's like a
flying level, which I think there's like two or three of
them and that's it. But I'm pretty sure they use the
exact same map every time, which is just weird.
And then there's. Yeah.
And it's like 6 buildings on a loop.
Yeah. Yeah, there's a.
Circle. Yeah, But yeah, like you said,
the sort of the radar is basically shows you the things
you need to collect the enemies and that that's pretty much it
in like little dots in the bottom left corner.
And as long as you run over the things that you need to collect,
everything else can be ignored. So I took a similar approach to
you where it's like instead of just looking at the map on the
ones where you run around on those stages, you actually could
just play the whole game with just the joystick.
You have so much. You have so much health and
enemies do like no damage and all they do is chase you.
They don't do anything else. They just come out of like these
portals and they just run after you.
As long as you keep moving they won't catch up to you and you
can just. I I played an entire level about
halfway through the game I would say, which by the way, it's only
like a two hour game. So halfway through is nothing.
About halfway through, 3/4 of the way through the game I was
like, you know what, I'm just going to try it because it seems
like these guys aren't doing much.
Anyway, I went through the whole thing.
I saved all of the sort of quote UN quote hostages and ran
through and did not do any damage.
The only damage I did is when I when an enemy hit me, they they
exploded or disappeared. That's it.
That's the only damage I did. I survived without picking up
health. I rescued everybody and in like
7 minutes the level was over and I was like, what the like?
What? Yeah.
So I feel like I just, I just need to get it out here and
explain to people the mechanics. You essentially you get a Ranger
it you don't get to pick what color, it's just a random
colored Ranger. It's it's part of like whatever
part of the story that that they're doing, you just, yeah,
they just give you whoever, yeah.
But they all function exactly the same.
It's purely a color change. I don't even know if the model
changes to be honest. Like between.
Doesn't. Yellow and pink might get a
skirt. That might be the only
difference. If they get a skirt, I can't
remember. I don't.
Know that they do. I'll.
Check. I think they might be a slight
detail, but they're exactly the same.
And you think Power Rangers, What do you think?
You think, oh, I get fighting. I can punch, I can kick.
I can. Yes, you can.
But guess what? It's not going to do anything
because it shoots a little laser out and that's the game you're
shooting a little laser with your punch and kicks, not even
your gun that the Power Rangers have.
You don't even use your gun to do that.
You kick and punch and it's it's it's basically a twin stick
shooter without twin sticks and you can only go in One Direction
at a time. Yes, and they it's they move.
These maps on foot especially, are so empty.
Like they're huge. They're and they're huge and
you're running around and all it basically does is, like you
said, you look at the sort of the radar, the mini map thing,
It's not even a mini map because it actually doesn't give you an
outline of what anything is. It's just dots and that's it.
And then there's an arrow to give you a general direction of
which way to go. And it's not like like some
levels are a little bit more of a maze sometimes.
But for the most part it's just an open area with maybe a couple
buildings maybe a couple rocks in the way and you're just
following the arrow. And then once you do that's the
once you rescue everybody or or you know whatever the the task
is actually it is pretty much always rescuing someone it the
level just ends it says level complete and then you get a
little yay that's it. And and so abruptly too.
It's just like boom, yay next. It's so stupid, and not only
that, So you fight these enemies, right?
OK, I will say occasionally they do put a boss in there.
Oh yeah, those ones you have to you.
Actually have to. And those ones you have to
fight. And I actually thought those
were the redeeming qualities of those levels, even though it's
just spamming the button fighting because it offers
incentive to fight because like you said, I too was.
I reached a point where I'm like, oh, I don't have to fight
and I just ran. And then they get, they'll
randomly drop power ups too. And anytime you don't get the
speed up, power up where you just move faster, you're like,
well, this is lame. I don't want this power up,
Yeah. That's all I want is the speed
one so I can get the level over with.
Yeah. And they give you extensive
power ups that. I mean they give you a double
shot, a triple shot, which are exactly how they sound.
You shoot 3 lasers or two lasers versus one, but they're smaller
and they're spread out. They don't fire straight ahead,
they fire straight out or like at a diagonal.
So it shoots like AV or AY rather than shooting straight
on. So if an enemy takes double
hits, you can't just kill it in one shot.
You've gotta you still gotta hit it twice.
And they all have a timer on them too, so it's not even how
much you use it, it's more just like, oh it it ticks down for
some time. There's invisibility.
Invisibility which which does nothing because the enemies can
still see you and you can still hit them like run into them like
or you can run. No, they stop.
They don't. They can't see you.
Or maybe they can't see you but but you can run in, you can run
into them. Yeah, you can run into that.
You're you're invisible. Shouldn't you just go right
through them? No, that mechanic doesn't even
exist. I think.
I think the Shields and the speed up were the only two power
ups that were useful. I agree.
And there there's one other oh, there's a stronger hit, and
that's useful in Megas or Battles, but that's it.
Yeah because the ones on foot everyone takes a single hit and
that and that's all. Yeah and and those enemies while
we while we still talk about the the levels that are on foot.
The enemies, I I don't know what they look like in the show.
You you watched it and and I I never watched this growing up at
all so I'm going. I don't even remember.
Yeah, but even even without watching it, I had no wreck.
I have no reference at all for this series.
So eventually, like, there's guys that are like dressed in
black. There's I don't even know what
else is there. There's green ones that hop
around. I don't know if they're supposed
to be frogs or something, but it looks like their feet are tied
together and they just hop after you.
And then there is, of course, a cosplaying, bumblebee looking
dude, Yeah. That's the one I remember.
It is ridiculous. The yeah, all you hear is I'm
like, oh, here comes the bumblebee guy.
And it honestly just looks like it looks, you know what it looks
like? It looks like one of the people
that. I mean, this is not any it's a
job. You know, I I don't want to, I
don't want to disparage anybody's job or whatever.
But it looks like the people that are dressed up outside of
like a furniture store that says, like we have a 20% off
sale now at at at you know, the the furniture store come over
here and they're like on the sidewalks, spit in the signs.
That's what it looks like. Looks like one of those people
dressed up in a costume. That's it's ridiculous.
We're getting busy over here. Do something stupid.
We are. We are zapping deals.
You like jazz? It's so ridiculous.
It's so dumb and and it's just it's like 3 or 4 different
enemies that just repeat. No matter what the setting is,
no matter what you're do you know what Ranger you are.
It's exactly the same and the animations are terrible on not
only them but the Rangers themselves are they just.
I don't even know how to describe.
What bland. It's it's bland.
But it looks like, I don't know they're so robotic and they and
they it's just Oh my God man. It's just.
Ridiculous. I I think when they're actually
like, punching and kicking, it looks OK, yeah.
But when they're running around, they look like tin soldiers.
That's good. Yeah, or like a Nutcracker or
something. Yeah.
Yeah, like the wind up, but they all look the same.
And if you speed, if you get the speed up, power up, they just
look the same but faster. Yeah, they're just really funny.
Yeah. And it looks really bad.
And like, the open worlds, like, they don't even look
interesting. They're completely bland.
They're right Now you, if you're watching this on the video feed,
you just have roads and some different textures that pop up
like bricks and maybe some buildings that just kind of get
in your way. And there's a timer in the
corner, right? There's a timer.
And it gives you like 8 minutes. Yeah, it gives you like 8
minutes. It never really matters.
It never really is a thing because you'll be like, as long
as you're competent, you'll beat this level way before that
timer. So it's like, why even have that
mechanic? But then they'll sit there and
they'll be like, rescue 15 people.
You have to run around this map and grab these people 15 times
and they're spaced out like across the map, like one corner
to corner. There's no between people.
It's like, get one in this corner, get one in this corner,
oh, go back to that other corner and it'll keep doing that.
There's no rhyme or reason as to as to why they are where they
are. Like yeah, like it's not like
you're going from left to right or up, up, down, like oh, I'm
going to do the top section, then I'm going to move to the
left section, then I'm going to move to the right-handed area of
it. No, it's just feels like they
put them in random spots and you're just backtracking for no
reason. And it's just the one thing I
did want to say that I I like, I don't understand this idea.
To your mentioning the triple and double shots and like the
abilities and stuff, There is one on foot that is like a
completely missed opportunity. If this was a better game, then
I think, you know, you'd be able to take advantage of that.
But there's like a coin you pick up or something that like
eliminates all the enemies around you.
Yeah, Shockwave. Yeah, exactly.
Oh, you just got it. I just got one.
Yeah, there it is. I'm talking it's, it's, it's an
it's an interesting, like it's fine.
Like it's, you know, sort of like a like a a finishing move
or something like that, right. But why is that only a pick up
and why is it like, why don't you have like a meter that
builds up or something that you can use that or whatever.
No, you just run around like a Tin man like you said and and
shoot light balls out of your out of your fists and your feet
and like that's that's all, That's all.
And even only if you want to you don't even have to do that part.
So I don't know these levels. Like at certain points there's
ones where it's like, oh rescue 15 people and I'm like, I don't
want to, can I just do 5? You know, I had, I had a few
thoughts when I was playing. I'm like just to make the game
play better without actually changing anything, you could
have used the C buttons to shoot in different directions.
They used the A button to shoot forward and the B button to
shoot backwards and you like stop and do it every time you do
it. But if you use the C buttons and
it was more like Robotron controls, like an actual twin
stick shooter kind of a thing, it would have been better.
I'm not saying it would have been good, but I'm saying it
would have been better. And you could have like
quadrupled the enemy count, made the OR made them faster or
something, just put a lot of enemies on there and make you
constantly just fighting and trying to like push through
everything. Also at a Co-op mode, I think
that would be dope. There's there's Co-op in the
PlayStation version, but it's a completely different game.
Yeah, it's completely different. But moving on, yeah, there's
vehicles. Yeah, there's I I again, I
didn't know any of this whole, like firefighter type stuff like
you were saying. So it's just like, oh, am I
shooting water or like what am I, what am I doing here?
So you're. I was not meaning to downplay
like if you're a firefighter, hey, that's cool.
I'm not downplaying that. I'm just saying like if I have a
choice between a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a fire truck, I'm going
with the. Tyrannosaurus Rex.
It it's you're basically supposed to be superheroes.
You're going to go for the dinosaur like you just are.
Like, you know, if you're if you're doing a show about
emergency vehicles and firefighters and policemen, OK,
cool, fine. Yeah, use those.
That's great. Awesome.
And actually, I just realized they're supposed to be train
carts. Or like, they're individual
vehicles, but they're like a train and they like fly out at
lightspeed. That's what it's supposed.
That's like what it is. It's like lightspeed rescue.
They fly out on this train and then they separate, and then
they conform into the Megazord or whatever.
Oh God. So OK, so so these these vehicle
levels, the one where you're driving from left to right, it
is, what do you call that just automated.
You know you're not actually it's a rail on rails.
It's. Yeah, it's essentially on Rails.
It sucks that it's it it it moves so slow too.
Yeah, it's so slow And the aiming is like impossible.
I mean it's. That's the thing with the whole
game, the controls, when we're talking about the C buttons,
doesn't matter what what stage you are, it's such a fail.
For this game to be out in 2000, for them to fail on how to use
the analog stick is insane because the whole game is
basically on a grid. And it's very obvious that it's
on a grid because you can't aim in like the fine areas in
between up, down, left and right like.
It's just like it's one of like 4 directions almost in the
entire game and that's it. And that's all you got.
And it's just like, well, this could have been on the NES with
the way that it controls like. Absolutely.
The vehicles like so these missions will require you to
either a destroy enemies or they'll just throw enemies
randomly in there. You're avoiding traffic and
you're trying to do something like there's at one point where
you're picking up radio waste, radioactive waste, you're
filling up potholes or something, I don't know.
Or you're extinguishing fires on vehicles or picking up
passengers. Either way, you just kind of run
into them. That's it.
Shooting the fires out is really hard because you have to shoot
in that One Direction. But did you play at all with the
D pad? Because you can, and I did and I
think it actually helped. Did it help?
OK, I did it. I tried it for I can't remember
which stage. I tried it for like 1 level and
that was it. And then I think I I played it
in two sittings and then I think the next time I just forgot that
I could. But that that makes sense
because it's really it's a 2 button game.
It's the directions and it's A you don't even really have to
use B on some of the state like you really don't.
You'll survive obviously, like we've talked about, but but that
makes sense because it is very much a grid like I said.
So the D pad actually does make sense but I just, I just found
that the hilarious part of this of these stages that the the on
rails driving is that when you bump into like civilian vehicles
they just go flying. They do.
I'm over here.
You just destroy all the civilian vehicles to get to
them. Yeah, OK, so the level I'm doing
right now, if anyone's watching it, I literally just put the
vehicle at the top of the screen and didn't move and the enemies
couldn't hit me. That's it.
I could take that, but they wouldn't actually like hit me
with their with their thing. So another version of like yeah,
you do have to move around in these stages but they're just
it's just not. It's not.
Good. Yeah.
Alternatively, there is a Well right now you see there's a
there's a moment where it'll speed up and it'll have like 1
enemy come at you. It lasts for like 5 seconds and
then it stops. You think it's going to get
interesting, but then it doesn't and goes back right to where it
was. Yeah, but they do flip the
script and give you 2 levels. I believe it's 2 levels where
it's 3D. Yeah, and it's totally
different. You're flying a ship like those
ones. Yeah, and when you're flying the
green, the green ship, that one's, that one's OK.
It it just changed everything into that third dimension.
You're flying around, you have a tractor beam, you're like
picking stuff up and you can shoot enemies it doesn't
control. Great, but it's certainly more
interesting than any of the stuff we've seen so far, in my
opinion. I I think so too.
I think if I think what they could have done is like the
larger levels where you're on foot, put those there, like put,
put the put those flying levels in those types of maps because
you could do more. Maybe you can have more enemies,
like whatever it might be. But yeah, it's not.
Does it make like a massive difference?
No. But I agree.
And I think, yeah, I think you're right.
I think there's only two of them, maybe three maybe.
And again, everything lasts so quickly because this game is
literally two hours from start to finish.
That that's it, right? So.
There's like maybe 30 levels, I'd say something like that.
Yeah, at the most. And each one is less than 10
minutes. That's the longest one.
That's the longest one, right. So And then short.
And then of course you get to the Megazord.
And that's where I was excited. I was excited because you know
what? You know, I'm not like a huge,
like mech person. I'm not like in love with that.
So it's fun. It's cool.
But really, if you're watching Power Rangers, no matter what
iteration of it, but especially the early one when I was, you
know, five years old and I was watching the Mega Sword, Yeah,
Mega. It's so it's so cool.
It's huge. It looks corny.
Yeah, it's just people in in costumes that make it look like
it's big. I get it.
But come on, that's awesome to see.
So I was excited when when that, when that level first came up
and stuff. What?
What'd you think? I thought they were some of the
better moments of the game. OK.
Personally, I they're very short.
So it's it's almost like you you get in, you get like a small
taste of it and you're like, oh, that was kind of fun.
There is a Megazord arena mode, which is like a multiplayer
experience and you can play as the monsters too, but it's
pretty much the same. You get you just turn into first
person and you shoot and you can get power ups and you can use
special moves, but at least it gives you special moves.
That's what I think makes it. That's true.
And if you get up.
Close. It switches to a melee mode, for
better or worse, but at least it's definitely at least it
changes it up, and it offers something fresh that really
feels faster paced than the rest of the game.
Yeah, and like you said, the power ups actually matter, and
they're probably the most later in the game.
They're probably the most challenging levels because some
of the later, I guess they're boss battles essentially is what
they are. Some of the boss battles, some
of these larger fights, they they hit a little harder than
you know, the enemies that you run around or do with the other
vehicles and stuff like that. So like, OK, there's a tiny bit
of challenge to it. Ultimately I thought I was doing
something wrong because I thought it was gonna be third
person. I I don't understand why it's
first. Yeah, I I.
It is a little weird. I get that it's possible.
I get that's like sort of like early 3D technology and stuff.
That's kind of part of what the appeal is.
It's like, oh, cool, look what we can do.
Different perspectives, different game types.
But I would have preferred to see the monsters, I would have
preferred to see the the Megazord.
Like, it looks cool, but you only get to see it for three
seconds at the end of the level and that's it.
Like. I think actually generally this
game, if they would have just instead of doing the overhead
camera and they would have flipped around and done kind of
an older over the shoulder third person thing, that would have
changed the game entirely. Because even if you did that,
you'd be able to see enemies in front of you, be able to see
where you need to go rescue a hostage regardless of the draw
distance. It would have made a difference
and made it feel a bit more special.
It just this game suffers from blandness and mediocrity I would
say. It plays, it functions.
Is it the worst game I've ever played?
No. Is it good?
No. I would say it's not even OK.
I would say it's just so boring. It's boring.
It's it functions. You can play it, you can get
through it. It's short, so you don't regret
much of your life. But you're like, this would not
capture someone. If they played like the first
three levels, they would, they would stop.
Yeah, it does. It does not put a good foot
forward at all. And and you're right.
Like it's it's so funny. It's like put put it on the box.
You won't regret your life that much.
You know like that's basically like you'll be for long.
For long. Yeah.
For very long. You won't regret your life for
very long. Wow.
What a what a selling point. Yeah.
You can see in the video now I'm this.
Is the stage Put his hands up I. Put my hands up and I just had
one hand to the camera and I was like, look, I'm just like like
the guys are just, they're just chasing me.
That's like, look at that bee. The bee is.
Relentless. I also kind of look like a bee
because I'm the Yellow Ranger in this level.
I don't know. It's just.
Dude, I did the exact same thing on that exact same stage.
I walked into that thinking it was an open area and it was not.
No, nothing. It's so.
Confusing. It's like and the camera is sort
of like an awkward angle I would say cuz like yeah, it really
clips through all the buildings anyways.
To me it gives a vibe that they're like, oh, we don't want
to mess with the camera controls, so we're just going to
do this basic lock locked camera view.
Yes, on. On every single level, it's the
same. Yeah, there's no, you have no
control over any like it's like this.
Aside from, OK, the modeling. Aside from, you know what you
couldn't really do in 1990 or whatever, you could have made
almost the exact same version of this game on the on the Super
Nintendo or NES. Like it.
It could have felt like a very similar game.
So that brings me to the Gameboy Color version of this, because I
played it, and I played almost all of it actually, and it's
definitely a longer game than this, which is interesting.
So it's a 2D platformer where you have, I think it's like 6 or
7 levels similar to this where it's like you're kind of like in
the city or you're at the docks or you're in in a field or
you're whatever, right? And there's three different mini
levels within each area. And you start with rescuing
people. So you know, a building's on
fire, you got to rescue people. And then once you beat that, you
move on to like the battle one and the battle one is oh, you
have to eliminate as many enemies as you can within the
time limit. And then you move on to the boss
battle, which is a Megazord fight, which is not great.
I find that I actually think that's probably the worst part
of the game, because just controlling on a, you know, two
buttons on a Game Boy Color, it's not, it's not great, it
just is what it is. But the game itself is so much
more varied and interesting than anything that this thing
delivers. I think, yeah.
Yeah. Sure.
I had that one growing up. I liked it.
It's totally I. Still have it?
It's in my closet. Do.
You really? Oh, OK.
So first time I played it, I, you know, just again, Power
Rangers wasn't on my radar when I had Game Boy Color or Game Boy
Advance around that time, I just never played it.
I was like, OK, I'll pick it up. I got my emulation device.
I'm just going to give it a shot.
And played it and it was just, it was, it was good, it was
better than this. Game.
I just realized I had a story about Power Rangers Lightspeed
Rescue and I I thought I had. I mean, I rented this.
I rented this game. I never owned it, but I rented
it. So that's what I remember this.
But the Game Boy game, I do have a funny story.
I I'll play it, play my little Game Boy Color, my purple
translucent Game Boy Color. Yup, I had the same one in the
back, in the back seat of my car.
And one of the levels is the Dam, right.
And I was in the back and I was just like playing the levels and
I was like talking to myself. And I I got to, I was selecting
the level and I got it And I was like, you know, I'm a little
kid. So my mom would just be like,
don't swear, you know, which I didn't.
But I was like the damn. And my mom's like, why did you
just like, I'm so mad at me and I'm like, no, I'm talking about
the level I'm going to the level the damn.
So yeah, that's it. That's.
That reminds me of, I don't know if you've ever seen Vegas
Vacation the movie, but in that they do, they do a very childish
joke, which to me just works where they go to the Hoover Dam
and he's like, you can take all the damn pictures you want, you
can ask me all the damn questions you want, like they'd
say something. And I'm like, it's such a silly
joke, but I love it. Like that's or that reminds me.
So stupid. But awesome.
It's so dumb. It's so childish.
It's so Chevy Chase. Yes, exactly.
Yeah. So that's so funny.
Yeah, 'cause you would have been pretty young at that point and
stuff too. So it's more like, yeah, you
can't say anything where you're that age, right?
Never mind, Never mind like. Somewhere somewhere around 8:00
or 9 or 10 or. Something like that.
So there you go. Yeah, exactly.
So that's that's hilarious. OK, so like this this game's
just, it's not good. I I feel bad saying that.
I really do feel bad telling saying that people's work is
shit, but this game's pretty shit in my opinion.
I don't think it's pretty good. It like you said, at least it's
over quickly. But that's not something to
praise. Honestly, yes.
It just isn't. Yeah, I mean, on my scale of
ranking games, it's a 2 for me out of 10 'cause.
It's, yeah. It's.
I only give it that extra point above 1 because, well, it
functions. You can actually play it.
It's not like it's not broken. You can finish the game, you
know. That's that's true.
You can you can finish this game.
Put it on the box. Yeah, there you go.
Whether you want to or not, you can finish.
You can play this entire game and you can finish it.
Yeah, it's. Pretty.
It would be bad. It's pretty bad.
I I, you know if anyone's ever curious about playing games that
we've talked about or if you want to play it before we you
know even even get to it, that kind of thing.
Like I just this is one of the ones where you can just listen
to us talk about it watch the video on YouTube and watch watch
my my playthrough of it while we're talking about it.
That's all you need to know because honestly I don't think
the watching the video is even going to sell you on it anyway.
So I, you know, take a peek, laugh at the at the funny
character animations I would say and some of the sound effects
and then just just call it a day like.
Let me just say we like, and I'm not even saying me because I
gave it a somewhat better score, but we were talking mad smack
about Clay Fighter being a bad game.
Yes, OK, And this is Clay Fighter's way better than this
game. Way better.
Absolutely. Way better.
Yeah. So there you go.
Is it way better? I think it's way better.
It's way better you at least find some enjoyment like you
could play for two hours and you'd be you'd you'd be done
with clay fighter but you'd be like well that was that was fun
for what it was. And and it was something
different in in in a lot of ways as well, right?
At least it does something. Yeah, this this doesn't do
anything. Different.
It also laughs. Yeah, and you have a couple
laughs. Exactly.
Right. Like, I don't know, what if
these guys farted a couple times?
Then at least you'd get something out of this game.
You know, fart. Noise every time they do the
laser like noise. I'm you know what?
We're talking about mods for 2024.
Maybe we should just mod this game and make a fart noise.
That would be really fun. It's important to note that they
did actually have clips, voice clips, from the actual Power
Rangers actors, which I think is worth saying.
That's true. And and there's also like a
voice. It's kind of interesting, 'cause
like, again, we've talked, we've talked, but actually the
funniest is the funniest is the people that you rescue.
I I couldn't quite. I'm over here.
Yeah, I couldn't quite pinpoint what they sounded like of like
any actors or something like that.
But they don't even sound excited to be rescued because
they're just like, yay, hey, I'm over here, yay.
All right, yay. And that's it.
And that's, they say like three things the entire time, repeated
over and over, just like the music.
I think there's like two or three songs in this entire game
that run probably 20 seconds each or something and we've been
impressed a couple times with with music and some sound
effects and stuff with the with the N64, you know over the last
several months this does not does not share that attribute at
all. So I sorry people but this is
this is a skip. This is a not very good game and
we'll be, we'll be on to something better hopefully next
time. Again, we're going to have mods
that we're playing, which is really fun.
One of the earlier ones, I'm not going to say exactly when it's
coming out because I don't know the exact date while we sit here
and record, but we are going to be playing Smash Remix.
And Smash Remix has had some really big updates in the last
couple of months. It's going to have a like a lot
of really cool characters, basically Jiggy.
If anyone doesn't know what what is Smash Remix like, I say that,
but what if someone doesn't know what it is?
What is and what would we be playing?
Smash Remix, I believe, was actually a college project.
Like a bunch of college students had worked on the original Smash
Bros N64 title to modify it and to add characters and things,
and they just kept going with it and it just became this big
thing. And so it's got like Conquer the
Squirrel. Banjo Kazooie just got released.
Goman, I I mean a. Bunch And then what's?
Your face from like, yeah. Yeah, and then all their Oh
yeah, Wolf's in there, all their Polygon versions as well.
You know, you you always fight the mini polygons.
There's that. It does a really good job of
feeling authentic to the original Smash Bros, like how
these characters and stages would have actually looked.
They had like 40 stages like crazy.
You can play a Diddy Kong racing stage, which is awesome.
It, yeah. My God, I'm so excited.
It's so cool. I've not explored all of it.
It's gonna need a thorough analysis, 'cause it's there's
just so much content in it and it's it's really cool.
Yeah, Smash Remix, we're gonna dig into that.
That's gonna be on the early list of of mods that we're
playing. And you know, I'll, I'll record
some of my game play. You'll probably see me get my
butt whooped, 'cause I'm, I don't.
I'm not very good at those games anymore.
I just don't have the Twitch skills like I used to, I.
Guess I'm arguably better at Smash 64 than I am Smash
Ultimate. I probably actually, I probably
would be too probably because it's just simplified and it'll
be part part of it. So yeah it's yeah so that that's
going to be one of the things that that we're playing so keep
that on your on your watch list stay tuned for that jiggy.
In the meantime where can everybody find your awesome
stuff online. Good Sir, you got some?
Got some pretty awesome Youtubes going on, huh?
I do. I do some YouTube, so if I may
on YouTube jiggy look back and you can find everything else
from there. But YouTube is.
I mean, you go on there, you'll be impressed.
I agree. I agree.
I think you will. I he's he's not just saying that
I agree he you will be impressed.
Remember 64 on YouTube, on your podcast feed.
Be sure to give us a rating as well.
Let us know what you think I mean the higher the stars
better. That'd be nice you know.
But. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just kind of a. It's a it's AI.
Don't know how you describe it. It's a I was gonna say a
complimentary thing that we're even saying rate it, but
honestly, that just means go give us five stars.
Yeah, essentially, yeah. And you Spotify right now you
want. But five stars?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, think what you want, but
in public say but just make it 5 stars, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, five stars, #64 five stars.
That's the name of the podcast. That's the name of the podcast.
It's. It's just a way for for the the
If anyone doesn't know, it's just another way for like these
podcasts, feeds and stuff to kind of bump the show up and
more random people will find it and everything as well.
But so that's basically how that works. patreon.com Remember 64
show where you can get every single episode early as well.
I'm going to start doing little preview videos of each of these
games that we're playing and sort of doing like a little mini
feed where I'm just saying like, hey, this is kind of what I'm
what I'm feeling like as I'm playing this game that's going
to be exclusive. The Patreon as well.
Eventually I'll probably put those on main feeds, but for the
for the most part those are going to be Patreon exclusive.
Episodes will be days early and as little as a buck a month.
So that's it. It'll help us.
I watched the preview for Power Rangers before I went back and
played Power Rangers and it made me laugh.
I didn't remember any of that. But just the when you got to the
part where they win the level and it's like, yeah, I was like,
Oh no. It's so bad I.
Don't remember being that bad, but I was also like, you know, 8
so. Yeah, yeah, right.
Yeah. So that's something new we're
going to be adding to the feed, but other than that, remember 64
show across social media as well and as we mentioned, video
versions of this podcast up on YouTube as well.
So yeah, so you can see the the ridiculous references that we're
making, including this stage that I think I'm playing right
now, which I think was the only stage that I might have failed
because it just kept running into vehicles.
So I actually died once in this game.
It's very forgiving. I did not die.
But yeah, it's. I wonder what happens when you
die. I don't think I even know.
Mission failed and then it just RE and it brings you back to the
restarts. That's it just restarts.
Oh. Your ship's destroyed.
That's funny. There's a little cut scene to
show the ship damage. That's funny.
And then it brings you back to the main menu.
That's all great and somehow you're supposed to know what
stage you were just on. Like it doesn't tell you it just
sort of you pick any anyways. Whatever.
Power Rangers. Lightspeed Rescue.
It's a skip just it is what it is people.
It happens. On to the next one and Jiggy
thanks for thanks for toughing it out through this game.
I'd like to say thanks for recommending it, but no thank
you and. And you want to get out of the
way. We're going to get it out of the
way. We're going to move on to some
some good stuff. So thanks everyone for listening
and Jake, thanks for being here once again and we will talk to
everybody soon. See you next time on Remember
64.