Just finished this a few minutes ago on real hardware. This has to be one of the most blatantly unfinished games (that could have been good) I've ever seen.
This game some great ideas and moments, high-ish production values given its anime cutscenes, full voice-acting, and multiple vocal songs, but it just doesn't come together into a meaningful experience.
The gameplay is mostly a mess. As cool as the idea of having voice-guided navigation, it's still very easy to get lost due to not having a minimap, and the final level does not have a dedicated button for getting instructions (the game does not tell you this, but in most levels you can press X and Kris will tell you roughly where to go). Additionally, the idea of having jetpacks for platforming is neat and certainly makes it a bit easier in a time when 3D cameras were still wonky, but it's way too loose and imprecise and the camera sucks. This is fun most of the time since a lot of the levels are these open mazes without few enemies (read: fine but nothing special), but whenever the game tries to make you do more precise platforming it quickly becomes a mess. That massive climb section in the middle of the final stage was so horrendous that I decided to listen to the Super Pitfall theme because I was reminded of the AVGN describing how the last thing you want to do is fall down in that game. The muddy graphics with drab color choices do the game no favors either.
Combat kinda stinks too. Most bosses devolve into mindlessly firing off charge shots until you win. During the first boss of the final level, I don't think I moved at all to dodge attacks, I just kept blasting until I somehow won. The final boss is great though. I don't know if the game tells you this, but I found out in the final battle that if you stand still your character will auto-lock onto the nearest enemy. Pretty innovative I suppose since OoT and its Z-Targetting didn't exist yet.
But while the above highlight that Burning Ranger's core game has lots of problems, it really is the unfinishedness of it all that is so infuriating. You have full voice-acting, but it is incredibly wooden, I'd imagine due to a lack of voice direction (can't confirm this but I'm willing to bet ). You have these AWESOME vocal themes, and some pretty solid instrumental tracks, but the gameplay ALMOST NEVER HAS MUSIC. It's quite telling too since the only time outside of a boss fight that there is music is in one segment of the final level which is probably the coolest part of the game. You have this cast of colorful characters that pretend to be interesting, but the reality is that we know very little about them and our ability to directly interact with them is very limited. You have all these people you can rescue and plenty of characters within each level and attempts that twists, but there really isn't much of a plot to be invested in. The final climax comes out of nowhere and feels very unearned, and again, the lack of characterization really hampers the experience. I don't think it's too much to ask since Sega's rival Nintendo managed to make a game with plenty more character interactions several months earlier in Star Fox 64.
And of course, worst of all, the game's length. I don't mind short games, and the levels are rather long, but there's only 4 of them, and the game is over within a few hours due to it being pretty easy outside of the last level. When you consider how much this game is pretending to do on an aesthetic and plot standpoint (on top of there being a scrapped multiplayer mode), I can't help but shake the feeling that this game was very very rushed due to the Saturn's imminent demise
The truly fascinating part about Burning Rangers is that Bulk Slash predates this game by about 6 months, and it achieves much of what Burning Ranger wanted to do but so so so SOOOO much more effectively: Voice navigators with more personality, level design that mixes openness with an arcade feel, vertical movement options (in this case a flying mech instead of a jetpack), a half-decent camera system, much better combat and bosses, actual music...it's insane to me that this never got localized because it could've been a true killer for 1997.
I would digress, but seriously, if you are considering playing Burning Rangers, play Bulk Slash instead.
This game some great ideas and moments, high-ish production values given its anime cutscenes, full voice-acting, and multiple vocal songs, but it just doesn't come together into a meaningful experience.
The gameplay is mostly a mess. As cool as the idea of having voice-guided navigation, it's still very easy to get lost due to not having a minimap, and the final level does not have a dedicated button for getting instructions (the game does not tell you this, but in most levels you can press X and Kris will tell you roughly where to go). Additionally, the idea of having jetpacks for platforming is neat and certainly makes it a bit easier in a time when 3D cameras were still wonky, but it's way too loose and imprecise and the camera sucks. This is fun most of the time since a lot of the levels are these open mazes without few enemies (read: fine but nothing special), but whenever the game tries to make you do more precise platforming it quickly becomes a mess. That massive climb section in the middle of the final stage was so horrendous that I decided to listen to the Super Pitfall theme because I was reminded of the AVGN describing how the last thing you want to do is fall down in that game. The muddy graphics with drab color choices do the game no favors either.
Combat kinda stinks too. Most bosses devolve into mindlessly firing off charge shots until you win. During the first boss of the final level, I don't think I moved at all to dodge attacks, I just kept blasting until I somehow won. The final boss is great though. I don't know if the game tells you this, but I found out in the final battle that if you stand still your character will auto-lock onto the nearest enemy. Pretty innovative I suppose since OoT and its Z-Targetting didn't exist yet.
But while the above highlight that Burning Ranger's core game has lots of problems, it really is the unfinishedness of it all that is so infuriating. You have full voice-acting, but it is incredibly wooden, I'd imagine due to a lack of voice direction (can't confirm this but I'm willing to bet ). You have these AWESOME vocal themes, and some pretty solid instrumental tracks, but the gameplay ALMOST NEVER HAS MUSIC. It's quite telling too since the only time outside of a boss fight that there is music is in one segment of the final level which is probably the coolest part of the game. You have this cast of colorful characters that pretend to be interesting, but the reality is that we know very little about them and our ability to directly interact with them is very limited. You have all these people you can rescue and plenty of characters within each level and attempts that twists, but there really isn't much of a plot to be invested in. The final climax comes out of nowhere and feels very unearned, and again, the lack of characterization really hampers the experience. I don't think it's too much to ask since Sega's rival Nintendo managed to make a game with plenty more character interactions several months earlier in Star Fox 64.
And of course, worst of all, the game's length. I don't mind short games, and the levels are rather long, but there's only 4 of them, and the game is over within a few hours due to it being pretty easy outside of the last level. When you consider how much this game is pretending to do on an aesthetic and plot standpoint (on top of there being a scrapped multiplayer mode), I can't help but shake the feeling that this game was very very rushed due to the Saturn's imminent demise
The truly fascinating part about Burning Rangers is that Bulk Slash predates this game by about 6 months, and it achieves much of what Burning Ranger wanted to do but so so so SOOOO much more effectively: Voice navigators with more personality, level design that mixes openness with an arcade feel, vertical movement options (in this case a flying mech instead of a jetpack), a half-decent camera system, much better combat and bosses, actual music...it's insane to me that this never got localized because it could've been a true killer for 1997.
I would digress, but seriously, if you are considering playing Burning Rangers, play Bulk Slash instead.