977th played so far
Genre: Action
Platform: Saturn
Year of Release: 1998
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega
Less than fifty games left and the list still brings up some pretty unique concepts. I don’t think I’ve played another game here where you are a firefighter. Sure, SOS The Final Escape/Disaster Report had you deal with various hazards, but this focus feels far more specific.
Add to that that we have another Sega game by the Sonic Team, who have made some quite odd games that tried to push the boat out in places and I’m looking forward to something quite new and different.
Our Thoughts
For a large part, Burning Rangers is a pretty normal action game, with some prerequisite jumping areas. You’re spending some of that time putting fires out and rescuing civilians as you come across them. You’re spending a lot of time doing your collecting as well, with crystals being the most obvious requirement – you need some to rescue civilians and they’re your life force, obviously taking after the Sonic games.
It’s a decent formula, but I found myself get lost in it. There are no subtitles for the voice overs, but mission briefings are given in voice with quite a bit of noise. This doesn’t just happen in the briefings, though, but as you’re playing the mission the voice overs also direct you through the level. That made it hard to find out where to go, as I didn’t get the clues all the time anyway, but the game also doesn’t give you great tools to handle the verticality the game has. Since you’re playing on a joypad, the camera controls are pretty bad, and so it can be hard to see what’s going on.
Final Thoughts
Burning Rangers has an interesting concept that it carries quite nicely, with levels that feel appropriate to the setting. When it comes to playing it though, it doesn’t quite manage to pull off its ambition and loses something of its appeal along the way.