The only real changes are the skills of each ranger and what turrets you choose – though I often ended up using the same ones. There are Roguelite elements too, but these are just flat stat increases and don’t do anything to change up the next run. It tries to differentiate things by ramping up the difficulty after each run, but all it does is make enemies soak up more hits. Admittedly, they play differently but you’ll have explored them both inside of twenty minutes. Ultimately, every attempt is going to go along the same lines and Rift Rangers doesn’t do nearly enough to get away from it. The issue with this genre though is repetition. Upgrading a turret and watching it cut through the horde is immensely satisfying. But aside from that, the simple, clean artstyle means you get to watch hordes crumble as you place your turrets. The term generally refers to superhero teams, which is where the Power Rangers comparison comes in. There’s the ‘sentai’ genre elements of course. I think it’s because it presents itself so well. Every time I thought I was done and went to quit, I found myself wanting to give it another shot. I was genuinely surprised by how addictive Rift Rangers is. Though that one that just puffs air at the baddies doesn’t really do the trick for me. There’s quite the pool of turrets too and experimenting with how they play off each other is great. As the time ticks on, it becomes a challenge to carve a hole through the horde to reach them. There’s no getting comfy though, as you constantly have to capture ‘brains’, that will buff enemies if you don’t get rid of them. I soon got into a groove though, and using the different turrets to set up killzones became a delight.

I mashed around for the fire button but just kept dropping a little laser turret. It took me a little while to get used to it, I admit. Everything else is done by placing down turrets. What’s more, the twist this time around is that we can’t attack directly, outside of dropping the odd timed bomb. After about ten minutes, just walking to the other side of the street requires careful dodging. It very quickly gets overwhelming, because when I say horde I mean horde. Your little ranger has to survive long enough for the giant robot to come and squish everything. Rift Rangers plonks you into a map, puts twenty minutes on the clock and opens the gates to a horde of enemies. Specifically, it reminds me of Newgrounds.

While the theme reminds me of my childhood, the actual game itself reminds me of being slightly older.

Rift Rangers for mac download