"One of the most fitting swan-songs for a machine..."

Ah, Sonic Team. How we all loved it when you gave us Sonic, of course. Well, that was what you were about after all. Then there came the Saturn, and the utterly un-matched NiGHTS. Yes, it was an amazing game, but a Saturn Sonic game would have helped the Saturn along a bit. But then you were counting on Sonic X-Treme weren't you?

Then, a bit later (a fair bit later) we get Burning Rangers. It's a bit of a change. There are no cute furry characters or dreamscapes - compared to Sonic and NiGHTS, Burning Rangers is a bit more serious.

Burning Rangers sees the player take part in a ''manga-anime-style-fire-brigade-of-the-future''. With jetpacks - how could we forget? Basically, lots of running about, rescuing people, and looking cool. The jetpack allowed for a huge amount of maneouvrability, only matched (to my experience at least) by Gun Valkyrie.

The objective? Well, the main one at least is to rescue as many people from the flame-engulfed levels as possible, though that only needs to be done on three of the four levels. Put out as many fires as possible which block your way and stop the fires spreading, and deal with the odd malfunctioning robot with a high-pressure fire gun thingy.

As with all manga-anime style things, you get the complimentary ''kinda cool but short and would never happen'' storyline. Which is kinda cool, but short and would never happen. But we have one anyways, presented in-between levels in FMV, and also in cut scenes and by radio in the game, revolving around mysterious crystals and a huge spaceship that can destroy the world.

Onto the game itself - basically Tomb Raider, but the levels are a lot larger and the action is more free-flowing. You will often be called upon to find a switch to open a door, but most of the time the switch isn't far away. Apart from that, that's it - no more puzzles. The game leads you in one direction, from one set-piece to another, and down the route where most of the people are who need rescuing. There will be others to be found if you deviate from the path, but you may get a worse time score. In the end, your grades are all about balancing how well you did finding and rescuing people, time and the amount of damage the environment sustained and how much you saved it from.

Along the way you encounter crystals, either formed naturally or left behind from the fires. These power your armour, more or less, and whenever you are hit these will scatter from you, much like Rings do when Sonic is hit. Pick them up and you'll be fine - don't and you die. However, when rescuing people, you will lose some of these crystals, so the search is always on for more.

In the beginning, there is a training level to get you used to the system. It is quite comprehensive, teaching you how to operate the gun, jetpack, all about the crystals and how to detect when fires are about to blow through the walls, which happens a lot of the time. This is either detected by a red glow, a whistle, or it always happens whenever increments of 20% damage are inflicted on the environment. When this happens, a huge flash-fire breaks out which you have to deal with.

The sound is particularly of not, though not for the voice actors. These are the standard cheesey Japanese voice actors, but the way the sound system works is quite good. Press the Z button and you radio HQ, who are constantly monitoring your progress. Over the radio they can give you hints and directions, and they occasionally interrupt to clue you in on plot developments while you carry on playing.

Graphics on the game are excellent for a Saturn. Though the environment is a bit choppy and doesn't look particularly solid at some points, and the draw distance is very close, the amount of effects being thrown around is quite astounding for the Saturn, compared to other things the machine was producing. Fires give off glows which lights up characters faces. The water is seemingly transparent, and when it gets the chance, huge rooms are rendered, lit and populated by fires, enemies and, of course, the player. However, it is by far the best example of seeing the Saturn's power, and indeed limitations.

There are undeniably some bad things about this game though. It has only four levels. Admittedly they are large, and do randomise each time, but that's still not much playing time, and only few people will persevere to rescue everyone. There is also the factor of the voice acting, not just on the main characters but on the victims you rescue, and their lines. Some border from the OK to the downright cringe-worthy, with the odd few giving a random yell or two. However, when you rescue them you also get cheesey e-mail from them, which makes you wonder if many people really do persevere in this game just for cheesy e-mail? Oh well, there's always the Burning Ship mini-game.

So, let's give it the final scores.

Pros
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+ Shows off the Saturn's power
+ Excellent use of sound
+ Tense action
+ Excellent control system, and jet-pack
+ Very nice arcade action that doesn't try and lose the player in puzzles
+ Replayability

Cons
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- Shows off the Saturn's limitations
- Voice acting
- Short
- Are you really going to replay it just to get more cheesey messages?

Overall
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Overall, a short blast, an excellent concept, and it is worthy of a purchase if you can stand annoying voice actors and cheesey messages. 7 out of 10.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/12/03