Power Rangers Street Fighter Crossover Review

This Power Rangers Legacy Wars: Street Fighter Showdownreview contains spoilers.

I won’t lie, seeing Tommy and Gia morph alongside Ryu from Street Fighter is thrilling to watch. Does it make a lot of sense? No. Can I nitpick it? Of course. That doesn’t stop Power Rangers Legacy Wars: Street Fighter Showdown from being so damn fun, which pretty much sums up this entire short. 

There’s not really much of a plot. Ryu and Chun-Li team up with Tommy and Gia to fight M. Bison and some evil Rangers. Apparently Rita is working with M. Bison? Oh yeah, Ninjor happened to make a new power coin. Sure! Again, this isn’t a short that’s focused on plot. It’s more about the fun visuals and seeing the two universes interact.

Ryu and Chun-Li being teleported? Amazing. Jokes about M. Bison and Rita’s stupid names? Hilarious. Ryu morphing? Hell yeah. Tommy’s new suit be explained away as an upgrade by Ninjor? Delightfully unnecessary but the kind of thing fans eat up. Chun-Li doing her famous moves on evil Rangers? MORE PLEASE.

Power Rangers Legacy Wars: Street Fighter Showdown is only seven minutes. It’s a short. It needs to focus on just having these fun moments instead of weighing it down with a story it can’t handle. Honestly, that makes it much smarter than the Power Rangers 25^th anniversary “Dimensions in Danger”. That episode had a story that was too big and had far too many characters for its short runtime.

This short however keeps it focused on four heroes and one villain. Everyone gets to do something cool and get a moment. That’s all that can be expected and for that it’s great.

The only nitpick I have is that Ninjor doesn’t sound right. I get they probably didn’t want the wacky Dudley Do-Right voice in that serious scene but come on, it would have been amazing.

The single major problem I find with Power Rangers Legacy Wars: Street Fighter Showdown is Chun-Li not getting to morph. Whatever the reason may be, budget or design wise, it leaves her with little to do in the last part of the short. How much more satisfying would it have been if she’d been able to morph and all four could have done over the top Ranger poses?

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Even with that, it’s all still a great time. It also manages to use a newly mixed MMPR score effectively, unlike what Super Ninja Steel has been doing this season. It works so much better when it’s tied not only to MMPR visuals but is shot so beautifully.

Power Rangers Legacy Wars: Street Fighter Showdown is gorgeous and can easily be enjoyed on the big screen (which in fact I did at Lionsgate, who held a screening mostly for cast and crew.)

Don’t go into this expecting a deep story or anything super meaningful to either universe. It’s just a fun little punch to the pleasure center of your brain and in that it delightfully succeeds.

Shamus Kelley is a pop culture/television writer and official Power Rangers expert. Follow him on Twitter! Read more articles by him here!