REVIEW – The franchise is back to the beat ’em up style that it was at its best in the eighties and nineties. The four turtles, who have been rebooted several times, are joined in the fray by others, and it can be considered a genuinely outstanding production by friends, although it should be treated as a fair work even if we play solo.

It’s an excellent game, but only for those not interested in a more modern experience.

Channel Six

Channel 6, where a news report goes wrong: the Statue of Liberty is shaped into something else by Shredder and his gang (Foot Clan). And so the four turtles (Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo), plus Splinter and April O’Neil, begin to fight back… not to mention the hockey mask-donning Casey Jones. Fifteen stages await the team, and an old-school beat ’em up is presented, but with much more complexity and opportunity than the big titles of the nineties. For example, a tutorial will help you learn twenty-one different moves. The dash, for example, is an innovation compared to the older games: it allows you to dodge specific attacks, and you’ll be able to do it in a short time because of the pace of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge (I’ll write the complete name at the end) is insanely fast. Learning good timing as soon as possible will be effective. However, there are aerial attacks, plus you can also grapple your opponents who may be carrying one of these as a weakness.

Our characters have a special attack, and the more damage we do, the more impact it will have, and it could end up reaching the third level, but it won’t fill the screen, so it’s worth being more strategic with it. There’s a good variety of opponents, though; in addition to the “footies”, there are Baxter’s guys, for example, and the creatures from X Dimension. It’s worth taking note of their colour, as it will help us identify their weapons and the strategy we’ll be employing. The game will help, and it could make you feel like you are watching a Saturday morning cartoon block in the early to mid-1990s. In the case of the boss fights, not only do you see the expected more famous characters, with some of the moves are not easy to avoid in my opinion, but Bebop and Rocksteady were perhaps used too often. Eh, nothing is perfect.

More is better

Up to six people can play together cooperatively, which makes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge a lot of fun. What happens if you get beaten down (and you will, because I think it makes for a chaotic experience, and I would call that one of the game’s downsides)? You can offer a pizza to your comrade, but you’ll be risking your skin in the process. Don’t forget to slap each other’s palms (in other words, high-five each other!), as these can provide buffs. I almost forgot to mention, so I’ll also point out that there is an arcade mode where you have a few lives.

You have to get through everything with them (making this gameplay classic, or should I say, arcade-like), and there is the story mode where you get a world map. If you run out of lives, you can retry the previous stages and maybe find the secrets; you can upgrade your characters (more attacks, more health), so that sounds neat. And then there are the NPCs. Apart from easter eggs, fulfilling their requests can be helpful. Here is where another negative comes in: there’s only one story mode save. Why not include three? OK, a playthrough can usually be done in three hours, but many things can and should be done again, but the brevity of the story takes away results in the third negative. For those of you who are up for a challenge, I wish you the best of luck with the don’t get hurt achievements/trophies.

6, but upside down

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge easily deserves a nine out of ten. The graphics are the same excellent pixelated style that the franchise excelled at last time out (the influence of Turtles in Time is evident in the gameplay). Everything is detailed and elaborate, the character animation is pleasing and sophisticated, and the original voice acting is back in many cases. But it’s not just the visuals that are good. It’s the audiovisuals: the soundtrack features Tee Lopes, Raekwon, Mike Patton, and Ghostface Killah (so there’s a bit of Wu-Tang in there…), so the 90s style is there to provide some solid background music (or is it beatdown music?).

So fun co-operatively; varied, detailed audiovisuals; well-made stages; fast combat. In contrast, it’s hard to keep track of what’s going on with multiple players, the story is too short, and perhaps it would have been better to have more than one save. The game easily deserves a nine out of ten, so it’s recommended. If you like beat ’em up games, I don’t need to tell you anything else. If you are a TMNT fan, it’s perfect for you. If you haven’t been into this genre, give it a shot. It will give you a decent look into what an excellent beat ’em up game could be. So yeah, it might be one of the year’s best games for me. Well done.

-V-

Publisher: Dotemu

Developer: Tribute Games

Style: Beat’em up

Published: June 16, 2022