Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a part of my childhood. They were a part of many people’s childhood, whether it was the cartoons, the live action shows, the games, or the comics, if you grew up in the 80s or 90s, they were most likely part of your life. Every few years it seems like a new Ninja Turtle show makes its debut, so a new game featuring the Turtles isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that the game stays true to the side scrolling roots.
In this day and age, it’s not often a game is released and is immediately a fun experience and without major issues. Tribute Games knew what fans wanted with this game and delivered on it in droves. Not only do we get classic villains from the original show, like Bebop and Rocksteady, but we also get new villains made for the game as well as TMNT II mutants Tokka and Rahzar. Besides some minor bugs like enemies getting stuck slightly out of frame, this game runs as you’d expect it to.
Characters
Like most of the games, you can play as the four turtle brothers. This time however, with six player co-op, you have 3 additional characters to choose from. April, Splinter, and after you beat the game once, Casey Jones becomes unlocked and will join the fight. After that you can play the game again as Casey Jones. Each character has unique stats, so these aren’t just skins. When choosing a character, you will need to find one that will best suit your playstyle. Each character has a power, a speed, and a range rating. Each rating is between one and three stars. Speed is how fast a character attacks. Range is how far away you need to be to hit an enemy. Power determines how much a hit hurts enemies.
Gameplay
Whether you are in the same room or across the world, if you have friends, you can play together. Six players on either local or online multiplayer make this game an absolute blast. While the game has crossplay, it is limited. Xbox and PC players can play together, but Playstation and Nintendo players will have to play with others on their platform.
There are two game modes that you can play. Story mode will feel like the TMNT game for the NES. In between levels you will have be on a world map and have to navigate to the next level. You can also replay levels, grind XP for leveling up, restart if out of lives, multiple difficulties, and start with a fresh set of lives at the beginning of every level. The difficulties range from easy to hard and once started, the difficulty cannot be changed. The second mode is Arcade. This feels like a classic arcade style game. You have limited lives, continues, and saves. There is no replaying levels and no world map.
The game features 16 levels and as mentioned before, once those are completed, you will unlock Casey Jones as a playable character. Each time you complete an enemy, you will gain XP. This will determine what level your character is. The higher level your character, the more you unlock. You will unlock either a special ability, bigger health bar, or more lives at every level.
Verdict
If you were a fan of the Ninja Turtle games growing up or just a fan of the Ninja Turtles themselves, this is a must have. It feels right out of the 90s games while at the same time giving a brand new experience. For $24.99 it is worth it and even if you aren’t sure, it is currently on Xbox Game Pass for both console and PC. I’d say it’s definitely worth trying out.
