TMNT: Shredder's Revenge Review
TMNT: Shredder's Revenge Review
If it looks like a 90’s Turtles beat ‘em up and sounds like a 90’s Turtles beat ‘em up, but has a lot of modern sensibilities then what you have is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredders Revenge.
The Rad Stuff
Lets get this out of the way quickly, if you loved the Turtles at any point in your life then stop right now go spend 20 bucks supporting some indie devs that made an excellent tribute to the Turtles games that have come before and have been sitting comfortably in your neocortex for the past thirty years.
Shredders Revenge features plenty of little touches to make you feel warm and fuzzy including quips the turtles say, to seeing some of the things that the foot clan do in each episode or some of the animations that happen to the turtles like when they get run over by a car or stampede.
Tribute Games and DotEmu nailed the nostalgia factor with the audio and visual department not only in recreating what we think it looked and sounded like but also with some fresh touches including a song from Raekwon and Ghostface Killah of Wu Tang Clan that comes in at the right time.
Shredders Revenge is short at around a few hours with only 16 levels. Most levels take under 10 minutes and some under 5 with a lot of foot clan mashing and a mini boss at the end of each. Shredders Revenge also goes deeper than the casual fan can expect into the lore of TMNT. Within just a few stages into the campaign mode, you will find yourself battling enemies who aren’t Bebop and Rocksteady.
You have two options when you start the game which is story mode and arcade mode. Arcade mode is what most would be familiar with just like the old arcade TMNT games that don’t include checkpoints and only include a set number of lives. You only have one quarter to beat it mentality.
In story mode, the more casual mode and the mode I preferred to play, you have the option to select three levels of difficulty and you have an over world map where you travel from episode to episode. If you die in the campaign mode you will just get to continue from your highest unlocked episode.
Each time you start a new episode you will start with at least three lives, more if you’ve levelled up your character enough. Sticking with one character in story mode makes the most sense as you level your character up to 10 with about one level per episode. Each character has a different set of stats instead of just a different skin. Leonardo is your most balanced turtle with 2’s across the board, but Raphael on the other hand is the strongest turtle but drastically lacks in the range department.
Most episodes are your typical left to right beat ‘em up style but there are a few hoverboard missions thrown in for good measure, which are a good change of pace but just aren’t as fun as the traditional ones, which include areas like the sewers, the zoo, the mall, and Channel 6 news.
Half Shelled
The shortness of the game is both double edge sword because at the end of the campaign, which lasted a few hours, its a nice trip down memory lane. On the flipside, it begins to feel a little repetitive in the back third. You start to hear a lot of the same voice lines, about 95% of the enemies you fight are just the foot clan in different colours and even some bosses get reused.
The downsides for Shredder’s Revenge are minimal but the game is fairly short and replay factor will be in the eye of the beholder because you can finish the game in 2-3 hours. Story mode has collectibles which you can go back to specific episodes to collect the ones you may have missed but they don’t change the game in any meaningful way.
It also would have been nice to be able to run through the game with some AI in solo mode that can be helpful but aren’t overpowered. Giving a beat down to the foot clan would have been slightly more enjoyable in solo mode if there was the ability to have another turtle at your side.
However, if you have friends, then you can play up to 6 player co-op locally and online. Cross play is only feature between Windows, Steam and Xbox. DotEmu has said that crossplay between Switch, PlayStation and Xbox is something that they are looking into down the road.
Shredders Revenge is a modern version of classic beat ‘em ups, meaning there is a much bigger move set. Before you play the game it shows you 21 different moves, which is a lot Unfortunately, it only shows you how to do the moves but the perfect solution would have been to have a mini optional tutorial where you can execute the moves and get the hang of it. I mainly stuck to about five moves that became my repertoire. The bright side that if you want to see the moves you can pause at any time but that isn’t the ideal situation.
Finally, in terms of combat, there were a few nuisances that I didn’t love. Shredders Revenge would have been great with a block button. One of the ways to get an advantage over the enemy is to charge your super meter, but getting hit resets it. Sometimes its very hard to tell exactly what plane an enemy is on because you can move all around the screen.
A block move by holding a button with a stamina set or the ability to use it only once or twice before being broken would have been a great addtion. The other combat issue is that flying enemies are just unfun. The Turtles don’t really have much jumping ability except for a jump attack, which can be frustrating to try to figure out exactly where you need to be to connect with the flying enemy.
Final Thoughts
Shredders Revenge feels like the original Saturday morning TMNT cartoons, you wait the whole week to watch the show and then before you know it, it’s over. You had a good time but now you have to wait a while to do it again unless you want to watch the exact same episode again. If you’re a fan of the genre, TMNT or on Game Pass, its a great way to spend a few hours either.