It’s the early 90’s and we’re on a family trip down to the coast for a weekend away. We’d stay in one of the on-site tents, large enough to fit a family of 4 and a small kitchen but not big enough for anything else. Whilst we’d spend much of our time down at the beach the onsite tavern was also one of our frequent haunts, notsomuch for the food or booze but because they had one thing there that both my brother I wanted more than anything: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade machine. We’d get given a couple dollars each to spend on whatever we wanted but we always knew where it’d go: to a precious few lives on the game and we loved it. So you can imagine how the 8 year old in me got rather excited when I saw there was a new TMNT beat ’em up and, suffice to say, it lives up to the expectations that a younger me would have for such a game.
The crew (Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello) along with April O’Neil and master Splinter are watching the news on TV when it is interrupted by Bebop, who announces the Foot has returned and is taking over the Statue of Liberty. Jumping into action the turtles head out to the Channel 6 building to stop Bebop, finding him there with the head of Krang’s android body. Unfortunately Krang’s head is taken away during the ensuing battle and your pursuit of it finds you and team coming to blows with the Foot as it appears they’re reassembling Krang’s body piece by piece. Can the heroes in the half shell stop Krang and their plot that involves giving the Statue of Liberty a makeover before it’s too late?
Keeping true to the arcade game’s stylings Shredder’s Revenge brings you glorious, high fidelity pixel art to this 2D beat ’em up. To be sure, this is pixel art on a level that could never have been obtained back in the day, but it still feels faithful to its now 30 year old ancestor. As you’d then expect performance is lightning fast, the developers thankfully not using the simplistic graphics as an excuse to not optimise other parts of the game. This is well complemented by the 80s inspired chiptune tracks, giving you that great nostalgic feeling without relying too heavily on simply reproducing the old game with new graphics.
Shredder’s Revenge is your classic 2D beat em up, with just a few additional bits thrown into the mix to make it a slightly more modern experience. Instead of just having linear set of levels that you progress through there’s now an overworld that you can explore which also gives you access to some side quests you can do during your regular missions. There’s a levelling system as well, with each of the characters gaining upgrades and a few more abilities as you play them. Each of the characters has their own set of traits and move set, although you might not notice a ton of difference in your first playthrough of each. If you so choose you can also have up to 6 people total in any one session, which makes for some truly outrageous combat encounters. For those who were fans of the arcade game everything will feel very familiar, whilst still having enough intrigue to keep it interesting.
Combat, in story mode at least, feels much more forgiving than it used to on the arcade. The vast majority of enemies aren’t particular smart, enabling you to bait them into moves and combos with relative ease. As you’d expect from a game like this the challenge typically comes with high numbers of enemies and/or the inclusion of environmental hazards that you need to be aware of. Whilst nothing rises to the truly unrelenting experience that was the Battletoads speeder level there’s certainly some areas that feel very much like it, turning an otherwise easy area into a nightmare of obstacle avoidance. It’s enjoyable though as no challenge ever feels too far out of reach but, at the same time, just noodling around is a surefire way to fail the level.
The additional mechanics (like the power ups, super moves, radical mode) are definitely cool additions, but the game doesn’t really do a good job of explaining what the heck most of them do. It’ll likely take you a few levels to first understand your character’s moveset, then a few more to really get used to all the various environmental mechanics as well. It’s probably not the worst thing in the world, especially when this game plays perfectly well as just a straight button masher, but I always get a little bit annoyed by games that don’t reveal the core mechanics well enough, necessitating a trip or three to Google to figure out what the go is.
Shredder’s Revenge is also in need of a little bit of polish here and there, with the game having some rather interesting bugs. Now granted I was the only one in my group who seemed to be getting these things, but none the less they happened so I’m sure others have had similar experiences. I had a couple times where my character’s sprite disappeared off screen completely; I was still there and able to interact with everything I just had no damn clue where I was. Similarly I had a couple times where my inputs just stopped working altogether, locking me helplessly in place. Thankfully the drop in/drop out co-op works a treat and these issues could be fixed by rejoining the session. I’m sure this has been improved somewhat in the month or so since I played it, but it was still a small negative mark on the otherwise awesome experience.
The story is your standard TMNT affair: light on plot points but heavy on the action and comedy. Nearly the entire cast of the TMNT world makes an appearance here so there’ll be tons of “OMG it’s that guy!” moments for you to riff on with your fellow TMNT fans. Really though you’re not playing this for the in depth story, you’re playing it to beat up some Foot soldiers and say radical every so often.
TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge is everything my younger self could have hoped for. The graphics, music and combat all harken back to a simpler time in gaming. The additional mechanics add enough new flavour to the standard 2D beat em up formula to keep things fresh, ensuring that you’re not playing a simple remaster. There’s a few rough edges that could do with some polish, but it’s otherwise quite a good experience. It might be a bit short overall, but I get the feeling there’s going to be additional seasons of content that will be coming down in the not too distant future. So for fans of the TMNT franchise you really can’t go past Shredder’s Revenge.
Rating: 8.5/10
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is available right now on PC, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4 and Xbox One for $35.95, Game was played on the PC with a total of 2.2 hours playtime and 46% of the achievements unlocked.
