Welcome to a casual gamer’s review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. This game is absolutely incredible, though it does come with a few caveats. To put its quality in perspective: depending on your skill level, the campaign only takes about 90 minutes to finish, yet my three sons and I have already clocked in 86 hours of playtime.
As someone born in the eighties but grew up with this cartoon in the early 90’s, I can tell the developers poured immense love into this project. The game is a beat-em-up style masterpiece that perfectly translates the classic show that started in 1987 and into the 90’s, into a modern format. The intro video alone is so phenomenal that it made me wish they would remake the entire cartoon in this art style. To stay true to the source material, they even brought back the original voice actors for the Turtles. There isn’t much dialogue or a deep story—Shredder is back from Dimension X and you have to stop him but for this genre beat em’ up game genre, that’s all you need.
You can play as the four Turtles, Casey Jones, April, or Splinter. This brings me to my first caveat: the paid DLC. One pack adds a couple of characters, and another adds a couple more characters and survival mode, but there are no new levels. I found it a bit disappointing and decided the extra content wasn’t worth the price.
The main campaign consists of 16 levels with easy, medium, and “gnarly” hard difficulties. When I started playing with my sons who were four and seven at the time, we began on easy and worked our way up. The game features a leveling system where the more you play with a specific character, the more their stats improve, such as extending your health bar. It was a challenge at first while we mastered the commands, but the progression kept us coming back for dozens of hours despite the short length.
As you level up your characters, you unlock new finisher moves that add strategic depth to the combat. For example, levelling up your character can unlock a sliding attack that clears from left to right. Each character is carefully balanced with unique pros and cons. Donatello is slow, but his special creates a “cyclone dome” that sucks in and hits every enemy nearby. Raphael and Splinter hit the hardest, but Raphael has limited reach to keep him from being overpowered; to compensate, his finisher allows you to move him around like a whirlwind while it’s active. Michelangelo remains my favourite because he offers the best balance of speed and power.
The game also rewards teamwork through clever co-op mechanics. If you sandwich an enemy between two players, they’ll perform a tag-team strike. There is even a complex “tubular spin” where one player dives and the other throws them like a fireball. While these moves are difficult for younger children to coordinate, the fact that such depth exists in a simple beat-em-up makes the game play incredibly engaging.
The progression system allows you to stack up to three special move charges. At the highest level, you can activate “Radical Mode,” which temporarily boosts your speed and attack power. However, there is a funny caveat when playing with small children: my twins often get scared during boss fights and try to hide in the corners. I have to remind them that they can’t hide forever, though those corners actually provide a safe spot to charge up specials for a counter-attack for some bosses.
One of the most useful mechanics in the game is the taunt button. Each Turtle has a unique animation: Michelangelo dances, Raphael laughs, Donatello plays video games, and Leonardo meditates. Performing a taunt automatically refills one special meter. While you usually have to fight to build up additional bars, this taunt feature allows a bit of a loophole. During boss fights, my boys will often stand in a corner to taunt and charge their special before running back in to strike. I do wish the boss AI was smart enough to cover the entire screen to prevent this, as only a few bosses like Shredder chase you even in the corners.
A significant downside to the game is how it handles difficulty. You cannot change the difficulty setting midway through a campaign. We have our main save locked to the “Gnarly” hardest mode, but if a friend comes over and wants to play on easy, you have to start a new game which wipes all your character stats, HP upgrades, and power-ups. It is disappointing that a modern game lacks a way to toggle difficulty without deleting your progression.
For those looking for a traditional experience, there is an Arcade Mode. This functions exactly like the classic cabinets I played in the nineties, like Turtles in Time. You have limited lives, and once they are gone, it’s game over and you start from the very beginning. My kids much prefer the standard campaign, but the option is there for purists. You can even adjust the visual and audio settings to include CRT filters and 8-bit music for that authentic retro feel.
Ultimately, this is a must-play title. Even if you aren’t familiar with the franchise, this version based on the classic 1987 series—is easily the best representation of the Turtles.
