Review #243: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Arcade Attack

 And then there was none.

 Arcade Attack could've been something special. A beat'em up, like most of the good TMNT games, taking place in TMNT(2003)'s world, with art inspired by the original comics? Sounds too good to be true, and it was too good to be true. One of the three last games that Ubisoft offered with the TMNT license, and just like 'Smash up' and 'Reshelled', it promised a lot, but wound up being a huge disappointment.

 The game picks up just after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles(2003)'s 'Back to the Sewers' season ended. Cyber Shredder is up to no good, so the four brothers set-out to destroy him once and for all. While it uses TMNT(2003)'s lore, the game uses beautiful, but very modestly animated, cutscenes made out of art emulating Jim Lee's and Peter Laird's art. While the story is anything but deep, I found the dialogue to be enjoyable and very TMNT-ish, Mirage TMNT-ish rather than the 2003's incarnation. Having good dialogue adds nothing to this game, but I still thought it was worth mentioning.

 Game's a simple beat'em up with barely any depth. You walk to the right, the scrolling locks and you have to defeat every enemy in order to continue. Before each of the 8 stages you can pick any two turtles, the CPU taking over your partner. Something I liked, something that proves that the game had good ideas, but the budget probably got cut down the line(Which is likely what happened to Smash Up as well), is that every turtle has different combos. Mind you, the combat system doesn't allow for juggles, nor anything fancy, but you have hand and weapon attacks, tied to the B and A button, and each turtle has different combos. For example, pressing B A B with Leonardo performs a combo, while Raph's would end at A, and Donatello can't go from B to A. It's proof that they wanted to make turtles different, that they knew what they were doing. Sadly, in the end, while each turtle has different combos, they all play basically the same, even if their stats are different.

 It'd be one thing if the game was simple, but fun, but sadly it ain't. When it comes to beat'em ups, making defeating enemies fun is top priority, since it's the only thing you'll be doing. Sadly, scoring hits in this game doesn't feel good. Connecting hits feel as if you were hitting air, with poor sound effects and animations. Moves lack oomph behind them, if you are gonna make me fight hundreds of enemies, at least make it feel good. Another point of contention is that before each 'enemy wave', the game initiates a 2-3 second long 'cut-scene' in which they walk in. Why they opted to do this is beyond me, but it makes the game drag a bit. This is a repetitive genre by nature, you should avoid wasting the player's time with trivial stuff like that.

 Stages are rather short, but they feel slightly longer than they really are because it's so boring. That said, the game does offer replay value, if you are willing to, in the form of various unlockables. Finishing stages earns you points, which you can then use to buy unlockable modes. Finishing the game in Normal, for example, allows you to buy Survival, Stage Attack and Hard mode. And finishing the game on Hard allows you to buy another mode and another difficulty setting, but I couldn't be arsed to finish the game again, so what those modes are is beyond me. Lastly, you can also play this game with another friend, so that's a plus, if you can coerce someone into playing this.

 The presentation is pretty poor. While the stages look nice, I'll give them that, the character models are terribly simple, and the animation is serviceable at most. Then there's the absolutely gorgeous cutscenes, but I'm willing to bet that if you are not a fan of the comics, you just might find the art a bit... ugly, but for fans, it's quite a treat. On the other hand, the soundtrack was pretty darn good, with music that really got you into the mood for some fisticuffs fighting.

 Ubisoft promised a lot with this game, as well as Reshelled and Smash-up. You can tell that they spent a ton of money in publicity... but for some reason, they didn't spend as much in production values. Arcade Attack has a ton of great ideas: A bevy of unlockables, different movesets for each turtle, getting inspired by the beat'em ups of olde and merging TMNT(2003) with Mirage. It sounds like a winning combination, but everything about the gameplay required a ton of polishing. As it stands, while I can see, I can see the glimmer of the great ideas, the game fails to be fun most of the time. But hey, at least it's not TMNT on the PSP!
 4.0 out of 10