Review #245: Nickelodeon's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

 Shellshocke'd

 After Peter Laird sold the rights to TMNT to Nickelodeon, fans were worried. Then the initial renditions of the new fab four were released, and fans were not happy. Joke was on us, the new TMNT reimaging by IDW is, to date, my favorite version of the TMNT, and Nickelodeon's show, while not quite as tight as 2003's, is fantastic. So of course a videogame had to follow.

 Gotta give credit where credit is due, if Activision's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got something right, it's the feel of the show. The dialogue isn't quite as polished, but dammit if it doesn't feel like an episode of the show. The plot has to do with the Turtles tailing Xever, Dog Pound and Baxter Stockman before they can complete a Mutagen Bomb, but eventually, and naturally, they have to deal with the big bad himself, The Shredder. The story isn't particularly good all well written, but the dialogue, the characters, that's where it's at.

 The game is just your run of the mill beat'em up: You walk to the right(Sometimes left!), then the scrolling freezes until you defeat every single enemy. There's not a whole lot more to the game! You play as any of the four turtles, and can switch character's at a button press, while the others tag along, either as other players or as CPUs. Something that should surprise nobody is that the CPU is terribly, content with just watching what's going on than take part in it, still, the game is easy enough that their input isn't really needed. And even though extra Lives are shared among turtles, it seems that turtles used by the CPU are extra resistant to damage. Throughout each level you'll find canisters, which unlock extras, and sparks, which can also be found from fallen enemies, that allow you to upgrade your four turtles. The extras are: Survival, in which you try to survive waves of enemies, Time Attack, in which you try to finish stages as fast as possible, and a shoot'em up minigame that isn't half bad. The upgrades are rather boring, but at least it's something to work towards to.

 As far as gameplay goes, it's very simple: B jumps, A attacks, C grabs(Only and ONLY when the enemies are near death), Z does a special attack and + or - are used for the rather useless extra weapons, like Shuriken or smoke bombs. I'd never go too hard on a beat'em up for being simple, it's a staple of the genre, particularly the earlier ones, as long as they got the feel of the hits right. And they didn't. The game has that very floaty, slidey, cheap feel that low budget games have. Collision detection seems to be off at times. As a matter of fact, sometimes, even though the 'C' symbol above weak enemies is flashing, it won't allow you to grab them, heck, sometimes fallen enemies will stop you dead on your tracks unless you angle your run. Not to mention the occasional bug, like that one time that Leonard got stuck behind an invisible barrier he couldn't cross, at least the game will respawn turtles near you if they fall behind. As for the bosses, they are really easy, but take so long to kill! Still, I'd lie if I said that there's no fun to be had with the game, as long as you like 'Beat'em ups', it's not too bad.

 Fun fact: This game is a port of a 3DS game, and it shows. However, let me set the record straight, even for a 3DS game, this would've looked bad. Character models are devoid of detail, for example Raphael's shell missing dent, are coated with muddy textures and the animation isn't very good. Stages don't fare much better, but at least they make a decent job at emulating the backdrops of the TV Show. The music is forgettable, but there's very few tunes so you'll hear the same tunes quite often, that said, I think there's a remix of the Japanese Opening, sans lyrics, in there? I could be wrong. The voice acting is amazing, they got the cast of the show and they knocked it out of the park.... but for some reason, some audio lines have very bad quality, with a lot of garbage noise accompanying them.

 Nickelodeon's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is mediocre. It's not particularly bad, but it doesn't do anything particularly well, besides getting the feel of the show.
 5.5 out of 10