Game #1294: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Shredder's Revenge

 No Turtle Soup for you!

 As if it wasn't clear enough that beat'em ups are back in vogue, now we get Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, a gorgeous pixelated 2-D beat'em up that plays homage to the beat'em ups of olde. 

 The game has two ways of being played, a more traditional Arcade Run and a Story Mode. Both games have the same stages, but in Story Mode you don't start off with all your moves or maximum health gauge, instead slowly obtaining those as you defeat enemies, as some sort of very basic RPG element. There are also some basic sidequests that involve you finding items and NPCs... for more experience points. About the only gripe I have with this mode is that each character must be leveled up separately.

 The game does a lot with very little, you have your basic attack string, an anti-air by pressing attack+jump, two different aerial attack buttons, you can dash, you can grab enemies(And throw them towards the screen!) and an energy gauge that lets you use super moves or Radical Mode, which makes you faster and stronger for a little while. The super gauge refills as you land attacks or by using the taunt. In co-op, there are a few extra moves not mentioned in the how to play bit, since we were landing some sandwich-shell-attack against enemies sometimes, and you can also share HP with your partner or revive each other!

 While the game is about 2 hours long, which is slightly longer than what you would expect out of a game like this, it's filled to the brim with stuff. There's a total of seven playable characters, sadly Casey Jones must be unlocked by finishing the game, all of them have unique animations, even the four turtles, and there's a ton of enemy variety, with large bosses and all sorts of colored Foot soldiers with different weapons. Environments are quite distinctive too, and if you've played TMNT beat'em ups back in the day you'll probably spot tons of references. I'm only disappointed that this game is inspired on the worst version of the Ninja Turtles, the ones that are little more than a walking joke, but what can ya do? Hopefully, if they even make a sequel, they go for the much superior 2003 version. A man can only dream.

 Shredder's Revenge is a ton of fun, but if you don't like beat'em ups you might not 'get it', which is totally fine. The game does a perfect job at paying tribute to the genre, while still standing out thanks to good it looks thanks to all the work that went into making SO many sprites for so many characters and enemies, as well as the tight gameplay, that while very basic, allows for some simple, enjoyable enemy-bashing.

 9.0