Maybe after logging more gameplay time I'll be able to pinpoint just what exactly is missing from this one.
Friday, November 7, 2014
Now Playing: TMNT - Mutant Melee
It lacks... somethin'
Erm.... it's weird, because functionally, it's sound... yet it lacks something, some kind of punch? I dunno, it feels rather... lifeless, bland, even though the mechanics are fairly alright.
Maybe after logging more gameplay time I'll be able to pinpoint just what exactly is missing from this one.
Maybe after logging more gameplay time I'll be able to pinpoint just what exactly is missing from this one.
Review #165: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 - Mutant Nightmare
Konami decided to go with a bang!
Konami has a thing with TMNT games and making three iterations of it, eh! Mutant Nightmare is the last TMNT action-adventure game they would produce, and man, did they finally get their bearings together and deliver!
Just as the previous game covered Season 2, this one covers Season 3, using various clips from the show. This time around they opted for a Episode-based distribution, yet it means little, you still have to play them in order, and can save after any stage on any episode. You'll eventually unlock Free Battle, that allows you to visit any of the bigger stages and explore them in order to find goodies, Score Attack(Which is basically a survival mode against endless waves of enemies) and Time attack that tasks you with defeating as many enemies as you can in a set amount of time. You can also unlock the Arcade version of Turtles in Time, with new music and voice cues, it ain't as good as the SNES port, and the character you played is tied to which player you are, but at least you can pause it now!
Gameplay has been revised, again, this time for the better. The terrible combat system from the last game has been overhauled to more closely resemble the first game, however, each turtle has very different combos and inputs, without that terrible timing issue the second game had, which is very welcome. Just as with the first game, you are now stuck with the character you pick before starting a stage, however, even while in Single Player the other Turtles will fight alongside you, they are pretty useful to be honest, and you can switch characters before starting any stage. Vehicle stages from the second game return, but they are more fun this time around(Probably because now you get to attack as well as move!) alongside some new shooting galleries, they are not particularly noteworthy, but they are appreciated.
Stages are more open than before, previous game's stages would consist of single rooms with an objective, some of the stages in these games have various sections. Still, individual abilities are gone, not that they received much use anyways. Hidden throughout most levels are Scrolls and DVDs. DVDs unlock cutscenes, but Scrolls are items you can equip on your turtle in order to enhance it. Y'see, this time around enemies drop crystals that you must collect and then use as currency to buy new combos, new skills or new Scroll slots. This is very neat, on paper, as you can customize your Turtle to suit your style or get some nice extras... however, most of the time the only scrolls you'll really need are the ones that increase your HP or Attack power! There's also scrolls to play as the Dino Turtles and the Ultimate turtles. Dino Turtles sound really cool, I mean DINO. TURTLES. But they all amount to some very lame looking armor above their shells and different weapons. Lame. Ultimate Turtles are really cool, they are featured on the game's intro and the instruction booklet keeps talking about them... but you unlock them after finishing the game and then replaying each Nightmare Level. If you've been doing all the Free Battles to earn the unlockables, there's basically no point to the Ultimate Turtles.
As for complaints, there's the fact that the minimap is basically useless. Stages like the first Free Battle are rather confusing and the mini map doesn't help, plus, to actually earn the unlockables and crystals you found in a Free Battle, you have to return to the starting point. Combat is also a bit shallow, buying combos, and equipping slots are neat ideas, but the game is a beat'em up at heart, enemies and bosses need little more strategy than just mashing buttons. And while previous games gave you unlockable characters, that played differently from the turtles, or alternate costumes(Battle Nexus had 2 costumes per turtle!), there's none of that here. Dino Turtles look lame, and Ultimate Turtles, while overpowered, have the exact same combos as the normal turtles.
Character models certainly look slightly less detailed than their Battle Nexus counterparts, but stages have gotten larger and more detailed, so I guess it's understandable. Framerate is pretty decent too, although the game does struggle some times. As per usual, voice acting is done by the actors from the show, even though characters like Bishop and his 'research' aren't very convincing. Music is still surprisingly good, but it lacks the spark the music from the previous games had, it's still rather good, just not as memorable.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 is easily the best one of the bunch, Konami mixed the best things from both games and wound up with a fitting finale to their run with the franchise.
8.0 out of 10
Just as the previous game covered Season 2, this one covers Season 3, using various clips from the show. This time around they opted for a Episode-based distribution, yet it means little, you still have to play them in order, and can save after any stage on any episode. You'll eventually unlock Free Battle, that allows you to visit any of the bigger stages and explore them in order to find goodies, Score Attack(Which is basically a survival mode against endless waves of enemies) and Time attack that tasks you with defeating as many enemies as you can in a set amount of time. You can also unlock the Arcade version of Turtles in Time, with new music and voice cues, it ain't as good as the SNES port, and the character you played is tied to which player you are, but at least you can pause it now!
Stages are more open than before, previous game's stages would consist of single rooms with an objective, some of the stages in these games have various sections. Still, individual abilities are gone, not that they received much use anyways. Hidden throughout most levels are Scrolls and DVDs. DVDs unlock cutscenes, but Scrolls are items you can equip on your turtle in order to enhance it. Y'see, this time around enemies drop crystals that you must collect and then use as currency to buy new combos, new skills or new Scroll slots. This is very neat, on paper, as you can customize your Turtle to suit your style or get some nice extras... however, most of the time the only scrolls you'll really need are the ones that increase your HP or Attack power! There's also scrolls to play as the Dino Turtles and the Ultimate turtles. Dino Turtles sound really cool, I mean DINO. TURTLES. But they all amount to some very lame looking armor above their shells and different weapons. Lame. Ultimate Turtles are really cool, they are featured on the game's intro and the instruction booklet keeps talking about them... but you unlock them after finishing the game and then replaying each Nightmare Level. If you've been doing all the Free Battles to earn the unlockables, there's basically no point to the Ultimate Turtles.
Character models certainly look slightly less detailed than their Battle Nexus counterparts, but stages have gotten larger and more detailed, so I guess it's understandable. Framerate is pretty decent too, although the game does struggle some times. As per usual, voice acting is done by the actors from the show, even though characters like Bishop and his 'research' aren't very convincing. Music is still surprisingly good, but it lacks the spark the music from the previous games had, it's still rather good, just not as memorable.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 is easily the best one of the bunch, Konami mixed the best things from both games and wound up with a fitting finale to their run with the franchise.
8.0 out of 10
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Now Playing: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 - Mutant Nightmare
Only two more to go!
Konami really decided to go out with a bang, huh... First thing that happens upon inserting the disc, is the opening playing... except that this time it's in full 3D and... it's kinda awesome.
They got combos right! Again! It's almost as good as in TMNT 1, but definitely better than TMNT 2. Graphics have also been slightly downgraded, but now all Turtles are on-screen even when in Single player, and stages are bigger, so it's understandable.
So yeah, I'm having fun, it's good!
They got combos right! Again! It's almost as good as in TMNT 1, but definitely better than TMNT 2. Graphics have also been slightly downgraded, but now all Turtles are on-screen even when in Single player, and stages are bigger, so it's understandable.
So yeah, I'm having fun, it's good!
Review #164: Diablo 3 - Reaper of Souls - Ultimate Edition
Diablo strikes. Again. Because two beatings weren't enough. Silly Diablo.
Remember Diablo? It was pretty neat. Remember Diablo 2? Oh boy, did that game improve on everything Diablo did or what?! Now Diablo is back for the third time in an isometric hack-and-slash dungeon crawling RPG. Times have changed, technology has changed and so has Diablo.
The game takes place 20 years after Diablo, as Deckard Cain and his protegee Leah get involved with a man that fell from the skies, and you, the Nephalem, goes to investigate. Later on, the Minor Evils like Belial and Azmodan get involved, and the Nephalem faces them in battle, culminating in a battle above the heavens against a familiar enemy. The story isn't very good, characters are bland, twists are predictable and the game even leaves the fate of one character hanging after vanilla Diablo(Act IV) which would be terrible if only Act V didn't give it closure... with some very convenient plot devices. On the plus side, the lore behind some of the characters is rather interesting, told via narrated journals that you can find. Ah! Fair warning, I didn't mind it, but the game has a decidedly lighter tone than previous games in the series, there are some rather poor attempts at humor, like a guy trapped in a barrel which is played for laughs,
Luckily, gameplay's where it's at. All six playable classes feature very different play styles and skills. Skills in this game can get very creative, and they look very good. The core behind hack-and-slash dungeon crawlers is killing enemies and looting corpses for better equipment, pretty hard to screw it up, and they didn't. However, Stores in the game never have any kind of useful equipment to sell, which makes money more or less useless, probably just gonna use it to change the appearance of your armor and weapons(Which is awesome) or repair your equipment. Speaking of repairing, the durability of a weapon is no longer, at least on the console version, told through numbers, you just go to a town and scroll to the "repair" tab to see if anything needs repairing, which is a very... odd decision.
Some people have expressed their distaste in the game's mainstreaming, but it ain't all bad. There's some really cool features, like having recently picked up equipment show up over your health bar, so that you can equip it without going into the Equipment screen. Another thing I like, is that the game now tells you how much your damage or resistance will increase or decrease, when looking at equipment, through green and red arrows. So if an armor piece has 30 def but +10 vitality bonus and another one has 10 def but +50 vitality bonus, the game will tell you that the latter is a better piece. This kind of mainstreaming is really good, since it cuts back on time trying out equipment and looking at numbers, without dumbing down the system.
Now, there's some things that I didn't like, for example, when you level up you no longer get stat points to spread around your stats, which sucks. And passive/active skills are now gained through leveling up, so eventually you'll get every skill in the game, I like the more specialized, personalized character builds from before. The game does allow for customization in the form of Runes, each skill has about six runes, and you can equip one of them to change how it works, some change the skill completely(Like changing a beam that falls from the sky into a short-range blast from your character), or give it special properties. I really liked this, as you get a ton of skills to play with. At first, I thought how cool it was that each button on the joystick was tied to a different skillset... turns out you can turn on "Elective Mode" on the Options menu and just equip any skill anywhere, which is also fun, but a different type of fun(Less restrictive... but also less strategic).
The biggest seller, for me, is how the game plays out. After you are done with the 5-act campaign(Act IV is surprisingly lame, short and rushed, but Act V is, probably, my favorite) you unlock adventure mode. First of all, every time you play the game, the maps and monsters get randomized, which also means that different "events" might or might not appear, making each playthrough different. But that ain't all, Adventure Mode allows you to warp anywhere, even switch between acts, and now you play for bounties, events randomized every time you play. Endless replay value. And I haven't even touched upon Rifts, which produce even more randomized dungeons and harder bosses. If you like this kind of game, there's a ton of reasons to come back over and over, and you can bring up to three buddies with you. On the same console!
The framerate and loading times were pretty decent... my first time around. I've been reading, and it seems some people are getting tons of freezes... the game only froze once on me, but afterwards the game started having trouble loading stuff for the first time(The first time I use a skill the game will stutter, and so on, but after a couple of minutes it goes back to how it used to run). Also, you can't turn the camera, which would make sense in Multiplayer, but the game is in 3D now, there's no reason not to let you turn the camera in Single Player.
Visually the game looks phenomenal, sure, models are not the best you've seen on the console, but it's excused due to how much stuff can be going on the screen at the same time while keeping the framerate pretty steady. Characters can look very badass when they get some higher-level equipment(or pay to have it look like that!) and enemies look nice as well. Props to making the objects a joy to destroy, seriously, even if most of them are empty, watching stuff fly in the direction you hit it is always enjoyable. Voice acting is pretty decent, although it seems that they tried a bit too hard with some of the accents. Music... is alright.... when you get to listen to it, most of the time it will get drowned in the sounds of carnage and fallin loot!
Overall, I enjoyed the hell out of Diablo 3. The story was pretty lame, but story ain't the reason I play videogames(most of the time). Gameplay was almost what I would've wanted, if only they went for a more personalized route, don't get me wrong, runes are pretty neat, but I really miss the personalized stat spread. Still, the way they managed to add so much replayability into the game is commendable.
9.0 out of 10
The game takes place 20 years after Diablo, as Deckard Cain and his protegee Leah get involved with a man that fell from the skies, and you, the Nephalem, goes to investigate. Later on, the Minor Evils like Belial and Azmodan get involved, and the Nephalem faces them in battle, culminating in a battle above the heavens against a familiar enemy. The story isn't very good, characters are bland, twists are predictable and the game even leaves the fate of one character hanging after vanilla Diablo(Act IV) which would be terrible if only Act V didn't give it closure... with some very convenient plot devices. On the plus side, the lore behind some of the characters is rather interesting, told via narrated journals that you can find. Ah! Fair warning, I didn't mind it, but the game has a decidedly lighter tone than previous games in the series, there are some rather poor attempts at humor, like a guy trapped in a barrel which is played for laughs,
Some people have expressed their distaste in the game's mainstreaming, but it ain't all bad. There's some really cool features, like having recently picked up equipment show up over your health bar, so that you can equip it without going into the Equipment screen. Another thing I like, is that the game now tells you how much your damage or resistance will increase or decrease, when looking at equipment, through green and red arrows. So if an armor piece has 30 def but +10 vitality bonus and another one has 10 def but +50 vitality bonus, the game will tell you that the latter is a better piece. This kind of mainstreaming is really good, since it cuts back on time trying out equipment and looking at numbers, without dumbing down the system.
The biggest seller, for me, is how the game plays out. After you are done with the 5-act campaign(Act IV is surprisingly lame, short and rushed, but Act V is, probably, my favorite) you unlock adventure mode. First of all, every time you play the game, the maps and monsters get randomized, which also means that different "events" might or might not appear, making each playthrough different. But that ain't all, Adventure Mode allows you to warp anywhere, even switch between acts, and now you play for bounties, events randomized every time you play. Endless replay value. And I haven't even touched upon Rifts, which produce even more randomized dungeons and harder bosses. If you like this kind of game, there's a ton of reasons to come back over and over, and you can bring up to three buddies with you. On the same console!
Visually the game looks phenomenal, sure, models are not the best you've seen on the console, but it's excused due to how much stuff can be going on the screen at the same time while keeping the framerate pretty steady. Characters can look very badass when they get some higher-level equipment(or pay to have it look like that!) and enemies look nice as well. Props to making the objects a joy to destroy, seriously, even if most of them are empty, watching stuff fly in the direction you hit it is always enjoyable. Voice acting is pretty decent, although it seems that they tried a bit too hard with some of the accents. Music... is alright.... when you get to listen to it, most of the time it will get drowned in the sounds of carnage and fallin loot!
Overall, I enjoyed the hell out of Diablo 3. The story was pretty lame, but story ain't the reason I play videogames(most of the time). Gameplay was almost what I would've wanted, if only they went for a more personalized route, don't get me wrong, runes are pretty neat, but I really miss the personalized stat spread. Still, the way they managed to add so much replayability into the game is commendable.
9.0 out of 10
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Review #163: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 - Battle Nexus
Well, at least Konami tried.
The first TMNT game Konami released on the PS2 was kinda good, flawed, but playable and a decent time waster. For the second installment, Konami decided to go back to the drawing board and produce a very different game. In many ways, it's a much better offering, but it has some rather hard-hitting setbacks that keep it from being an altogether better game.
Battle Nexus covers, loosely, the second season of the 2003 TMNT cartoon, and once again, it borrows clips from the show, they actually went the extra mile and produced exclusive clips for this game. At the outset, the game only offers one mode, disappointing since the first one had a VS and Challenge Mode, but challenge mode is still here, disguised as "Tournament" when accessing your Hub. This time around, the game is divided in over 40 stages, which sounds a lot, but each stage is very small and short, so you can play in bursts, and save your game any time you are on the stage select screen, which is a good thing considering how awkward the first game was when it came to saving. Another improvement is that now you can play with up to three other players at the same time... but you'll have to contend with the fixed camera angles
The first game was a simple, straightforward beat'em up game, this one is a bit more of an action-adventure game. Now you can switch between any of the four turtles(Or the four unlockable characters) at any time, which you'll probably need to, as each turtle has a unique ability that you might need in order to go onward... or collect the hidden antiques in each level. Leonardo can cut through fences, Raphael can push blocks, Mikey can hoover on the air and Donatello can tinker with computers. This is a change for good, as the game won't get as repetitive as the first game, plus, there's a couple of vehicle stage to break the action. All things considered, it should be a better game than its predecessor, however...
The combat system received an overhaul, for the worst. Just as before, you get a weak attack and a strong attack, however, the four-weak attack and three-weak attack combos are gone, weak attacks will combo up to two hits, and if you don't press strong attack, you will be left open for a counter attack. Early in the game, before you unlock other combos, even the three hit combos will leave you open for a counter attack. And you just can't mash buttons, as each character has a different time window to press buttons, instead of making them feel unique, it makes it a chore to switch characters, as you'll start messing up. And then they introduce the combos that require you to end it by pressing two buttons at the same time, coupled with the weird timing, makes for a very unsatisfying and clunky combat system. And it's a shame, because if the first game got something right, it was the combat. This game gets the adventuring right, but screwed up the combat big time, might as well just skip as many enemies as you can.
The game is fairly large, with things to find on each level. There's a ton of different themes for levels, so there's a lot of variety as well. As a bonus, you can unlock the first TMNT arcade game. Truth be told, the game hasn't aged very well, and this is a straight-up plain emulation, there's no dip switches to temper with the options, you can't pause it, you can't pick a character, being locked on a Turtle depending on which player are you.
The presentation is definitely among the game's best features. There's a ton of different environments on each stage and characters look much better than before, although the first game's simpler models made them more faithful to the cartoon, but oh well! As a consequence, the framerate took a hit, and when it gets crowded, prepare to dip into 10 frames per second! Music is top-notch, these are all original tunes, and surprisingly, they are really good, dare I say too good for a licensed game? The game borrows the voice actors from the show, and they performed admirably.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is about as good as the first one. I think I enjoyed this one just a tiny bit more, but it might be due to nostalgia. You prefer a beat'em up game? Go with the first one. You'd rather play something that has more exploring and jumping and don't mind clunky combat? This is your game.
6.5 out of 10.
Battle Nexus covers, loosely, the second season of the 2003 TMNT cartoon, and once again, it borrows clips from the show, they actually went the extra mile and produced exclusive clips for this game. At the outset, the game only offers one mode, disappointing since the first one had a VS and Challenge Mode, but challenge mode is still here, disguised as "Tournament" when accessing your Hub. This time around, the game is divided in over 40 stages, which sounds a lot, but each stage is very small and short, so you can play in bursts, and save your game any time you are on the stage select screen, which is a good thing considering how awkward the first game was when it came to saving. Another improvement is that now you can play with up to three other players at the same time... but you'll have to contend with the fixed camera angles
The combat system received an overhaul, for the worst. Just as before, you get a weak attack and a strong attack, however, the four-weak attack and three-weak attack combos are gone, weak attacks will combo up to two hits, and if you don't press strong attack, you will be left open for a counter attack. Early in the game, before you unlock other combos, even the three hit combos will leave you open for a counter attack. And you just can't mash buttons, as each character has a different time window to press buttons, instead of making them feel unique, it makes it a chore to switch characters, as you'll start messing up. And then they introduce the combos that require you to end it by pressing two buttons at the same time, coupled with the weird timing, makes for a very unsatisfying and clunky combat system. And it's a shame, because if the first game got something right, it was the combat. This game gets the adventuring right, but screwed up the combat big time, might as well just skip as many enemies as you can.
The presentation is definitely among the game's best features. There's a ton of different environments on each stage and characters look much better than before, although the first game's simpler models made them more faithful to the cartoon, but oh well! As a consequence, the framerate took a hit, and when it gets crowded, prepare to dip into 10 frames per second! Music is top-notch, these are all original tunes, and surprisingly, they are really good, dare I say too good for a licensed game? The game borrows the voice actors from the show, and they performed admirably.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is about as good as the first one. I think I enjoyed this one just a tiny bit more, but it might be due to nostalgia. You prefer a beat'em up game? Go with the first one. You'd rather play something that has more exploring and jumping and don't mind clunky combat? This is your game.
6.5 out of 10.
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Review #162: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Heroes in a half-shell, turtle power!
Back in 2003, 4Kids rebooted the TMNT animate series, this time following the original Mirage comics more closely and providing a darker, more mature and more faithful rendition of the Ninja Turtles than many of us grew up with. Just as it was back then, Konami took the mantle of providing us the videogame adaptations, and they stuck close to their guns.
The game is loosely based on the first season of the series, the game even uses scenes from the series itself as cut-scenes, which is really neat touch. Even some of the dialogue before stages is taken straight from the show. The game has three different modes, Story, VS and Challenge. Story Mode has you, and if you want, a friend too, go through six stages as any of the four turtles(You can also unlock Splinter and Casey Jones). VS mode is a rather simple one on one match that runs on the game's engine and pits you against another player or the CPU. There's about 6 unlockable characters, bosses from the game, and everyone has their own moves, for such a throw-away mode, it's a surprisingly good addition, sure it's pretty unbalanced, but it harkens back to the NES beat'em ups of old that would include this mode just for kicks. Lastly there's Challenge Mode, one player only, where you must go through 26 waves of enemies with just one life.
TMNT on the PS2 is a beat'em up game, a genre that flourished on the Arcades, got a number of decent entries on the NES but bloomed on the SNES. This game is the exact result of bringing one of those games into the third dimension, alongside all the detriments that the genre is known for. Each Turtle has two normal attack buttons, which can be combined for different effects, a double jump, limited shurikens, which also come in Explosive and Electric variety, a dash, a pop up move and later on a jump attack and "Gembu" super power. First thing I want to mention, is that the instruction booklet makes a huge deal out of the Gembu attack, but you only unlock it after clearing the second-to-last stage with every turtle, and unless you've been doing every stage with every turtle at an even pace, which you probably won't do, you'll only get to use it on the last stage with the last turtle. What the hell? And the Jumping Attack must also be unlocked, which is very weird since it's a very mundane attack and is unlocked after clearing the first stage. Maybe they were planning to have unlockable moves but run out of time?
Gameplay is very simple and very repetitive. Pro-tip: If you are gonna play by yourself, do yourself a favor and slide down the difficulty to Easy. Thing is enemies, particularly the early stages, are filled with enemy waves, and they have a ton of health. They aren't hard to defeat by any means, you probably won't lose a life on the entire run, but, as easy as it is, they can take a lot of punishment, and they come in large numbers, which makes an already repetitive game very, very tedious. And yes, the game is repetitive, sadly, it comes with the territory. Older beat'em ups have always had this problem, and this game is no exception, which is why having a second player is advised(it also makes the enemies' endurance more tolerable). Another issue the game has, is that in order to unlock Challenge Mode and the secret boss you are gonna have to beat the game with all four turtles. Each turtle's playthrough is almost exactly the same, Stage 5 switches up when they encounter each of the two mini bosses and each Turtle has an exclusive boss(Stockman for Donnie, Hun for Mikey, Splinter for Leo and Casey for Raph).
To the game's merit, they got the fighting right. The overall mechanics are very simple, God of War or DMC this is not, and while its simplicity works against it, since it can and will get a bit repetitive, it's not too bad, particularly with two players. While the four turtles work more-or-less the same, each one has different reach, speed, strength and... accuracy. You'll see that Mikey is really fast, but his combos move him all over the place, Raph has the shortest reach, is really slow, but fights in a straight line and is very powerful, while Donnie isn't as slow as Raph, he isn't as strong but his bo-staff grants him better reach than any of the other turtles. And hitting dudes just feels right, it's hard to explain, but part of making a good beat'em up is making the game feel right, and they nailed it. However, one thing they didn't get right is saving the game. You can only save the game after clearing an entire Stage. And Stages are divided in "areas", usually 5 to 7, it's really weird why they would divide the game in Areas and not allow you to save in-between, I understand that they made it to mask loading times, but if you are thrown back to the map screen, might as well let you save, especially since some areas tend to drag for too long.
The game uses the now-so-popular cell-shaded style. Character models are pretty plain and very little detailed, but, curiously, it makes them look more akin to the show which ends up being really cool. Human characters are also very simple, but fall on the "generic" category, plus, their faces look terrible, this is most noticeable on Casey and April who get close-up shots during the Story Mode. The environments can get a bit repetitive, but they are very true to the show. One wouldn't expect a stellar soundtrack from a licensed game, but it packs some really good tunes, particularly the latter levels. They also got the voice-actors from the show, which adds to the legitimacy of the game.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the PS2 is a game best played with 2 players. It's repetitive, oftentimes tedious and sometimes, can get a bit long in the tooth. Expecting players to beat almost the same exact game four times in order to unlock most of the extras is a bit too much. However, despite these flaws, and maybe since I kinda grew up with beat'em ups and like the genre, I liked the game for what it was. And as far as licensed games go, this one goes the extra mile with clips and lines from the show, coupled with unlockable concept art.
6.5 out of 10
The game is loosely based on the first season of the series, the game even uses scenes from the series itself as cut-scenes, which is really neat touch. Even some of the dialogue before stages is taken straight from the show. The game has three different modes, Story, VS and Challenge. Story Mode has you, and if you want, a friend too, go through six stages as any of the four turtles(You can also unlock Splinter and Casey Jones). VS mode is a rather simple one on one match that runs on the game's engine and pits you against another player or the CPU. There's about 6 unlockable characters, bosses from the game, and everyone has their own moves, for such a throw-away mode, it's a surprisingly good addition, sure it's pretty unbalanced, but it harkens back to the NES beat'em ups of old that would include this mode just for kicks. Lastly there's Challenge Mode, one player only, where you must go through 26 waves of enemies with just one life.
Gameplay is very simple and very repetitive. Pro-tip: If you are gonna play by yourself, do yourself a favor and slide down the difficulty to Easy. Thing is enemies, particularly the early stages, are filled with enemy waves, and they have a ton of health. They aren't hard to defeat by any means, you probably won't lose a life on the entire run, but, as easy as it is, they can take a lot of punishment, and they come in large numbers, which makes an already repetitive game very, very tedious. And yes, the game is repetitive, sadly, it comes with the territory. Older beat'em ups have always had this problem, and this game is no exception, which is why having a second player is advised(it also makes the enemies' endurance more tolerable). Another issue the game has, is that in order to unlock Challenge Mode and the secret boss you are gonna have to beat the game with all four turtles. Each turtle's playthrough is almost exactly the same, Stage 5 switches up when they encounter each of the two mini bosses and each Turtle has an exclusive boss(Stockman for Donnie, Hun for Mikey, Splinter for Leo and Casey for Raph).
The game uses the now-so-popular cell-shaded style. Character models are pretty plain and very little detailed, but, curiously, it makes them look more akin to the show which ends up being really cool. Human characters are also very simple, but fall on the "generic" category, plus, their faces look terrible, this is most noticeable on Casey and April who get close-up shots during the Story Mode. The environments can get a bit repetitive, but they are very true to the show. One wouldn't expect a stellar soundtrack from a licensed game, but it packs some really good tunes, particularly the latter levels. They also got the voice-actors from the show, which adds to the legitimacy of the game.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the PS2 is a game best played with 2 players. It's repetitive, oftentimes tedious and sometimes, can get a bit long in the tooth. Expecting players to beat almost the same exact game four times in order to unlock most of the extras is a bit too much. However, despite these flaws, and maybe since I kinda grew up with beat'em ups and like the genre, I liked the game for what it was. And as far as licensed games go, this one goes the extra mile with clips and lines from the show, coupled with unlockable concept art.
6.5 out of 10
Now Playing: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 - Battle Nexus
Oh boy...
I've a test tomorrow, so, y'know, time to start another game. Yay? 'sides, I'm done with TMNT 1,
Here's the deal, back when I was younger, I used to adore this game. Scratch that, LOVE with capital letters. I got every single antique, finished every tournament, a hundred percent'd this game and then some. Present day, I just come off TMNT 1, and while it was good, it was also flawed, but overall fun. Now I pop in this disc, expecting more of the same, but better and.... Oh boy. The graphics have been touched up, they lost some of the cartoony flavor, but that's a matter of taste. You can now switch between all four turtles, which is really nice. And that's where the improvements stop. The frame rate has dropped into the 30s(The first game ran at 60 fps and played very smoothly). For some reason they decided to scrap the first game's combat system, which worked well for the type of game that it was, and now you have this odd double X combo or double X plus square combo that has a very weird timing. X and then square does nothing, and Donatello feels very... peculiar.
My rose tinted glasses are shattering, maybe this is a sign that I should study more and take less breaks. Godammit.
Here's the deal, back when I was younger, I used to adore this game. Scratch that, LOVE with capital letters. I got every single antique, finished every tournament, a hundred percent'd this game and then some. Present day, I just come off TMNT 1, and while it was good, it was also flawed, but overall fun. Now I pop in this disc, expecting more of the same, but better and.... Oh boy. The graphics have been touched up, they lost some of the cartoony flavor, but that's a matter of taste. You can now switch between all four turtles, which is really nice. And that's where the improvements stop. The frame rate has dropped into the 30s(The first game ran at 60 fps and played very smoothly). For some reason they decided to scrap the first game's combat system, which worked well for the type of game that it was, and now you have this odd double X combo or double X plus square combo that has a very weird timing. X and then square does nothing, and Donatello feels very... peculiar.
My rose tinted glasses are shattering, maybe this is a sign that I should study more and take less breaks. Godammit.
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