Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge Hands On Impressions

Initial release date: June 16, 2022

Developer: Tribute Games

Genres: Beat ’em up, Fighting game, Indie game, Casual game, Adventure

Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Linux

Publishers: DotEmu, Gamera Games

Nostalgia overlaod! Cowabunga dude! If you were late generation-x growing up in the late 1980’s early 90’s you probably knew about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This franchise was popular in part to it’s cartoons, movies and videogames during the late 80’s early 90’s. I was like many American boys growing up. I watched the morning cartoons, and seen the movies…. Corey Fieldman yay. I also played the arcade game and NES version. Today I saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge sitting there on my Xbox Series X Gamepass cue. So I downloaded it and played it for a few. Below are my thoughts

Compared to the decades old arcade or even NES version Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge has contemporary quality of life gameplay mechanics the older games lack. The game starts out with a cutscene with the brother turtles, April and Splinter watching the news. You then choose between multiple heroes. This game is true coop just like the old games. Just saying. You can roll past, into or away, slash, jump kick attack, special attack with surprisingly fluidity. I played as Leonardo through Episode 1 “Jaw Breaking News” mission. I completed the level defeating Bebop in a bossfight.

Gameplay was more fun then all of the older iterations that I played (arcade original and original NES title). I did play this on my Xbox Series X with the stock gamepad fyi. I was kinda shocked at how good the gamepad controls were. I grew up playing arcade games like Double Dragon, Final Fight and Bad Dudes in the arcade so all I know is the joystick and a few buttons when it comes to beat’em ups. Visuals are that of 16-bit pixels which usually gets on my nerves by being pretentious. In this case I really enjoyed the visuals. Maybe it has to do with the franchise being old to begin with. The title screen had a recreation of the morning cartoon with musical lyrics and all. Sound design seemed muffled or maybe it’s just my hearing fading?

My final verdict is that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is good early on. Impressions are that it’s gameplay is fun with a splash of nostalgia (not that pretentious nostalgia that get’s on my nerves). New games like this take me back. Damn I am getting old. Thanks for reading – Jason