Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, the new game from Tribute Games and Dotemu that tries to emulate the magic of the 80s arcade. We play it on PC thanks to Game Pass and we tell you our experience.
The melancholy effect, the eternal rebirth of retro. If one starts to look at those endless tops or lists that bring together the best beat ’em up of the arcades, the fantastic video game of the Ninja Turtles surely appears among the first positions. Developed and produced by Konami, it was launched in 1989 and the possibility of playing it with up to four players in some versions, as also happened with the arcade game. The Simpsonsit was something that made it even more incredible. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge comes to embrace this melancholy and give us a very similar proposal, from its development to its essence. With a side view full of pixels, we tested on PC, through Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which has it included.
Shredder’s Revenge aims to revive those old days where everything was simpler. And at times it is difficult for us to distinguish whether it is a remake, a sequel, or a reversal of that universe that the animated series of almost 200 episodes proposed, broadcast between the end of the 80s and the mid-90s. If we make a comparison, Shredder’s Revenge recreates many elements that the original arcade had, from characters, locations, hits and even small elements.
The premise is simple: we can choose the four turtles, Splintera April O’Neil and, if we unlock it, also to Casey-Jones. Once the game starts, the idea is to exploit the joystick buttons by hitting, jumping, using our special power, or making a quick movement to avoid enemies. Hit, jump, hit in the air, dodge, hit again. The formula is repeated for each enemy.
We played it live on our Twitch channel with the viewers:
While some ninja, for example, need a bit more work, the way to take them out is basically the same. The bosses, for their part, will offer more resistance and will have special attacks, but if we talk strictly about how to remove them, well, there is not much difference between them. The vast majority of the characters work in the same way, and although there are minimal differences between one and the other (Donatello’s weapon has a little more range than Raphael’s weapons, for example), the ease with which we can eliminate the enemies makes everything feel more or less the same.
And here we have to put a brake, because we are not saying that these mechanics are right or wrong. Like I said, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is inspired by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles original and seeks to bring the essence that made it so loved and famous. It’s a classic beat ’em up, with a simple and linear story where the action is the main character and in each level we’ll barely be able to breathe from the number of enemies and things that happen around us. And if all this generates fun, then the result is positive.
Nevertheless, It must also be said that Shredder’s Revenge feels much more fluid than the arcade version. There are many factors in between, such as the advancement of technology, the number of years of difference and learning with the growth of the genre itself. But we are not trying to compare one against the other to see which is better or worse, but to establish the foundations and the differences that the people of Tribute Games, its developers, implemented in this title.
While the 1989 arcade is still playable without issue, this version updated enough its gameplay and its mechanicsespecially the fluid aspect of how things happen, to go hand in hand with new players just coming into this franchise.
The game is very enjoyable despite its short duration, the focus of the main critics. With two game modes, for its part, we are going to have to win the Arcade Mode, if we can, in a play with a limited number of lives since it does not allow us to save our progress. Shredder’s Revenge is not a difficult gamebut the lives with which we start and those that we can earn in the game may not be enough to reach the end.
In the Story Mode, we will be able to accumulate life, energy, and points during all the levels, in order to unlock new movements and even extra powers. We will even be able to level up the characters. Also, in this mode each level has different challenges and collectibles. As if that were not enough, the game allows up to six players to play cooperatively simultaneously, both locally and online.
Playing it with friends is the option that always stands out, especially in a game where you don’t have to be completely focused and everything can flow differently. In this aspect, venturing into Shredder’s Revenge cooperatively, especially if they are friends, gives the title a differential touch, something that it does not have if we play it completely alone. The game, in this case, becomes monotonous, the levels begin to resemble each other, without providing a great differential beyond the graphic proposal.
The bosses all have the same difficulty and in the three hours that the game lasts, leaves us with the feeling that everything was the same from start to finishEven the levels where we’re on hoverboards feel the same as the other levels where we’re walking. Even in these levels, which have a small variant with obstacles that appear at high speed, the difficulty is so low that you hardly notice the difference.
In this aspect, if we talk about the Story Mode, the three levels of difficulty proposed by the game do not represent a really exhausting challenge. The difference between levels is the amount of damage that the enemies can inflict on our characters, but if we are honest, once we master the combat system it is not going to propose a real difficulty. There are times when we receive more damage from simple things, such as an obstacle that we do not see on the road or we cannot dodge, than from blows made by enemies.
There is a little trick, which has to do with charging the special power in the moments where the enemies are far away so that they cannot hit us, which can really make things very simple. In Arcade Mode this changes, as we said before, because we can’t continue and because we only have a limited number of lives, but the difficulty proposed by the enemy characters remains the same.
Visually the game is beautiful and, in our opinion, it is where its best aspect is concentrated. The pixel art that we see, from the design of the characters to their animations, they really have an amazing job. The same thing happens with the different scenarios, the details in each one, their design. Everything is more stylized than what we can remember from the original arcade, especially when it comes to torture and its design. The levels where we go on our hoverboards and see behind us the different scrolling planes of the city are really amazing and transport you to the times of 16 bits.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is a very fun game, but it doesn’t offer anything radical that makes it different from the rest. In our experience, the strength lies in playing it cooperatively, as it happens with many other titles. But if this title has something particular, it is that reminiscence of arcades, where several friends could crowd around one of these machines and through talks, laughter and fun, get into the skin of Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo or Raphael. And although this game allows local cooperative mode, it is very likely that you will end up doing the same, through Discord, with your friends.
RELEASE DATE | June 10, 2022 |
DEVELOPER | Tribute Games |
DISTRIBUTOR | Dotemu |
PLATAFORMS | PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch |