DotEmu and Tribute Games are back on the scene with a colorful beat ’em up and designed explicitly for co-op, although not without edges.
Who knows when Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were working on the comic in 1984 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles they never expected to see their creation change so dramatically over time and become a veritable 90s pop culture phenomenon. From “underground” comic, noir and dirty, inspired by the works of Frank Miller, the Turtles have quickly become the maximum expression of that irreverent urban subculture that is still honored by a large number of productions of all kinds.
The tow was the first animated series, which smoothed the obvious edges of the original work to transform it into a product suitable for everyone, especially children, thus deprived of the violence of the Eastman and Laird tables by virtue of a lighthearted and caciarona narrative focused on the four ninja turtles, about their love of pizza and their eternal rivalry with the evil Shredder.
Fast forward to 2022, with Tribute Games And DotEmu that present themselves at the gates of Nickelodeon (now holder of the rights to the series) with the proposal to create a new video game able to reproduce the atmosphere and the light-heartedness typical of the historic animated series. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder’s Revenge in short, it is one of the most anticipated titles by fans, and now we are ready to talk about it in detail.
Beat ’em up in TMNT sauce
The videogame history of the brand is dotted with many video games that, for better or worse, revolve around the same playful hinges. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder’s Revenge fits perfectly into this rut, presenting itself as heir to Turtles in Time and The Hyperstone Heist.
A very classic scrolling beat ’em up in the setting that made all fans roll their eyes right away, with trailers that showed off amazing pixel art, a color palette perfectly adhering to the canons of the series and extremely chaotic gameplay and apparently funny.
We are talking about a scrolling fighting game with a light narrative sector, engineered around the possibility of allow even six players to play simultaneously while sitting on the same large sofa. The intentions of DotEmu and Tribute Games have always been more than explicit: Shredder’s Revenge is in effect a celebration of the animated series that has been a hit since 1987 on. The aesthetic is taken on an equal footing from the series, as is the cast of “extra-Turtles” characters, think of Shredder’s henchmen and secondary characters such as April O’Neil and Casey Jones, who are declined according to their more family friendly incarnation. . All the most famous antagonists also appear, from Bebop to Rocksteady, up to the Kraang and the Triceratons, strictly to be bludgeoned to foil the evil plan to transform the statue of liberty into a killer cyborg ready to destroy New York.
Of arcade and depth
The first impact with Shredder’s Revenge was quite surprising. At the start of the story mode you are in fact greeted by a very extensive tutorial, which showcases a combat system that appears to be deeper than the
planned in which alternating combos, uppercuts, attacks in sprint, sliding and special moves. The first impression is that Shredder’s Revenge somehow tries to forcefully deviate from the simplicity and immediacy typical of the genre to embrace a revised and corrected version in which the combat is as complex as possible. In an interview with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder’s Revenge development team, Eric Lafontaine stated that the game has a form of accessibility that allows anyone to hold the pad and complete the game, even if they are not particularly skilled with fighting games. . And ultimately that’s just the way it is. The problem is that general simplification work has been done to achieve this result minimizes the depth of the combat systemto the point that too often the games almost automatically turn into frenzied button mashing sessions that end up almost totally obscuring the slightly more technical grain of the game.
What follows is a title that winks at the old arcade iterations of the Turtles and is undoubtedly pleasant to deal with, but which in its attempt to please everyone it ends up trivializing its control scheme a bit which, at least on paper, would rather please the experts as well. Ninja Turtles is still a Nickelodeon brand, and this has deprived the production of a somewhat hardcore component which would certainly have benefited. Still talking about his approach to the arcade, it must be said that, although it is a title in continuity with the excellent genre video games produced by the French publisher, Shredder’s Revenge falls victim to ingenuity, the children of a game design that is sometimes too traditional.
Between the AI ​​of the bosses that often seem to almost cheat by getting stuck in unstoppable loops of attacks, and small playful antiques typical of the genre, Shredder’s Revenge has remained anchored to stylistic features marked by the inevitable passage of time. Nothing to do, for example, with the modernity of Streets of Rage 4 (to always remain in the DotEmu area, here is the review of Streets of Rage 4), although this makes it much more in line with the videogame past of the Turtles.
From single player to party game
On the longevity front, Shredder’s Revenge’s story mode lasts less than two hours but clearly has replayability its ace in the hole. The campaign consists of sixteen stages, scattered across an interactive 16-bit map of New York. If on the one hand the backdrops are always splendid and well characterized, on the other hand they do not offer who knows what flashes of creativity in terms of game design. The levels on the skate, which are by far the worst in the pack, failed to convince us in any way.
While the initial boss fights surprised us both in terms of scenic impact and variety of gameplay, those related to the last third of the game have not received the same care. With that said, Shredder’s Revenge has its moments of great dusting and it owns a couple of game design ideas to say the least guess. Too bad that the developers had to contain themselves in terms of experimentation, precisely because of the need to propose the product to a wide target. But we come, finally, to what is the most obvious problem of all: the single player mode of Shredder’s Revenge is very uninspiring.
The fault lies in the aforementioned repetition of the stages and their overall length but also for the lack of variety in terms of gameplay. The secrets scattered throughout each stage are often banal and lazily scattered: being able to find all the collectibles in the game is a real health walk that, in the end, does not offer interesting rewards other than the bonus score. If you add to this the fact that story and arcade modes are practically the same thing (in the second the secrets are removed) and that the replayability revolves around being able to face the aforementioned modes with a different character, the overall picture darkens a bit. ‘ too much. Among other things, the only possible way to change the character in story mode is through the main menu, a choice that takes away the immediacy of a process that could have been managed in another way.
The speech changes, and not a little, when it is decided to face Shredder’s Revenge in local co-op. The more you are, the more fun and caciarone the game becomes, with the battles giving way to total chaos. In short, when the forays of the Turtles open up to team play, they can offer moments of pure joy and hilarity, as only the best sofa cooperative experiences can do.
The audiovisual sector
Ultimately Shredder’s Revenge suffers from some qualitative fluctuations not just, especially if related to the realities that gave it life. The Tee Lopes soundtrack is overall great, we also think of the presence of tracks sung by Mike Patton of Faith No More and by some members of the Wu-Tang Clan. The pixel-art that makes up the image is absolutely spot on but as the diagonal of the screen to which the console is connected increases, image cleaning deteriorates dramatically both as regards the menus and the stages of the adventure.
It’s a shame, also because the work done on the animations and the aesthetic characterization of the characters it is absolutely commendable and allows you to distinguish each of the turtles without any problem, even in the most heated combat situations. In other words, a great way to experience the exploits of the fighters in green is on the screen of the hybrid from Nintendo. Fluid to play and pleasant to look at, Shredder’s Revenge is a video game much more than enough and will be able to delight long-time fans of the brand and a little less than those who are passionate about the reference genre and therefore looking for more difficult challenges. .
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder’s RevengeNintendo Switch Analyzed VersionShredder’s Revenge could be many things: it could be a beat ’em up capable of modernizing the genre, a tribute to the past of the series or a caciarone party game. Since he tried to be a bit of everything, he was unable to convince us in every respect, although he was still very pleasant to play. The cooperative mode, for its part, is an absolute spectacle and more generally we are talking about an experience able to entertain (and a lot …) without, however, with that degree of brilliance that we would have desired.
