Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan
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 The moment Nickelodeon's partnership with Activision came to an undignified and unhonourable end.
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan is a hack and slash game based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. It was developed by PlatinumGames and was the last Nickelodeon-related game to be published by Activision. It was released on May 24, 2016 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One, and is PlatinumGames' third licensed video game, succeeding The Legend of Korra and Transformers: Devastation. Less than eight months after release, the game, alongside the other TMNT games such as Out of the Shadows, were delisted from digital stores on January 4, 2017.
Why It's Shell-Shocked
- Co-op mode is online-only. They were going to add couch co-op but it was never implemented.
- The game is locked at 30 FPS on both PC and consoles. For PC, this can be fixed with mods. While this has been the case with three other Platinum games; Astral Chain, Vanquish, & MadWorld, this game has no legitimate reason not to limit it to 30fps.
- Note that this issue wouldn't be on here if it weren't for the fact that Robert Conkey, the producer gave a "hypocritical" response to the framerates and lack of co-op; “We actually really wanted to do local couch co-op, but the problem is if you do, then you have to split the screen, and suddenly your 60FPS situation gets a lot worse, and it also starts limiting, technically, the things you can do, so we had to go with online only.” They could've just reduced the resolution like they did with Bayonetta 2 and NieR: Automata, but they refused to due to unknown reasons.[1]
- It also could be a possible side effect of being on the PS3 and Xbox 360 alongside PS4, Xbox One and PC, but here is the catch, both The Legend of Korra and Transformers: Devastation were 60FPS on both last gen and next gen consoles, so it's either hardware limitation from PS3/Xbox 360, laziness, or both.
- Repetitive combat: Each turtle has melee attacks and an over-the-shoulder firing mode that makes you float in mid-air similarly to Warframe, but the combat is very weak as it boils down to button-mashing enemies with very little impact.
- Useless/broken abilities: There is the additional mechanic where you can assign 4 active abilities (called Ninjutsu) that are performed by holding down one of the shoulder buttons and pressing one of the face buttons. However, aside from the fact that each ability has cooldowns ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, all of them usually come across as weak or useless compared to just mashing buttons;
- Leonardo's Turtle Time is virtually worthless, as it just slows down the enemies for a few seconds and its on a five minute long cooldown when you first unlock it.
- Michelangelo's Cheerleader is a skill that resets the cooldowns of all the turtles' abilities. Because of how each upgrade actually decreases the cooldown time of each skill, it makes this ability virtually break the game.
- Donatello's Pizza Power is not really helpful as while its one of two healing abilities in the game, it doesn't change the fact that the turtles die very quickly.
- Terrible controls; parrying and dodging are mapped to the same button, and the lock-on cannot switch to other enemies and is mapped to the L3 button. To switch between a turtle, you have to stop, press L2 and use the D-Pad. Speaking of dodging, if you dodge too many times in a row your turtle gets stunned for a few seconds, leaving you open to enemy attacks.
- To be fair, the concept of having blocking and dodging on the same button can work. It worked for Kingdom Hearts because the fast-paced combat isn't as chaotic as in this game's case, and it was mapped to the Square button while Circle was used for jumping, and that game gave you enough window to block attacks with that button. In Mutants in Manhattan's case, parrying/blocking attacks isn't really helpful at best because the enemy will just quickly recover and its barely helpful in combat (for instance, an enemy will immediately attack back after you parry which nullifies its usefulness because of how long the parry animation is) , and most attacks can't really be blocked/parried including attacks from bosses.
- Mind-numbingly dull combat; which consists of repetitive button-mashing against waves of enemies alongside waiting for moves to come back between 30 seconds and 5 minutes. In fact, this game fundamentally plays like an inferior knockoff of Granblue Fantasy Relink seeing the identical similarities and the fact that this game used the same source code back at PlatinumGames before they left development in 2019. Given this game was likely made in less than a year and when Platinum was busy with multiple projects at the time (Scalebound, Nier: Automata, Granblue Fantasy Relink) it made sense to borrow Granblue Fantasy Relink's source code for this game which helped cut down development time but left tons of underdeveloped features.
- Very hard to avoid damage: It's extremely easy to become disoriented because of all four turtles attacking at the same time in a blur, especially on the parts where enemies have ranged attacks including laser machine guns that are very hard to dodge. Combining the fact that enemies can attack immediately after parrying and that dodging too many times in a row will get you stunned leaving you open to enemy attacks, this can lead to worst case scenarios where at times it becomes impossible to avoid damage.
- The game has an absurdly high player level cap, but there's no point to that level cap aside from bragging rights and as a way to artificially pad out the game's content because you don't actually get any stronger from that player cap aside from unlocking the ability to level up your skills, making them deal more damage and reducing the cooldown. There's no way to upgrade your weapons or get stronger in this game, the only things you can upgrade are the cooldown-based skills.
- Trivial difficulty on Easy/Normal: There is not much challenge on Easy/Normal difficulties as the turtles can revive each other without limit, and even if one of them "dies", their health will completely regenerate after a few seconds. If a player is not revived in time they'll play a button-mashing minigame to get back in the action. The only way however to get a game over is if everyone dies at the same time, which shows the four turtles panicking back at the lair, despite the fact that they can get back in action immediately.
- While you do get one continue, that's the only continue you get after that where you get a true game over where you have to start the whole mission over, where it just shows an image of Splinter scolding you and then a tiny "GAME OVER" text appears on screen,
- On Hard and Very Hard difficulty, this actually gets even worse. In those difficulties, the turtles can die in 2-4 hits from enemies and bosses to the point where most of the time spent on the missions is just reviving them over and over only for them to die again afterward. This is because there are no permanent healthbar upgrades (your healthbar is indicated via slices of pizza) and the only healthbar upgrades you can get throughout the missions only last for the remainder of the mission.
- One of the worst parts is where you have to face off against a purple giant soldier with a hammer who has too much health and you're only given 3 minutes to kill him. When you fail, April says "better luck next time". On Easy/Normal difficulty, this fight is just obnoxious at best, but on Hard or higher, he becomes practically almost unbeatable due to how much health he has.
- It even has the need to shoehorn things like stealth objectives which April, your mission commander, throws at you. However, the concept of stealth, four guys, and fast-paced action sound more like a gimmick that a successful concept. There's hardly any reason to do them because you can still progress the stages normally.
- While this game has a lot more bosses than The Legend of Korra (around nine bosses in total), they make you fight the first six bosses in General Krang's stage for no reason. Speaking of the 9 bosses, it has the need to shoehorn fights in them as "secret boss bonuses" which often times have hidden criteria or the requirement to play on a higher difficulty. For example, on Rocksteady's boss fight, Bebop jumps out partway through the fight on Hard difficulty or higher.
- The final boss is also too similar to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: Mutant Nightmare.
- Over-reliance on hit sponges: What makes the game even more boring is that the enemies are simple enough, but the higher difficulties mostly make the enemies damage sponges, and the bosses are major damage sponges which take around 15 to 20 minutes to finish, serving no challenge whatsoever. This not makes the game fun, but rather boring and monotonous. This should be a reminder that hit sponges (when regular enemies take 25 to 50 hits to kill due to how they have excessively high health) that artificially pad out a battle's length do not make good game design at all.
- Repetitive level design and objectives which mostly revolve around holding down the button for around 20 to 30 seconds or delivering objects that slow you down. This is made even worse that the missions, excluding the bosses which take roughly 15 minutes at first, take around 20 to 30 minutes to finish.
- Some of the graphics lack anti-aliasing so their shadows sometimes get pixelated.
- Superficial upgrade and combo customization system. Each character can use every ability, so there's little to no uniqueness between the four turtles. The Talisman/accessory system isn't really helpful and is mostly just meager stat boosts.
- Terrible ally AI, coupled with unresponsive commands which AI teammates barely listen to, furthered by the fact that oftentimes they get in the way of things or refuse to listen to commands. Most of the time, the turtles often times run in random directions instead of just following you. They often don't do trivial things like learning how to dodge boss attacks. In fact, on the Mega Krang boss fight where you're on mech suits, the AI controlled turtles will just mindlessly fire while just standing still, even when Mega Krang does his attack that wipes out everyone instantly in its radius.
- Some of the settings are broken. For example, the inverted camera option doesn't even work whatsoever, as it doesn't do anything. The camera still turns the same way even if you have it on.
- Many of the achievements in this game weren't really hard, but were rather based on pure luck;
- In Karai's stage, there is a large pylon you can climb to earn a secret trophy/achievement. However, the pylon is really hard to climb because you have to move perfectly straight, as it gets thinner and you can easily fall of if you are slightly off-center. Compounding this is the fact that your teammates will climb the pylon with you, even if you command them to stay put, and can nudge you off it.
- Some achievements require you to beat a mission while under a specific effect, such as the turtles eating pizza in each of the photos or making a face. Given how each mission is incredibly padded to the point where it becomes a chore to play through, it goes to show that making excessively long levels (30-45 minutes in an action game) that take way too long to finish isn't necessary and that all it does is result in huge amounts of padding.
- Overpriced. This game cost $50, and has only 9 stages, most which are artificially padded by tasks where you just hold down the button and waves of damage sponges, and nothing else except for multiplayer which is the exact same thing except other players are controlling other turtles with the addition that it lets you play the stages freely without having to beat them in single-player.
- Speaking of that, the multiplayer co-op even spoils the later scenes of the gameplay, as it lets you play any stage freely, even if you haven't beaten them in the main story mode.
- Sequel baiting: The ending has the TMNT find Shredder's helmet left behind, where they eventually leave it behind and talk about going to eat pizza. At the same, Shredder takes the helmet, and then cuts to the credits. It feels like at best that Activision previously planned to make a sequel to this game, but because of how the game turned out, said cliffhanger will not be resolved.
- This, alongside SpongeBob HeroPants, ended Nickelodeon's deal with Activision on a sour note.
Redeeming Qualities
- Colorful art style that captures the tone of the comics the Turtles originated from.
- Nice cel shaded graphics.
- Decent voice acting, with the standouts being Nolan North as Leonardo, Splinter and Shredder, Steve Blum as Krang, Mick Wingert as Raphael, and Fred Tatasciore as Rocksteady and Slash.
- Like The Legend of Korra (2014), despite the weak production value throughout, there are no bugs or glitches that can ruin the experience for most players.
- The pizza-eating minigame, where you make your turtle eat pizza at the lair to restore lost health after being knocked out can be amusing, but expect to do it a lot during co-op on higher difficulties.
- You can unlock covers of the IDW TMNT comics, which can please fans.
- Captures the cheesy, light-hearted tone of the early and recent TMNT cartoons, despite the art style resembling more of the comics.
Reception
Mutants in Manhattan was received unfavorably, with the PlayStation 4 version having a Metacritic score of 45 based on 27 reviews, the Xbox One version having a Metascore of 55 based on 14 reviews and the PC version having a rating of 48 based on four reviews. The game even managed to dethrone The Legend of Korra as Platinum's worst ever game (before Babylon's Fall dethroned it in 2022). Before it got delisted, it had a "mixed" reception on Steam. Dave Rudden from IGN rated it 4.9 out of 10, calling the game short, bland, and highly repetitive, while also expressing criticism at the lack of local co-op multiplayer. GameSpot awarded it a score of 4 out of 10, saying "Without a doubt, Mutants In Manhattan is a disappointment, one multiplied several times over not just by its pedigree, but by the fact that the ingredients for a good game are present."
As noted on the PlatinumGames office tour in 2018, the physical game along with Infinite Space (which was co-developed by Nude Maker) was not on their games catalog display, likely to reflect on its negative reception. Platinum did another one in 2023 which while it showed Babylon's Fall and World of Demons on display, TMNT was still nowhere to be seen, therefore it meant they consider Mutants in Manhattan their least-liked game to develop.[2]
Trivia
- The game was directed by Eiro Shirahama, who also directed the Legend of Korra game from two years earlier.
- Eiro Shirahama would leave Platinum in 2017 and instead go to Capcom, where he worked on the Resident Evil 3 remake and Ghost 'n Goblins: Resurrection as project manager for both games.
- This game is the last Nickelodeon-related video game to be published by Activision. It is also the last non-crossover TMNT video game for a while until the announcement of Shredder's Revenge in 2021.
- Though, contrary to popular belief, this would not be the last licensed game published by Activision, where after that, GameMill and Outright would revive licensed games with GameMill publishing Nickelodeon Kart Racers in 2018 (prior to that, they published one Big Time Rush game).
- It's very likely that this game used the same source code as Granblue Fantasy Relink when it started development at PlatinumGames back in 2015.
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