Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge
COWABUNGA!
Protagonist(s): Leonardo Michelangelo Donatello Raphael April O'Neil Master Splinter Casey Jones (Unlockable) Genre(s): Beat 'Em Up Platform(s): PlayStation 4 Xbox One Nintendo Switch Microsoft Windows Linux Android iOS Release Date: June 16, 2022 December 22, 2022 (Mobile) Developer(s): Tribute Games Publisher(s): DotEmu Country: Canada

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge is a 2022 Beat 'Em Up video game developed by Tribute Games and published by DotEmu. Based on the 1987 Turtles animated series, it borrows stylistically from Konami's arcade titles from the 80's and 90's, but with a more modern take on its gameplay. It was released on June 16, 2022 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, and Linux.

Plot

Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello, along with April O'Neil and master Splinter are watching the news on TV when it is interrupted by Bebop, who announces the Foot has returned and is taking over the Statue of Liberty. The Turtles go to the Channel 6 building and find Bebop with the head of Krang's android body, but it is taken away while they were fighting Bebop. The team then fights Foot operatives and other adversaries while pursuing Krang, finding other parts of his body being reconstructed. Their chase leads them to Dimension X, where they fight their way through the destroyed Technodrome, until they eventually reach their enemy's lair in Dimension X and face Shredder and Krang in his new body. This is a decoy to get them away from New York while they are turning the Statue of Liberty into the Statue of Tyranny, a robot controlled by Krang. The Turtles return to New York and defeat Krang and Super Shredder.

Gameplay

Shredder's Revenge is a side-scrolling action brawler with a pixelated artstyle. The player assumes control of Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael, April O'Neil, Master Splinter, and unlockable character Casey Jones as they combat opponents including the Foot Clan, Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady, and Shredder in locations ranging from New York City sewers to Dimension X. Each character has their own attributes (range, speed, and power) and plays differently. They have unique super moves and taunts. Throughout each stage, players can find pizza boxes, which can be used to heal them, and other pies that grant players extra strength and infinite supers for a brief period of time.

The game features two different modes: Arcade Mode and Story Mode. In arcade mode, players have a limited amount of lives, and the game must be completed in one sitting. Story mode allows players to convert accumulated points for health, extra lives, additional combat moves, and a special ability known as Radical Mode which temporarily enhances the player character's combat abilities. In story mode, each stage has optional side-content, challenges. and collectibles. In addition to the single-player mode, the game supports six-players cooperative multiplayer both online and locally. Players can high-five to share health or work together to perform certain moves.

Why It's A Shell Of A Good Time!

1. Gorgeous pixel art visuals that are absolutely brimming with charm and personality. For example: All four turtles have unique dashing animations that highlight each of their personalities, little details like that can go a long way. The sprite animations as a whole just look amazing; they're perhaps comparable to the sprite animations of Sonic Mania.
2. Magnificent soundtrack composed by Tee Lopes of Sonic Mania fame. Each level has a song that's guaranteed to make your head bop every once in a while. The skateboarding levels, as well as the fight with Shredder in Stage 15, also have 80's style lyrical tracks, and they all sound great. Special mention goes to "Panic in the Sky" and "We Ain't Came to Lose." The theme song cover of the 1987 Turtles cartoon sung by Mike Patton is also a darn good bop.
3. The classic Beat 'Em Up gameplay Turtles fans have come to know and love returns, but with new modern additions that sets it apart from its predecessors, such as reviving fallen teammates before they can lose a life, super moves that can be unleashed with the push of a button after filling up a super meter, taunting to fill up one bar of said super meter, dodge-rolling to avoid enemy attacks, and being able to high five your teammates to lend them some of your health.
   • You can also level up your characters after scoring a set number of points you get from defeating enemies. The bonuses can range from getting additional meters for your super moves, increasing your character's health and learning new moves.
4. Tight and responsive controls that are better than ever: The turtles will never, ever be unresponsive and the controls are also very fast-paced, meaning that when you jump, it immediately respond and jump at the second you press the button, this is the same thing for the combats and also the overall movements.
5. The four turtles are all voiced by their voice actors from the 1987 animated series, meaning Cam Clarke returns as Leonardo, Townsend Coleman returns as Michelangelo, Barry Gordon returns as Donatello, and Rob Paulsen returns as Raphael, and they all sound great as always!
6. For the first time in a Turtles Beat 'Em Up game, April O'Neil and Master Splinter are playable alongside the turtles themselves, and seeing them fight alongside the heroes in a half-shell against the Foot Clan and other foes can be awesome to see. Casey Jones also appears as an unlockable character after you beat the game once.
7. Up to six players can join in on the fun either locally or online, similar to the X-Men arcade game developed by Konami where some cabinets could support up to six players.
8. Various characters from the cartoon appear all throughout the game, ranging from well-known villains like Bebop and Rocksteady to more obscure foes like Groundchuck and Dirtbag, as well as cameos from the likes of April's rival news reporter, Vernon Fenwick, the Turtles' amphibian counterparts, the Punk Frogs, and many more.
9. The plot is great as always, despite still being Shredder steal the Statue of Liberty and that the turtles need to get him, but this is not a problem due to the story being developped and overall epic.
10. Every stage has a set of challenges for you to tackle, often having you think about how you want to approach a stage. These challenges can range from trying to finish the stage without getting hit, defeating a set number of enemies in a certain way, avoiding as many stage hazards as possible, trying not to get grabbed by enemies a certain number of times, and many more.
11. The game can be played in one of two ways:
    • Story Mode lets you play the game at your own pace, allowing you to play whatever stage you want, whenever you want, as well as being able to tackle whatever challenges they like to throw at you.
    • Arcade Mode has you play all of the stages in one go, much like Konami's arcade games of the past. Playing the game this way will make you feel very nostalgic, especially if you've played any of the previous TMNT Beat 'Em Ups.
12. A huge variety of enemies to face throughout the game, ranging from Shredder's Foot Clan soldiers, to Baxter Stockman's metallic creations, to the Triceraton Empire, to the Stone Warriors of Dimension X. Simply put, the Turtles have quite the number of foes to face.

Bad Qualities

1. The game itself is quite short, beatable in about 2 hours tops when you're just going from Point A to Point B. If you really wanted to, you could probably beat the whole game in one sitting.
2. The Netflix port is considered to be the weakest port as you have to be subscribed just to play this game, which count as a microtransation.
3. Any stage that has a challenge involving trying to beat the stage without getting hit, avoid getting grabbed or not getting hit by a certain number of obstacles can be quite tricky on your first go, especially since it's very easy for either one of these things to happen and ruin an otherwise good run of the stage.
4. For being the supposed culmination of Shredder and Krang's plan for revenge against the Turtles, the fight against the Statue of Tyranny — the penultimate boss of the game — is pathetically easy since you are given ample time to dodge Krang's attacks. Fortunately, the final boss after that — Super Shredder — is a considerably more challenging fight.
5. The game has fetch quests where you have to find certain items for certain characters that are hidden in certain stages (such as Irma's secret diaries, Vernon's VHS tapes and the Punk Frogs' disgusting bugs), and you pretty much have to comb over every nook and cranny to even find them all. It can also quite tedious if you're playing alone. Luckily, the game tells you which stages are hiding which items in the game's Library via the Turtle Lair, so you'll never really be lost when you're looking for these items. Playing in Multiplayer also helps mitigate this issue since you'll likely smash everything in sight and stumble upon these items every once in a while.
6. Some of the bosses can be pretty annoying:
   • The Turtle Tenderizer in Stage 3 can be a hassle due to it being a skateboarding boss where the monster truck is moving constantly and you have to make sure you don't get too close, otherwise, you'll take damage. Good luck if you're trying to go for the "No Damage" challenge in this stage.
   • The Rat King in Stage 5 will often summon rats a la Pied Piper that will gnaw on your hands until you shake them off. When trying to deal some damage to the Rat King, having to put up with his rats can be quite frustrating.
   • Wingnut in Stage 8 can be a real pain due to it being another skateboarding boss where he is constantly zipping across the screen and dishing out tons of missile projectiles for you to avoid.
   • Leatherhead in Stage 9 is quite tricky since the ground has holes for him to crawl into and hide from you, and you have to wait until he stops jumping around said holes to even land a hit on him.
7. There's an achievement where you have to get every character in the game at Max Level (being 10 in this game's case), and in order to do that, you have to score 2,000 points with each individual character. Have fun grinding for this achievement.

Reception

When the game was first revealed on March 10, 2021, many Ninja Turtles fans were ecstatic to see a new game in the same vein as the classic Turtles Beat 'Em Ups from decades past, with the game's pixel art visual style and the announcement that Tee Lopes would be scoring the soundtrack receiving much praise. After the announcements of April O'Neil and Master Splinter joining the turtles as playable characters, fans became even more excited, and that excitement would eventually go into overdrive when Casey Jones was also announced as a playable character just before the game's release. Upon release, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge was very well-received by critics and fans alike, with praise going towards the pixel art visuals, enjoyable combat, stylish soundtrack, and chaotic multiplayer. It is currently the highest rated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on Metacritic.

Trivia

• The opening FMV features a cover by Mike Patton for the classic theme song from the 1987 TV series, originally composed by Chuck Lorre.
• In early footage of the game, Tiffany is seen reclining on a desk while Bebop flirts with her, before they both flee. This was changed in the final release to the be the first instance of Bebop forcing Vernon to film him with a camera. Tiffany can still be seen in the game running in the crowd at the very beginning.
• At Nickelodeon's instruction, April's Sandwich Attack was changed from being the same as the Turtles' (flying backward to strike with her backside), as they said it was "off character".
• Rob Paulsen is the only original TMNT actor to not voice a second character, despite two of his previous roles being in the game (Wingnut and Tokka). In-game, he is credited as Slash, but this was in error, as he was voiced by Sean Gurnsey.

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