TMNT: Shredder's Revenge is a 2D Beat-em-ups title for PS4, XBONE, Switch, and PC, which was developed by Tribute Games and published by Dotemu. It was inspired by the 1987's TMNT animated series and borrows stylistically from the arcade and home console games developed by Konami from the 80s and 90s era.
Before I start reviewing this game, I'm going to talk about how the franchise of the "heroes in the half-shell, turtle power" had started back in 80s.
In around 1984, the TMNT titled as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started as the comic book series published by Mirage Studios, and created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.
It involve four anthropomorphic turtles, trained by rat-sensei Splinter in ninjutsu, went in their battle quest against the foes, led by Foot Clan leader's Shredder and his henchmens, to save and protect New York City.
The comic book itself did became popular at the release of the first issue which led two creators licensed the comic book into whole franchise launching with 1987's animated series helped into mainstream success and became one of the most popular animated series in television history.
The success of the iconic franchise spawning numerous of toy figures, merchandises, live-action films, and of course video games.
Back in my old days of childhood, I first remembered when I had the VHS tape of TMNT: Animated cartoon titled as TMNT: The Invasion of the Punk Frogs from one of the small local market, and when I came back to my home to watch my very first time TMNT: animated show I was amazed with the four heroic characters, the villains, the animation, and of course the signature theme song is the reason why I loved the show as a child.
TMNT franchises shares with many great 8-bit and 16-bit libraries that we grew up playing these kinds of games such as TMNT, TMNT II: The Arcade Game, TMNT: III: The Manhattan Project, TMNT: Fall of the Foot Clan, TMNT IV: Turtles in Time, and TMNT: The Hyperstone Heist are the most recognisable titles that we remembered them in our childhood nostalgia.
I consider them as an excellent licensed games based on 1987's animated series that Konami just got the game right for its faithful source material, smooth fighting mechanics, fluid animation, and has tons of action-packed stages are perfect for the 2-player co-op multiplayer brawling especially with 16-bit counterpart like TMNT IV: Turtles in Time and TMNT: The Hyperstone Heist which hailed as one of the greatest beat-em-ups titles that Konami had ever nails the licensed games based on the TMNT Franchise.
In 18 years later, the developer team Tribute Games has revealed their latest title based on the beloved 80's franchise, such as TMNT: Shredder's Revenge after pitching with the companies like Nickelodeon (an media entertainment brand behind 90's animated cartoons like Spongebob, Rugrats, and Hey Arnold), who owns the rights to the TMNT franchise, and Dotemu (a companies behind Street of Rage 4 and Wonder Boy: A Dragon's Trap) to publish the game.
It's one of the game makes the return to the roots since the 16-bit era delivers an arcade-style elements from the classic beat-em-ups games.
This is something to look forward to play this kind of game that I've been wanted for two decides since I've played TMNT games on the days of 16-bit era, so I finally grab a copy off from the video game retail store, head back to home, turn on my PS4 system, and start brawling throughout the game over an hours.
So grab yourself a pizza and drink because I'm about to begin my review on TMNT: Shredder's Revenge for my PS4, so without go further do let's start the review.
Presentation
The game set in New York City, U.S.A, which follows Turtles, and their fellow April O'Neil and Splinter are watching news on TV until the programme is interrupted by Shredder's henchmen Bebop who announces the return of the foot clan led by Shredder, and is taking over the Statue of Liberty.
The turtles and their friends went on their mission to battle and defeat against the foes to save the New York City, as always.
There's not a lot of story in the game besides the decent opening cutscenes kept it simple which is perfectly fine for the arcade beat-em-ups, but hey at least the art-style in cutscenes looks really amazing.
The game has recognisable characters we know from the 1987's animated series, such as Leonardo that welds double-swords, Michelangelo welds with nunchunk, Raphael welds with dual-katana blades, and Donatello welds with long fighting stick.
It also shares with supportive characters like April O'Neil, a news reporter with yellow-outfit and bob-style haircut, and Splinter, an old-wise rat who taught turtles with Ninjutsu, and of course it has Casey Jones, a masked dude welds with sports equipment, joining up with turtles.
The franchise does have an memorable cast of villains such as Shredder who is a ruthless leader of criminal organisation known as Foot Clan and the arch-nemesis of the turtles and Splinter, which I describe his appearances as an badass-muscular samurai guy.
It also has his henchmens featured in the game as bosses such as Bebop and Rocksteady as duos of a mutant warthog and mutant rhinoceros, and of course the big-brain headed Krang has exo-suit body invented by Shredder.
The presentation has comic book art-style brings close to the original source material. The opening intro has the iconic original theme song from the 1987's animated series, you see turtles driving around with the yellow van and surfboard, and fighting with the foes throughout the flashy action scenes is just looking incredible to watch just like from the 1987's animated show.
I also wanted to praise the stage settings in each locations such as the Channel 6 Studios room filled with cameras, lights, boxes, and scene setups, the Streets of New York has tall skyscraper buildings, pizzas restaurant, and parking cars, the Central Park Zoo has animals in the cage, the Crystal Palace Mall has many clothing stores and food restaurant, the Rooftops has construction sites and elevator, the Coney Island has beach site and carnival, and the Natural History Museum has bunch of antiques and arts objects which I got to say this is well presented sceneries that beings closer to the TMNT's 16-bit games.
Overall, it has simple opening story, recognisable cast of characters and fantastic stage presentation.
Gameplay
The game features two modes such as story mode and arcade mode up to 6 players co-op in both local and online multiplayer.
The story mode focuses on completing all challenge tasks and levelling up characters, where as the arcade mode basically just regular game itself with few lives and continues with no saved progression delivers the classic arcade-like experience.
You will have the selection of 7 playable characters such as Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello, April O'Neil, Splinter, and Casey Jones (unlocked after beating game once).
You're playing as depending on which you've selected in side-scrolling perspective as your main goal is to traverse through the stages till you've reached the boss stage to defeat them.
Pressing the d-pad button or left stick to control player around the stage, while tapping forward to dash, and then you can jump by hitting the cross button, while hitting the same button will allow to double jump.
Hitting the square button uses the basic attack while continuing to mash same button to attack further for combo damage, and you can also do heavy swing attack by holding the square button for 1 second then release which deals heavy damage hits.
pressing the triangle button when the blue gauge bar is full to perform special attack which deals heavy combo attacks.
You can fill-up your blue gauge bar quickly by pressing the R1 button to taunt till your blue gauge meter is filled up in 5 seconds.
Pressing the cross button to jump then hitting the square button to perform jump attack in mid-air. You can bash attack by tapping forward to dash then hitting the square button, while tapping forward to dash then hitting the cross button to perform slide attack.
You can evade the enemy's projectiles or their attack by hitting the circle button to perform backflip, but you can also do flying attack by pressing the circle button to backflip then hit square.
While grabbing enemy by automatically approach to enemy without attacking, you can perform 3 different throwing attack such as shoulder throw, slamming side-to-side, and toss them towards your screen.
You and your friends can also perform 3 different team attack by having both player on each side of the enemy such as sandwich attack, tubular spin uses when other ally use a dive attack on you, and homerun swing uses when ally throws enemy at you, so you need to perfectly sync your timings which takes a bit of practice to get used too.
When your ally is been knocked out, you can revive them by holding the L1 button till the meter is reached full which recovers the ally's health bar back in action.
So far, the controls works perfectly well throughout the game, as you see the game itself has made the improvements over the predecessor such as adding the combo system, different techniques moves, and levelling up system which adds the in-depth skills like expanded power gauge level, adding radical mode allows you to unleash them all with a long-lasting super move if 3 power gauges are full, two new abilities such as super dive attack and super flying attack, 1 extra live, and extra hit point which can be unlocked by reaching up to max power level with every character.
I had zero issues with the hit detection and collisions, as well as enemy's A.I doesn't feel slow and chunkiness with their great counterattack and attacking patterns proves the game's responsiveness went smoothly well throughout the gameplay.
Each of the stages has the best segments in any beat-em-ups games such as surfboarding level where you need to avoid those obstacles like incoming vehicles, sewer holes, and other projectiles coming directly to you, the central zoo level where you have to jump over the stampedes of rhinos, the rooftops where you need to defeat bunch of enemies without falling down the stage, winning a goodies of item from punk frog's pop a balloon mini-game, and the silicon alley where you need to dodge the incoming multiple missiles really shows how really good of these stages went well, where as I considered the boss battle is the strongest part of the game such as Bebop and Rocksteady rode on the monster truck whacks you with spikeball and throws grenade at you, Groundchuck and Dirtbag can hit you with shovel while dug under the ground or fires you with multiple 3-ways missile, Rat King will attack you with swarm of rats coming at you, Leatherhead will attack you from below in each 5 sewer holes, Baxer Stockman will zap you with his laser gun while flying in mid-air, Krang uses his exo-suit allowing him to perform spinning swing attack around the room, and Shredder has ability to use his 3 copy as an decoy.
I also liked the challenge task in the story mode where you had to complete all the checklist in each stage such as finding all cameos, collectable stuff like headline and VHS, beat the stage unharmed, perform 3 or 5 moves, beat the stage without using special moves, and breaking 2 objects, so these are the stuff that keeps you busy with the game thanks to lengthy story mode takes between 3 to 10 hours depending if you want to go for 100% completion like levelling up roster and completing all tasks.
I'm so impressed with the co-op play is the first TMNT games to feature 6-players (similar to Konami's X-Men arcade in 90's) on both local and online multiplayer is just perfection for those who loves to play beat-em-ups in general with large party of players to join the action-packed game.
Overall, it has perfect controls, great stage segments, epic bosses, and excellent 6-player co-op on both local and online multiplayer.
Graphics
The game's visuals is looking splendid in terms of stage design and environments are really close to 16-bit TMNT's games with comic-style textures, colourful details, cartoony sprites, and flashy effects, where as I'm going to praise the game for its impressive use of parallax scrolling effects in some background stages like in stage 8 where you can see the clouds and buildings moves individually from back to foreground is just looking incredibly in the game.
Although it doesn't had the same level as the Street of Rage 4 in terms of hand-drawn animation which has a better visual techniques, but still this game does have a charm for its nostalgia to keep the game faithful to the classic TMNT game which I'm still happy with it.
Overall, it has comic-style textures, colourful details, cartoony sprites, and flashy effects, as well as impressive parallax scrolling effects.
Music and Sounds
The original soundtrack in the game is surprisingly top-notch just as good as you hear it from the classic TMNT's games, and there are some tracks that are really similar to other games such as Rumble in the Zoo, King of the Spill, and Roof Running Reptiles does give a SEGA's Sonic Mania feel to it, where as Technodrome Redux sounds like it came from SEGA's Streets of Rage 2 which I really liked these kinds of soundtracks in some stages.
The original OST was composed by Tee Lopes did such an incredible job on his scoring, where as I wanted to give credit to guest artists featured in the soundtrack such as Jonny Atma (A.K.A GaMetal) - Panic in the Sky!, Mike Patton (lead vocalist of Faith No More) - TMNT 1987's theme song, Mega Ran - It's a Pizza Party!, Anton Corazza - Mutants over Broadway!, and 2 members of Wu-Tang-Clan such as Ghostface Killah and Raekwon - We Ain't Came to Lose.
The sound effects is tacked on with comical sound designs and some environmental noises, where I also want to praise the original voice cast for their role did a remarkable job of capturing beloved characters we all love from the 1987's animated show.
Overall, top-notch soundtrack, comical sound designs, and original voice roles.
Special Features
The physical standard copy comes with nice goodies such as guide booklet and pizza keychain which is cool, but as I've enjoyed both the story and arcade mode with 6-players co-op, I wish they should added more game modes like boss rush, time attack, survival, and versus, as well as some unlockable stuff that aren't featured in the game like gallery mode and sound test for example.
Overall, two game modes such as story and arcade, and small goodies in standard copy are solid, but needs to add more content that I've mentioned above.
Advantages
Fantastic stage presentation
Great stage segments
Epic bosses
Excellent 6-player co-op
Splendid graphic design
Top-Notch soundtrack
Remarkable original voice cast
Disadvantages
Needs more game modes and unlockable stuff
Final Verdict
Presentation 8.5/10 - simple opening story, recognisable cast of characters, and fantastic stage presentation.
Gameplay 9/10 - perfect controls, great stage segments, epic bosses, and excellent 6-player co-op on both local and online multiplayer.
Graphics 8/10 - comic-style textures, colourful details, cartoony sprites, and flashy effects, as well as impressive parallax scrolling effects.
Music and Sounds 9/10 - top-notch soundtrack, comical sound designs, and original voice roles.
Special Features 6/10 - cool physical copy's goodies, but lacks more game modes and unlockable stuff.
Overall 9/10 - COWABUNGA!!! TMNT: Shredder's Revenge is a true love letter to classic beat-em-ups from the 90s, as well as the 1987's animated series that really captures the childhood nostalgia. The game filled with action-packed stages and bosses, old-school visuals, memorable cast of characters, top-notch soundtrack, and has the best 6-players co-op for friends and families even with the beat-em-ups fanatic will give this game a huge shot because it's not only just the best beat-em-ups in modern platform, but also a true renaissance of the classics TMNT's games made a surprising returns since the 16-bit era.
The game cost around between £30 to £35 as physical copy, where as the digital copy cost bit cheap around £20 (via PS Store, Xbox Store, and Nintendo eShop). I say this is definitely must buy for beat-em-ups genre fans, as well as the casuals who grew up with TMNT franchises.
"TMNT (x3), HEROES IN HALF-SHELL, TURTLE POWER!!!"
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