Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder's Revenge: Return of the Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder's Revenge: Return of the Turtles

Shredder's Revenge: Special Attacks and Combos

Time to Beat Story Mode: 3 Hours

Total Time Played: 13 Hours

Last summer my son convinced me to do something I rarely do, buy a game on launch. But initial reviewers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge were strong and credible. The only caveat of reviewers: the game was too short for the asking price. Developed by Tribute Games, the company doesn't remake games, but makes tribute games of classic titles. Unlike Shredder's Revenge, most don't use the characters from the game they are honoring, but are a new twist on an old genre. Nor are they knock offs. Of their eight games on Steam, two reviewed as Very Positive, five as Mostly Positive, and one as Mixed.

The player starts by picking either Story Mode or Arcade Mode. Arcade mode replicates the classic style of TMNT games of the NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis of 1990 to 1992. The players play from level to level. There is no opportunity to save.

Story Mode separates levels into distinct areas. After defeating a level the players return to a map of New York. They traverse the city, from level to level, in their van. Before playing, the player has two further choices. They choose the difficulty; Chill, Okay, or Gnarly. And they choose their character. There are six initial characters, and one that is unlocked after beating the game (a further two were recently added with paid DLC). The four turtles, the voice work done by their original 1987 voice actors, return to battle the Shredder. Splinter and April O'Neil join them. Shredder's Revenge rates each character on three attributes; Range, Speed, and Power. Each element is rated one to three stars. However these appear to be entirely meaningless. I assumed Power is related to damage. On Gnarly difficulty Arcade Mode, April (1 Star), Donatello (2 Stars), and Raphael (3 Stars), all need 3 to 4 hits to defeat a purple Foot Soldier, and 2 hits to defeat a teal Foot Soldier in the first level. On Chill difficulty they take the same number of hits. This makes me wonder if increasing the difficulty only increases the damage the enemies inflict. Regardless, Power appears meaningless, unless it measures the damage done to bosses. To test this theory I tried the first boss, Bebop, with Raphael and April (on Chill difficulty). It was difficult to keep track of hits inflicted, between the Foot soldiers harassing me, the times I tried to hit the Bebop but he was invulnerable because he was getting up or performing a special action, and because of the potentially different values of damage inflicted by different types of attacks (charging, combos, hitting Bebop when he was knocked down as compared to standing up). I tried to avoid using my special attack. Unfortunately, while trying to clear out Foot Soldiers as April I did clip Bebop once. In total it seemed to take between 30 to 35 hits as Raph and 40 to 45 as April. I made a second attempt. These results, which seemed more accurate, indicated that it took exactly 40 single hits (no combos, no Super Attacks) for both. While the two results slightly contradict each other, I am more confident about the second count.

A helpful post on Steam also measures Range and Speed (if speed is how fast a character attacks). Though Raph is rated 1 Star on Range, he is actually only shorter than Donatello with his bow staff. According to Steam member Rydog, April with her 3 Star Speed does attack the fastest, and Donatello (1 Star) the slowest by a large margin, with others (mostly 2 Stars) falling somewhere in the middle. If all the characters inflict the same damage, then the faster characters like April, will do more damage over time. Preliminary results by myself and others suggest that the three measures of a character are bogus. But that's ok because the characters feel distinctly different from each other, unlike the SNES and Genesis classics. I remember playing TMNT I, II, III, IV, and V decades ago. I recently played them with my children, beating the 1992 TMNT IV: Turtles in Time. A classic, it compares favorably to Shredder's Revenge. Despite its age, it even has superior elements, but Shredder's Revenge beats it on the variability of the characters. The attack animations visually, and in speed and range, differ wildly from character to character. Characters also display a variety of jump attacks, special attacks, and different animations. If the player is attacking one direction with their weapon, and needs to switch it up to hit an enemy approaching from the back, holding the directional (joystick or d-pad button) in the other way and attacking will cause the turtle to lash out with their foot. The animations are detailed and varied from action to action, and from character to character.

So pick your favorite turtle, or try them out and see which feels best.

Shredder's Revenge introduces itself as an homage to the original 1987 show. It starts with a remix of the classic theme song. Nostalgia is difficult to replicate, because I prefer the original. The new song is rougher, angrier, lacks the interruptions (give me a break!) by the turtles, and has a darker vibe. The original has a quirkier, hipper, pop vibe. As mentioned above, the original turtle voice actors return. But they barely speak. They quip once when chosen, rarely during battle, and almost never during the short story interludes. Shredder's Revenge, like previous Turtle games, has almost no dialogue or plot. The turtles chase villains (initially Rocksteady and Bebop) who are playing keep away with various parts of Krang's robot body (especially his head). Turtles features cameos of classic characters, and every level ends with a famous villain as a boss. Shredder's Revenge has fifteen levels. Each takes between five to ten minutes to finish. Assuming the player doesn't need to retry levels, the game should require two and a half hours give or take to finish. My wife, my two sons (eight and six) and I played the Story Mode on Okay. It was easy enough that we beat every level on the initial attempt. That took us three hours to finish. Then we played Gnarly but we committed a crucial error. During Story Mode the turtles level up, from zero to ten, as they defeat enemies. Each level adds a new special attack, additional health, or another special power bar. When the player starts a new Story Mode they can reset their characters to level 0. Resetting also, absurdly, relocks the special character the players just unlocked by finishing the game. We were unable to beat Gnarly. So we replayed Okay, and restarted a second attempt on Gnarly with the unlocked character and retaining our levels.

But this is a classic arcade beat-em-up, so let's get to the combat. Shredder's Revenge uses the classic style with the player able to move their character in four directions; up, down, left, and right, while also being able to jump. The characters hit enemies and perform combos. They can grab enemies and throw them. Throws are both easier and harder to achieve (all comparisons are to the SNES Turtles in Time). The player doesn't have to hit an enemy and then grab them, instead they only have to move next to them. But they do have to be closer than in TMNT IV. The characters can run, but they have a collection of new abilities. One button dodges with a roll move. The same button also helps the turtle return to their feet quicker if pressed at the right time after taking damage. 

Shredder's Revenge revamps special moves. Instead of the special attacks that were so rarely used in the SNES classics, because they spent the player's health, Tribute Games introduced the Ninja Power Gauge. It is filled by hitting enemies or taunting. Initially it can be filled once, used, filled again, and repeat as much as you want. Later upgrades allow the Gauge to be filled three times. When its full, the player spends a bar to unleash a Super Attack. A Super Attack hits an area around the character with lots of damage, while also making the character invulnerable. All the characters have unique Super Attacks. They are larger (Donatello) or smaller (Raphael), stationary (Leonardo) or moving (April). Later the player unlocks a Super Dive Attack and a Super Flying Attack. 

 A second article to follow on the Turtles.