Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants finally made it to consoles and PC.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants becomes the latest TMNT gaming title to bring joy to the fans. It gets better, when you’re getting an Arcade experience such as Thunder Ray to sweeten the pot. With the abundance of great games that have been released recently, if there’s a game where you just want to have some stress-free fun, then look no further as there’s nothing better than to kick some butt as a turtle, arcade-style.
Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo, and Raphael are waiting for you to take charge and guide them through an exciting beat ’em up adventure that’s heavily inspired by the iconic 1991 video game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time. As you’re re-experiencing through the 2017 Arcade classic it finally makes its way to consoles and PC but featuring 3 more stages and 6 more boss fights.
But why do you have to play this alone? Although you can go solo, you’re far better off playing with a fellow fan of the pizza-loving turtles and going on a crazy whack fest against the bad guys that stand in your way. And speaking of that, pizza is a ration you need to restore some of your character’s health.
Plus, it’s quite fun with 4 friends arguing with each other about who should be which turtle. And just like most games that feature multiplayer, playing together will unleash the game’s truest potential, and of course, you’ll have much more fun doing so. Another thing you should know is that you can join your friends at any time.
In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants, your top priority is to tackle waves of enemies through a series of stages that include Coney Island and Dimension X. You’re guaranteed to experience several exciting obstacles in each level, which include fighting enemies whilst surfing in the sewer.
You don’t have to play the stages in any particular order, and the number of points you’re rewarded after completing a stage is based on variables such as how well you perform, the difficulty you’re playing, and how fast you finish a stage. Although the gameplay is fun, it’s extremely short – if you were to play each level once, if you were to combine them, you shouldn’t take a lot more than an hour to complete the game. However, each level is replayable, so that somewhat makes up for that.
If you don’t like your score, you can replay the stage until you’re happy with it. Especially, you can check up on the leaderboards, meaning you are essentially challenging other players in the world for the top dog of the stages. Thus, motivating to get you to play at your best.
As you’re cleaning out the bad guys, you’ll stumble upon approximately 13 tough bosses such as Tiger Claw, FishFace, Rocksteady, and more that are after your blood and take no prisoners. I must commend the good variety of enemies to combat. Moreover, imagine doing all of this just for the turtles to be able to rekindle with their legendary arch nemesis, Shredder, and beating him would be very satisfying.
But enough of the jibber jabber, and let’s get on to why you’re here – the combat. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants’ combat has the nostalgic, fast-paced slice-and-dice combat that’ll make you feel like a Ninja Turtle, as well as travel to the 90s with the retro-like gameplay as you’d see from iconic games such as Streets of Rage. Especially, with its mechanics.
Of course, in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants, you’d have the basic moves where you have to treat the X and Y buttons as your friends, and they both control the majority of the combat mechanics. Attack, jump, jump attack, and more are all you need to successfully take down the bad guys, whether on easy or hard (which you’ll have to unlock later). Plus, using one or both of these buttons will execute quite a decent but pretty one-dimensional number of combos.
If at any time you’re in a situation such as you’re being cornered, you can grab and throw objects, and also throw or ignite explosives in an attack on enemies. This is very useful, especially against the bosses. You can also throw grab-and-throw enemies, which can also become handy at times. Moreover, if you press both buttons simultaneously, you’ll unleash a powerful spin attack that your enemies simply can’t keep up with.
But the one mechanic you’ll love in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants, is the most is the special turtle power attack that acts as a fatality-like special move assigned to any of the turtles you play as against singular or multiple enemies with the use of the Y button. Each turtle has their own unique special attack animation on surrounding enemies.
This is personally my favorite combat feature in the game, and if it were up to me, I would spam the mechanic like there’s no tomorrow. It’s the very noticeable green bar that’s under your health bar. However, you’re required to attack enemies to recharge, and once the bar flashes, well, you know the rest.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is a fun time, but it isn’t perfect. A negative that we must discuss first is that, in case you aren’t aware, when it comes to multiplayer, you can only play locally. That’s right, there’s no online option at all. The only way you play with friends is you have to go through it, just like how the old heads did many years ago.
To be fair, if you go to the game of your platform’s respective store, you’ll see that it clearly states in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants description that it’s strictly local. However, seeing as we’re in the age of drastically advanced technology, and not having to play with each other when in the same room all the time would suit most of us. One might argue that you don’t have to worry about connectivity issues. But regardless, the lack of online play is disappointing. \
Plus, I’m not much of a fan of the artwork, especially towards the chosen style. The colors are attractive, but the designs are not substandard, at the best presentation of the turtles, enemies, bosses, environments, and more. Although the comic-like speech designs are pretty cool. It looks good seeing the likes of ‘wham’ when striking enemies or ‘splash’ when an enemy has made contact with the water.
Also, despite additional levels, its number is still very much underwhelming; I definitely would’ve liked more. Unfortunately for Cradle Games, it’s a shame that these shortcomings have knocked Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants down some cool points.
Nonetheless, although it isn’t as good as the more memorable Shredder’s Revenge, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants has just about managed to become a fun experience that pretty much requires that you play with at least a friend to get the ultimate experience. It’s been long overdue, so it’s good that this has finally made it to consoles and PC. And although it’s only local, I’d still recommend this to other players, even if they plan on playing this game on the side to take a little break from playing the much higher-profile titles.
