Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants (PlayStation 5)
Official GBAtemp Review
Product Information:
- Release Date (NA): April 26, 2024
- Release Date (EU): April 26, 2024
- Publisher: GameMill Entertainment
- Developer: Raw Thrills
- Genres: Action, Beat em up
- Also For: Computer, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S
Game Features:
Growing up in the 90s I was a massive Turtles fan. I had all the toys and gear and absolutely no idea that the heroes in a half-shell would still be going strong in Earth year 2024!
With the 2022 release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, I enjoyed some fresh Turtles content with a casual game that appealed visually and progressively. It was good, it was fun to play, and I wanted to play it again and again.
Enter TMNT Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants, which is a remake of the 2017 arcade experience that spawned from the 2012 television series, that is in turn based on the original comics and IP materials from as far back as 1984!
Oozing with Possibility, Slimy Execution
The Ninja (or Hero) Turtles appeal comes from the Ninjitsu style of fighting, the colourful larger-than-life characters and the absolute attitude they exude whilst in the heat of battle. 40 years after their first appearance, the mutated foursome has undergone some extreme character development, with each having their own individual traits, skills, and even body types depending on the artist in charge of the visuals.
Centred on the 2012 TV show, there is a lot of reference material to draw from the five seasons it ran for. While there is plenty to utilise, the developers have decided to keep it simple; seemingly opting to take just a handful of ideas and regurgitate them across the now 6 stages.
I have to say that the level environments look decent on the surface, but they don't have much going on and feel woefully devoid of charm and personality. One stage has a rollercoaster flying around that can comically knock you into the 4th wall (the screen); so there is that I guess.
This is possibly the most sterile take on the four playable titular turtles, with little to no attention to detail going into any of them, and just a handful of quotes each punctuating your every tap of the same lone attack button. Variety was not a priority for the developers.
The enemy variety is minimal too, with a regular foot grunt, an explosive grunt, a gun grunt and a spikey grunt. Each level puts an alternative mesh over that selection of trope enemies, with such forgettable characters as footsoldiers, cyborgs with mini Krang's inside, men in black looking enemies and that's about it. There is also a level where they're on "Cheapskate" looking hover skateboards on water, but even with floating mines to dodge: it is deeply un-thrilling.
Each stage will cost you just 10 minutes of your day, totalling a pitiful 60 minutes of total gameplay. I managed to finish it in 58 minutes without breaking a sweat and in one arduous sitting. I was incredibly disappointed to find that nothing was unlocked at the end of it to feed any desire to replay it at all.
Heroes in a Half-Assed Game
Being based on an arcade game, you can see the mechanics of the arcade machine at play. There are IMPOSSIBLE situations where you have to take a hit, for example, if an enemy has a gun, even if you jump out of the way the second they fire: you'll take a hit.
These annoying repetitive nuances should have been removed from the home version, it's just frustratingly predictable and jarring all at the same time and detracts from any sense of fairness or fun.
On the subject of repetition, there is ONE special move per turtle on one button, one jump button, one attack button and nothing else for that shiny new PS5 pad to do. I get that it's an arcade port, but it's boring!
Each level gets you to smash through a bunch of enemies chucking one of half a dozen props at them, or building your turtle power gauge through combo hits to launch a screen-clearing attack. The point at which you launch your special attack can determine how many enemies get splatted, initiating the attack before the next wave of enemies approaches means you can clear the screen pre-emptively before they're even visible yet.
The one up-side is the boss variety, with 2 bosses per stage and a third in the final unlockable stage, but again they aren't difficult to beat and their attack patterns look drearily copied and pasted across each of them with a little alternative colouring on the effects per boss.
Even the touted "team up with allies" feature has TWO, yes a measly TWO characters to "team up with": Metalhead who jumps up and clears the screen with a missile barrage, and Leatherhead, who flops around knocking over enemies with a screen-wide deathroll.
This sounds great on paper, but it's once per level, and there is just one animation for each of the characters every damned time.
Flush it Back into the Sewers
If you think £24.99 is a good price for an hour's entertainment, that's debatable. While I don't feel like the price is terrible for a video game these days, the content, in my opinion, is.
There is so much more that could have been done, so much more included and polished up, instead, it's the port of a seven-year-old arcade game that I don't honestly believe anyone asked for, that barely adds 20 minutes of extra entertainment and deeply fails to impress on all counts.
With a rating of 12, I expected a little more action, more moves, more acrobatics and more pizzazz for the pizza-munching reptiles. Ironically, I feel that children under seven years of age would probably get the most out of this mindless brawler because they weren't even born when the arcade version was first put out to lift the coins from your wallet, and wouldn't be able to compare the reference material and the greatness of the original cartoons and movies.
Verdict
- The variety of bosses is nice.
- Kids might enjoy this for an hour.
- Finishable in under an hour.
- Annoying "arcade" mechanics.
- Copy/Paste attack patterns and bosses.
- Boring combat.
