They may not be the hot ticket item when it comes to pop culture these days, but I’m happy to see the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles continue to stay relevant in the current landscape in various ways. From its continuous comic line to even its most recent stop motion-style animated film, I’m glad the Turtles are still being found by younger generations with some good installments in tow (the less we talk about the two live action movies, the better).
When it comes to gaming, the Turtles certainly have had a bit of a rough going over the past decade, with plenty of missed opportunities and bad games sullying their reputation (I shudder thinking back to Out of the Shadows in 2013, and the missed opportunity that was Mutants in Manhattan in 2016). The release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge in 2022 alongside the Cowabunga Collection was a great reminder of the golden era of the turtles during the beat ’em up era. Shredder’s Revenge was especially notable for strongly recapturing the spirit of the 90’s era in a modern entry that looked like it came from back then even though it was all new, setting the Turtles on the way towards a gaming renaissance .
On that note, is the recently released port of the arcade game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants continuing said streak, or does it shell shock the streak?
We’re Lean, We’re Green, and We’re Mean
As mentioned above, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is for all intents and purposes an enhanced port from the 2017 arcade game based on the CG Nickelodeon TV series that aired back in 2012. It’s a beat ’em up that takes heavy inspiration from the old school Turtles games (think of the classic Turtles In Time), and it basically tries to do that game with a more fully controllable circular movement in a 2D space with the visual style from that 2012 series. You play as the four titular turtles, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael, through 6 stages (3 specifically added to this port compared to the Arcade release) on your way to beat classic turtle baddie Shredder.
Because its core is lifted straight from some of the 90’s Turtles games, Wrath of the Mutants definitely can scratch that beat ’em up itch, which is where the Turtles games have shined the brightest in the gaming field. It really is all about trying to make your way as fast as you can through different waves of ninjas, mini robots, and armed henchmen on the way towards each level’s two boss battles. But, while its core is definitely lifted from those old games, its execution is definitely more hit and miss compared to other recent beat ’em up entries.
Clearly it retains its roots as an arcade game, designed to extract as many quarters out of you as possible. Some of the enemies feel overly cheap in nature, attacking from weird angles with ranged enemies even shooting at you off-screen. This makes the times you lose health or die feel more unnecessarily frustrating and annoying rather than something difficult you can try to master for a perfect run. You feel that even more in the unlocked Hard Mode after the hour (!) it takes to complete the game.
“The Enemy of My Enemy is My Bro!”
This less-refined approach certainly feels rough compared to the recently released Shredder’s Revenge. That game managed to provide both an addictive and well-tuned, tough challenge that was easy to grasp, learn, and master compared to the relative Russian-roulette that is the combat encounters of Wrath of the Mutants where wailing at an enemy can feel wildly floaty and inconsistent with no rhyme or reason for when your attacks land. While there are certain tools you acquire within the levels, like some limited shurikens you can throw or some enemy “summons” which try to spice things up by helping to immediately clear rooms, it ultimately has an inelegance to it that, after a little bit, drains the thrill of clearing the different enemy rooms as you just start going through the motions.
The largest disappointment with Wrath of the Mutants is just how brief it all is. While beat ’em ups certainly have a notoriety of briefness to encourage quick run throughs and replayability, this game felt like it pushed its luck with nary any other additions to keep playing other than to do another run through its hard mode or climb up its arbitrary score leaderboard. You feel the weight of the lack of content in this game when the last Turtles game to hit the market included two ways to experience it, from a classic arcade run to its campaign mode that reshuffled the way you experienced its levels. Wrath of the Mutants also only offers a local co-op mode, which absolutely limits its reach compared to the online offering of the last game. There’s just way less to do here, and it goes by insanely quick.
At the very least, the style on display for Wrath of the Mutants makes the brief time you spend with this game somewhat entertaining to look at. Lifting the character design and art style straight from the Nickelodeon cartoon, there are certain augmented hi-jinks to some of the moves on display which make the game fun to look at, especially with some of the more diverse stage environments. While character designs of rank and file enemies can feel overly bland and blocky in certain angles, the flashiness elsewhere, particularly the boss designs, lifts up the presentation style quite a bit. The less said of the game’s sound, the better, as there were some voice cues, especially some from Donatello that felt like he was making weird impersonations of Raiden from Mortal Kombat that never failed to make me cringe.
Cowabunga?
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has proven time and time again that beat ’em ups fit so well with the brand, like peanut butter and jelly, and, at their core, they can be a fun time to spend an afternoon. The problem of knowing how well both of these elements fit is that we know when it’s being done great and when it’s done not so great. Sadly, Wrath of the Mutants fits the latter camp, where even the core fun of its fundamentals can’t quite mask the frustrating inconsistencies of its combat, and that’s compounded with just how anemic the whole package feels overall. If you find yourself itching for some more Turtles beat ’em up content after exhausting everything from Shredder’s Revenge and the Cowabunga Collection, Wrath of the Mutants provides a brief serving that’s simply more flashy but less fun, with a rather hefty $29.99 price for what’s on offer. But if what you want is just a Turtles beat ’em up and haven’t played the recent releases, you’ll be better served with those instead.
Sincere thanks to Sandbox Strategies for providing the review code for TMNT Arcade. You can find Seasoned Gaming’s review policy here.
