When Tribute Games delivered the finest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game ever made in June of last year, called Shredder’s Revenge, Turtles fans everywhere couldn’t get enough of it (let alone fans of action games in general). Even with DotEmu as the publisher, who themselves released perhaps the finest beat ’em up ever made in Streets of Rage 4, there were skeptics. Yet Shredder’s Revenge blew us all away with its incredible quality, exceptional music and atmosphere, and abundance of heart.
We at Seasoned Gaming found Shredder’s Revenge to be a perfect experience, as you can see from our review here. But Tribute Games wasn’t about to abandon the Turtles in their latest adventure. In fact, one of the few minor complaints that we had with Shredder’s Revenge was how easily the taunt could be abused by constantly spamming it for three super moves, and this was quickly remedied. Several new features were also added, including the custom arcade mode with a bevy of dip switches and other host options.
But none of these added something fundamentally different to the overall experience. That has recently changed with the release of Dimension Shellshock, a DLC mode that seems like it was pulled straight from Streets of Rage 4’s own DLC, Mr. X Nightmare. Nearly mirroring that DLC, Dimension Shellshock adds a new mode called “Survivor,” which plays like a rogue-lite experience.
Each character begins this new mode at level 0, and you can raise your character’s level and power by progressing through the many dimensions in the mode and collecting crystals. Each dimension acts as a series of arenas, and when you defeat a certain number of characters or bosses, you will clear that scene and be given a choice between two random options. These can range from crystal shards (several are needed to create a complete gem), pizza to regain your health (you initially only have one life, so staying healthy is always a solid choice), and several other modifiers, including the ability to transform into bosses like Rocksteady or Shredder.
In your quest to find all of the crystals, you may give one of the two new characters a spin. Usagi, an anthropomorphic rabbit from the Edo period in Japan, and Karai, a high-ranking member in the Foot Clan with quite an interesting history and story, join forces with the turtles, and each is available not only in Survivor mode, but in the Arcade and Story modes as well. Along with these two characters, all of the selectable heroes now have a variety of color palettes from which to choose, including some that are sure to make fans of the older TNMT games and comics happy. There are also several palettes to unlock for every character by progressing through Survivor mode, assuring quite a bit of replayability in order to unlock everything.
Shredder’s Revenge was already the perfect TMNT game, but Survivor mode adds even more delectable toppings to the pizza. It’s the type of mode that I hope will adorn any future side-scrolling beat ’em up from DotEmu and/or Tribute games, and if, for some reason, you may have missed out on Shredder’s Revenge so far, it is the perfect mode to finally bring you in to the party. Now, let’s kick shell!
