It’s the Turtles who are called the Turtles
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have taken on many forms over the years. This applies to all types of media they’ve appeared in, whether it be television, movies, comics or video games. All of these will have their dedicated fans and in turn hold a special place in the heart of those fans.
In 2012, Nickelodeon produced what I felt to be a fantastic computer animated take on the Turtles which went for five seasons and mostly stayed faithful to the original 1987 cartoon but with a modern skew. Although the final couple of seasons went a bit off the rails to an extent, but that’s another discussion.
But the Turtles have always had a pretty good track record with classic scrolling beat ’em up video games and in 2017, Raw Thrills – almost as a way to close off the 2012 TV series, created their own take on the classic TMNT beat ’em up based on the Nickelodeon TV Series. Why did it take 7 years to bring to console? Not sure, but it’s here so let’s check it out!
True to form
I’ve never had to review a 7 year old game before. This is also a unique situation as arcade games rarely make their way to consoles anymore. If anything, more console and mobile games appear in the arcades. So if you’ve played TMNT Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants in the arcades, then you already know what to expect here. At least from an overall experience perspective.
Warts and all, this is an arcade perfect port, which once a upon a time, was a phrase akin to a gold seal of approval. In the 80s and 90s, those were the words console gamers wanted to hear…”arcade perfect”. But console hardware surpassed arcade hardware so long ago that those words don’t really have the same impact.
But there has been some extra content added to this version of the game to increase both the length of the experience and increase value for the players. While the arcade version features three playable stages and one unlockable, the console version has an extra two stages not featured in the arcade original. The Shredder level is an unlockable one in both. It’s claimed there’s three new levels but in case I missed something, I only noticed two. The arcade version has the Sewers, NYC, TCRI and the unlockable Shredder stage. The console version includes the aforementioned four, plus the Amusement Park and Dimension X.
All the standard scrolling beat ’em up tropes are here, particularly ones specific to Turtles arcade games. Pizza health pick ups, environmental hazards, weapon pickups, manholes you can fall into and the good ol’ power ups that turn you into a temporarily invincible spinning wrecking machine. You also have a Turtle Power meter that builds as you defeat enemies or hit bosses. Once fully powered up you unleash a super attack that kills everything on screen. One other addition to this game over the others is a pick up that calls in help from a friend of the Turtles. Whether it be Leatherhead or Metal Head, the backup character will jump into the scene and completely destroy any enemies that happen to be on screen at the time. It puts a nice fan service spin on a fairly rudimentary beat ’em up power up. One other nice…I guess you could call it quality of life feature is that when power ups are used, extra enemies appear on screen to avoid making you feel like you may have wasted the use of said power up if you happen to activate it with few or no enemies on screen.
In good Nick
It has to be said though, Wrath of the Mutants is incredibly faithful to the Nickelodeon TV Series. It perfectly captures the visual style, humour and general vibe of the show. So fans should enjoy their time with the game from that perspective.
Keeping in mind that this is an arcade game first, there’s nothing about the visuals that will wow you but really that’s not the point. This game is aimed first and foremost at fans of the show and in that sense, it does the job it needs to.
They’ve even gone to the extent of getting the voice cast of the show to voice their characters here in the game. Which means yes, you’ll hear Seth Green and Sean Astin throughout…depending on the character you choose of course. Anyone who has watched the show will immediately recognise the sometimes hilarious robotic monotone voice of the humanoid robots that Kraang deploys.
This is easily the area where this game excels more than most video games generally. It’s a fantastic video game representation of the TV show in all facets.
We got pizza!
The more hardcore scrolling beat ’em up fans probably won’t find much substance in Wrath of the Mutants. There’s no real depth or nuance to the combat and it doesn’t seem like the developers have tweaked the gameplay to avoid the difficulty and cheap nature of the arcade original. Arcade games are specifically designed to be difficult and generally cheap in order to take as much money off you as possible. These same traits have seemingly made their way into the console version. Even on easy, I found myself dying fairly frequently. The cardinal sin this game commits is keeping the Game Over state from the arcade version which is an absolutely baffling decision. Game Over screens are a relic of the arcades and died off in console games years ago. Why they decided to keep not only the cheap difficulty as well as the two continue limit is something I personally can’t understand. It leads to a lot of frustration on the Hardest difficulty when you get to the very end, lose all your continues and have to start the entire level over.
Admittedly, being a short arcade port, the game is somewhat appropriately priced, but it’s still more expensive than it’s superior counterparts in the genre. Which I guess is what all that authenticity costs these days. I didn’t get a chance to play in co-op during my time with it, but did play co-op on the arcade original so as you’d expect, games like this are always more fun and generally a bit easier with team mates.
There’s nothing actually inherently wrong or bad with Wrath of the Mutants in terms of mechanics and combat. It’s a serviceable scrolling beat ’em up that brilliantly pays homage to the TV show it’s based on. I guess the “issue” is, that it’s not great either. It’s just ok. It’s just that “being ok” really stands out at a time when scrolling beat ’em ups are experiencing a renaissance with games releasing in the genre that stand toe to toe with classics of the past. Wrath of the Mutants does not.
But I guess that’s ok.
Review | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Faithful to the 2012 Animated Series
- Arcade Perfect port
- Fun in co-op
CONS
- Combat and gameplay are a bit floaty and imprecise
- Somewhat stale gameplay
- Cheap difficulty
- Two continue limit and Game Over state
