TMNT: Splintered Fate has finally made its way to Xbox, and it’s thoroughly OK. This fast-paced rogue-lite relies on repetition a bit too much, as your 10 to 15 hours are spent going through New York as the Turtles alone or with up to 3 of your friends. It looks alright, sounds fine, and plays decently. I found Splintered Fate to be as OK as a game can be, without excelling in any specific areas.
The Premise
Splinter has been kidnapped by a cosmic entity who can portal the turtles and their foes anywhere at any time. This deadly game of Ninjas and Rats will see you venture across a small handful of stages as you battle iconic foes from the long-running series. To win the game, you’ll need to complete several runs, a’la Hades and the best of the roguelite genre.
Mike, Don, Loe, and Raph are available by default with a DLC that unlocks the masked hockey-loving human Casey Jones as well. The characters have distinct styles for their movement and combat. The roguelite nature of the game sees per-run upgrades matched with meta-leveling unlocks in a satisfying if simple setup.
In each run, you’ll have metal scrap you can spend at a vendor to get additional per-run items. The Dragon Coins you’ll find, along with specific other items, let you unlock permanent bonuses. Focusing on the Dragon Coins early on means you’ll quickly overpower most enemies, making the game decently easy in solo play. I was only given a single code, so the majority of my time was spent alone, like always…
Turtle Powah
TMNT: Splintered Fate started life as an Apple Arcade title, and it looks the part. While it runs at a higher resolution and framerate than it did as a mobile title, it’s not a looker. Basic environments and character models feel like the cartoons, but are nowhere near the quality of the best in the genre.
There are a LOT of dialogue scenes in this one, and much like the combat, they’re fine. You’ll start each run at your hideout, customizing things a bit, choosing who you’ll play as, maybe buying some upgrades, and doing lots of talking. Once you’re ready to go, you’ll head out into the same level that features randomized layouts.
There aren’t a ton of levels in the game, and the randomized nature of each run can feel a bit samey by your 8th and final victorious run. This is a Hades-like through and through. You’re hitting and dashing with a small internal cooldown on said dash. There are a variety of abilities and super-ish moves to unlock, with each turtle having their signature weapons by default. You have basic percentage-based increases, new abilities, and supers that work off a “hit the enemy to raise it” percentage meter, and other various standards for the genre as stage-clearing victor rewards.
It’s a bog-standard, a-ok roguelite, with no systems or gameplay elements that stand out. Its biggest strength is in being a cooperative title. I could see this one being a solid few nights of fun with a crew, though not much longer than that. Unlike some recent favorites like Lost in Random: The Eternal Die, I didn’t feel much of a pull from the story. Cutscenes can be extremely long, and I went full on mash the A button the instant I had read the text-mode.
As stated previously, the game looks decent enough. It ran well on my Xbox Series X with no bugs to speak of. It’s a solid port for a solid game that is similarly unspectacular. When a game looks like this, I wish it would run at 120fps. There’s no way the hardware couldn’t handle that. For such a colorful title, it wouldn’t have hurt to have HDR as well.
The music, like everything else, was solid but forgettable. I think the ‘best’ part of it all, at least the highest quality compared to the rest, was the voice acting. It isn’t stellar, but it’s good enough that I never skipped the dialogue because of it. I only started skipping through because of how incredibly long some cutscenes could be.
The game is on both Xbox One and Series consoles with local and online multiplayer. There is no cross-platform system between Xbox and other storefronts, though you are good between Xbox console generations.
Wrapping Things Up
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate is a decent game. The Casey Jones & the Junkyard Jam DLC is worth it if you’re interested in the base title, though I’d only give it a full recommendation if you have a friend or three to play with.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Looks and runs ‘fine’
- Understands what makes roguelites work
CONS
- Too repetitive feeling by the full ending
