Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge Review

No matter how many games I own for my home console, it’ll never stop the enjoyment of heading into an arcade and spending my change on a few game machines. The pure excitement you get from standing at a machine trying your absolute best to make that money last you longer is something home consoles will never be able to replicate. Here comes Shredder's Revenge...

Out Of The Sewer, Into The Streets

There has been however, several arcade style games that have made their way directly to home consoles, most notable being Streets Of Rage 4 and Battletoads. These side scrolling beat-em-ups have found a decent amount of success through their addictive combat and stylised graphics. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredders Revenge attempts to replicate that success, with smooth and simple combat and a gorgeous retro bit graphics style, though the short playtime may not make everyone happy.

Based on a 1987 animated series, Shredders Revenge follows a simple plot. The turtles’ nemesis Shredder rounds up the best villains in New York in an attempt to create a weapon that will stop the Turtles and take over the city. The story isn’t really important, as it mainly acts as an opportunity to string all the levels together coherently enough for the players to follow, which it does fine enough, bringing plenty of classic villains that players must defeat.

A Huge Cast Of Characters

In total, there are 7 playable characters in Shredder's Revenge (one is locked at the start), these include the four turtles, their mentor Master Splinter, and the reporter April O’Neil. Each character has a surprising amount of depth and variation for a beat em up, and you’ll no doubt want to play as them all to find your favourite playstyle. Michelangelo is super quick with his Nunchuku, but has very little range requiring the player to get up close and personal with enemies. Donatello has a long range with his staff, but is much slower than his counterpart. Each character has a flurry of combat moves, some of which can be strung together to create awesome combos.

Each character features some really nice animations for their movement and attacks, and you really do appreciate them. Each attack feels meaty and the animations string together very nicely. Every playable character have different animation and attacks so each one you play feels different, though, maybe not different enough to convince players to play through the game multiple times.

The enemies you face have a great variety to them, and each level introduces more tougher foes. From the simple henchmen to the laser wielding stegosauruses, you’ll no doubt find that one foe to absolutely dread to go up against. The attack patterns can sometimes get a bit chaotic, and sometimes outright impossible to not die against. But it’s a visual feast throughout, and has that ‘one more attempt’ grip on the player.

There’s a boss battle in each of the 16 levels, and each are equally as fun to go up against. Boss battles are a staple of beat em ups, and the Mutant Turtles have a crazy cast of foes to fight against. You’ll have to be dodging a lot more attacks than you’re usually used to in a beat-em up, as missiles, lasers and fists can attack you from all angles. It’s frantic, its sometimes messy, but it’s a lot of fun.