The 2017 arcade game, based on the 2012 animated TV series, finds a new home on modern day consoles as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants. Today, we’ll be looking at the Nintendo Switch version to see if its worth your hard earned coins, or if it should have stayed at the arcade.
Title:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants
Publisher:
GameMill Entertainment
Developer:
RAW Thrills / Cradle Games
Platform:
Nintendo Switch
Resolution:
1920 X 1080
Audio:
English
Subtitles:
English (White)
Local Players:
1 – 4
Online Players:
N/A
Install:
YES (2GB)
Our View:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is an enhanced home console port of the 2017 arcade game developed by Cradle Games and RAW Thrills, a side-scrolling beat-em-up based upon the 20212 Nickelodeon animated TV series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and is reportedly a game inspired by KONAMI’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time. Sadly, despite these credentials Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants delivers a rather subpar experience that will most likely only be enjoyed by hardcore turtle fans.
Interestingly this rather subpar experience isn’t due to poor performance, poor visuals, or even poor voice acting. In fact both the performance and visuals on this Nintendo Switch version are solid, and the voice acting (which uses the original voice actors from the 2012 TV series during gameplay) isn’t too bad either. Instead, it is the lack of functionality, and potential replay ability, that this game offers. Of course, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is a simple game, and is advertised as a budget release, but even budget releases include some of the basic functionality missing in this game.
As an example the maximum amount of credits (or continues) available in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is two per stage. If you run out of continues, then you’ll have to start from the beginning of the stage. There is no way to change that amount, nor does the amount increase if you fail a stage. This might not cause a problem when playing alone, but if you decide to play with four players then the stage might come to an end rather quickly. You’d expect an arcade game such as this to include unlock-able continues or give the player unlimited continues, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
There are other concerns that dampen the overall experience as well, such as the lack of a tutorial splash screen when you start the game (not needed, but would be helpful for newcomers), difficulty being tied to the save slot, no voice-over during the only cut scene in the game and (what feels like) delayed button input responses. Of course these concerns aren’t exactly game breaking, but its basic functionality that one might expect to see improved within the game.
For instance difficulty being tied to a save slot is an interesting (if not confusing) choice, as only three save slots are available and hard mode can only be unlocked by completing the game in normal mode. Once hard mode is unlocked you’ll need to use another save slot in order to access it. Additionally high scores earned on stages are not split between difficulty modes, and are instead merged into single stage related lists with scores isolated to each save slot.
More bizzarely is that characters displayed in the high scores list are not even playable characters, they are just listed to give the impression that it was that character who achieved the high-score. With a game that only has four playable characters this is to be expected, but when you see your characters icon appear next to the score it does make you wonder why those non-player character icons were added to begin with.
Despite these, potentially harsh criticisms, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants does expand upon the original arcade game and delivers it for a home console experience. I’ve not played the 2017 arcade game, but it is reported that it featured four stages and seven boss battles with the fourth stage being a collection of past boss battles and Shredder as the final boss.
This home console release of the arcade game meanwhile has six stages and thirteen boss battles, with the sixth stage introducing Super Shredder as the final boss fight. The stage formula of having two boss battles (except the final level) per stage remains the same, but it would’ve been nice if they had kept that arcade version of the final stage as an unlockable stage for beating the game. Still, it’s nice that they upped the amount of stages (and bosses) in the game compared to its arcade version.
That aside, the original arcade game featured the stages Sewer, NYC, TCRI and Shredder whereas this console released adds Amusement Park and Dimension X stages into the mix. These stages also add additional challenges in the form of background objects that need to be avoided, such as laser beams and roller coasters. The other stages meanwhile are rather simple by design, but Sewer does have a pothole that you can fall through – which is pretty fun to experience at least once.
With all that said and done what exactly is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants? Well it is a simple side-scrolling beat-em-up with Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael as playable characters. The story, while not explained until the end of the game, is to rescue April O’Neil from Shredder and defeat the Foot Clan.
To do this you need to play through all six stages, of which can be played in any order except the sixth stage. After finishing all stages you will be awarded a score, with this score appearing on both the in-game leader board and displayed on the stage select screen.
When it comes to actual gameplay if you’ve played Streets of Rage, The Simpsons Arcade Game or even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredders Revenge, then you’ll have a good idea on how to play. Simply use the analog stick to move your character, the Y button to attack, and the B button to jump. You can even press two buttons together to do a spinning attack. There is also a special turtle power ability, activated by pressing X,that can be used once the gauge underneath your health bar has been filled and will defeat all enemies on screen.
Pressing the Y button near objects, which are highlighted, will pick them up and you can throw these towards your enemies to deal damage. It’s also worth noting that each turtle has a slightly different style of attack, with turtle power showing each turtle’s unique personality (my favourite being Michelangelo).
There are also other items and abilities that can be used to assist you during each stage. At set points in each stage items will appear on the floor and these can include Shuriken, Ice Cream Kitty Box and Pizza Box. Naturally the results will vary, with Pizza Box replenishing health and Shuriken giving you a long distance weapon for a short period of time.
In addition to these items there are also support characters that can help you, which again only appear at set points in the stage, and once collected they will instantly appear in the stage for a single large scale attack. The combat items, and these support characters, will instantly defeat enemies and are based saved for those crowded situations.
Generally the controls for combat are simple and straightforward, but on this Nintendo Switch version of the game I did feel like there was some input delay. After pressing the corresponding button there would be a very brief delay before my character would react.
Majority of the time it wasn’t a cause for concern, but when it came to boss battles or multiple enemies on screen then it became difficult to react without getting hit. It is possible that it might be intentional, and a learning curve for this game, but to me it didn’t feel as responsive as it should have been. During boss fights this became problematic and it soon became a systematic event where you would attack, die, repeat until the boss is defeated.
Aside from the four playable characters, six stages, thirteen boss battles and a questionable leader board Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants doesn’t offer much, but thankfully this Nintendo Switch version does support single joy-con play. This means that those who have a Standard or OLED Switch console can easily play with 2-players, with each player having a single joy-con.
Additionally players can mix & match with different control types, so for our test we had 2 single joy-cons and a pro controller for a 3-player experience in a single stage. While this feature is supported it did take me time to set up, with the best results achieved during the character select screen.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is advertised as a budget release, but it’s not exactly budget material. A budget release, in my eyes, would either be a direct port of the original or priced appropriately, but this game is neither. The price is about the same as similar experiences (Streets of Rage 4, Shredder’s Revenge) which offer more content. Additionally, this game has also undergone changes from its original arcade outing to make it more appealing for a home console release, which means it’s not exactly a direct port of the original experience.
Instead the game feels budget in the literal sense, with limited functionality and limited gameplay. This is not exactly an issue, but with a playthrough lasting around 80 minutes and not much to do after that then it does raise some questions about who this game is aimed for. Ironically despite these complaints I did have fun playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants, I just wish it had more to give than a single round.
Overall Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is a limited, but relatively solid, experience that is geared towards fans of the TMNT franchise and those that enjoy simple offline side-scrolling beat-em-ups, but if you are looking for replayability, unlockable content and a challenge then you’d want to look elsewhere. It’s fun for a brief spell, and ideal for get togethers with friends, but there are better Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games out on the market. Fundamentally the game is OK, but it could have been a lot better and it’s a real shame.
Score:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is now available for the Nintendo Switchm PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC both as a phsyical and digital release. A code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
