The game takes us back to the golden era of classic side-scrolling beat 'em up games, seamlessly capturing the essence of the beloved classic games and arcade titles like Streets of Rage. With only a brief glimpse, it's evident that this game is a true homage to the Turtles' gaming legacy.

Visually, Shredder's Revenge nails the retro aesthetic, boasting vibrant pixel art that evokes nostalgic memories of our favourite TMNT adventures. The attention to detail in character animations, environments, and enemy designs is exceptional, immersing players in a world reminiscent of their childhood gaming days.

The game's soundtrack deserves special mention, as it flawlessly captures the essence of '80s and '90s arcade tunes. Each track complements the action-packed gameplay, enhancing the overall nostalgic experience.

With the problems that come with modern games such as padded levelling for characters to unlock multiple abilities and collectables spread across the world these aspects do not strafe away from the main purpose of fighting as the turtles.

From the looks of it they're still continuing to work on this game with a new DLC coming and im very excited to see what it brings, The original games story is short but the replayability with friends or even solo is there to allow endless amounts of fun and chances to play all characters on the roster

If you ever see this on sale and want to experience a classic feeling game brought to the modern time alone or with friends, This is the one.

Minha primeira review pra um jogo excelente no que se propõe, zerei ele em dois dias com o meu irmão, vi algumas pessoas falando que era muito curto mas pra mim foi perfeito o tempo de duração, pois o jogo tem um ótimo fator replay.
Não sou tão fã das tartarugas ninjas, mas com esse novo filme chegando esse jogo me deu uma saudade do desenho que passava na Nickelodeon lá por 2012.
Eu amo beat em up, ainda mais com esse pixel art lindo, que bom que esse jogo ganhou todo esse reconhecimento.
Só que ele não me ganhou ao ponto de eu tentar a platina por mais fácil que fosse, decidi não estragar a experiência

True arcade fun.

I'm pretty far removed from both my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles days and my arcade days so I was lost in a few different ways while playing. But I was still able to mash my way through the arcade mode campaign. I sampled all three turtles and April through my playthrough. They were all good fun but I think I'd have had even more fun with an arcade pad. I tried to dig out my arcade stick for the last few levels but then soon found out it wasn't compatible with the PS5 version of the game. So I pushed through the pain. It's just that good of an out and out arcade game that it didn't feel right on a gamepad.

But still.

I beat it. I had fun. I want pizza.

I will definitely grab the PS4 version and play with my arcade pad next time around to truly enjoy it for what it is meant to be.

Cowabunga!

Played from – to: (2022-06-22 – 2022-06-26) – PC keyboard.
‣ 7.5/10 – Bet this game is a blast with multiplayer.
‣ Game Audio / Soundtrack - 8/10
‣ Graphics – 9/10
‣ Atmosphere – 6/10
‣ Main Story / Characters – 5/10
‣ Side Activities / Exploration – 4/10
‣ AI – 9/10
‣ Ragdolls / Physics – 10/10
‣ Movement – 5/10
‣ Voice acting – 7/10
‣ Combat – 9/10
‣ Thoughts: To most this game will be a nostalgic trip, because in its design it tries to capture the old school arcade gaming memory triggers. However, I was one of those gamers who grew up on a tad different games. I didn’t have arcades to play on nor did I play games in the 90s due to no being born. My games were more like half-life and warcraft 3. In any case, I did play similar styled games on my school computers back when I was in 4th grade, so this style of gameplay wasn’t new or surprising. I have to say, after playing a plethora of open world games, shooter games and other kids of trendy games, Shredder’s Revenge is a breath of fresh air. This was a quick and fun experience. The combat here can get really rage inducing and both fun. If you are doing great, hitting combos left and right, you will have a blast. However, enemies here can be unfair and challenging, spamming annoying and life draining moves and simply putting your ass in the corner. The worst parts, sadly, were the boss fights. They are pretty good for first encounters, but they are all limited to a specific pattern of move sets. This became tedious and annoying when I had to fight Shredder. He had 3 or 4 different moves that he would cycle through in a pattern and all I had to do was survive and then smack him a few times. This made combat repetitive and simply boring because I couldn’t do anything unique, besides following a very specific gameplay narrative the game painted. Overall, Teenage Ninja Turtles is a fun, whacky experience if you have a few free evenings in your calendar. Also, it was apparent that playing this game with friends is the only right way to move forward. Soloing this is possible and rather easy, however a big essence of what this game tried to will be lost on single player.

Cowabunga!

Tendo sido uma das muitas crianças que cresceu assistindo os desenhos das Tartarugas Ninja e jogando os jogos de fliperama, eu não aceitaria menos do que uma ótima experiência, e foi exatamente isso que o jogo entregou.

Esse jogo é uma carta de amor à história multimídia das tartarugas.

The TMNT beat em ups were formative for me when I was really young. I barely watched the show, but I loved the multicolour foot soldiers emerging from the environment, I liked the strangeness of the environments and bosses, and it was one of the first games I remember playing cooperatively with others. The arcade efforts looked better, but I think I prefered the deliberate, almost eerie quality of the NES titles, brought about by the more abstract visual style and slower pace.

This game utilizes the framework of the NES titles with the control and rhythm of Turtles in Time. It has a rounder, paler visual style, and more fanservice. The large majority of the enemies, levels, and boss fights are going to be recognizable to those who played the original beat em ups. Some boss fights, their moves and patterns, are highly reminiscent. It is a revival, a remake, an iteration.

It offers little that's new, but the most significant is a dodge roll I found myself relying on too much. There is a story mode with drip-fed upgrades, boring collectibles put in boring places, and a world map. It's just a slightly gussied up arcade mode, and it doesn't justify itself. The actual arcade mode, the collection of levels, is okay. There are a couple too many samey feeling stages in the back half, and again, most of the levels call back to efforts earlier in the series.

This will comfort and maybe even delight people who enjoyed the originals. It's easy to see the hard work that went into it, the style of the original games is faithfully reproduced, and while that's commendable in some respects, it all gives me a feeling of having been here before.

Growing up with the Super Nintendo, Turtles in Time was easily a Top 3 replayed game on there. Every year, my brother and I fell into an unofficial tradition of trying to blitz the famed beat’em up in one go, and regardless of our success rate, we always had tremendous fun: the strong hit detection and gorgeous sprite work fusing into a satisfying product.

Developed by Tribute Games, Shredder’s Revenge proves that that love wasn’t purely from nostalgia, playing like a spiritual sequel ripe with dead ringer aesthetics and story beats. As with most homages, though, the question one must ask is how much appeal it has beyond its target demographic, and on that front I’m regrettably a bit mixed: some facets are universal, others not so much.

Let’s start with the positives, the first of those being the aforementioned aesthetics. If you aren’t familiar with the original game, Turtles in Time (and its three predecessors for that matter) coasted on combining the OG cartoon’s art style with the pudgy modeling of classic 80s brawlers like Double Dragon and River City Ransom, and the result was a decidedly zestful world that clearly left an impression on tens of thousands of kids. Backgrounds were appropriately stacked depending on the level location, enemy NPCs beautifully garbed, and, best of all, characters were placed at slightly-turned angles, providing a pseudo-3D bulk which allowed gamers to admire the full breadth of their figures.

I bring up these details because Shredder’s Revenge has basically replicated them to a tee. Obviously, being a 21st century release, the visuals are far less grainy; however, that core motif has remained present, right down to the lemon-green vibrancy of the turtles and color-coded Foot Clan. Yet it is the additions concocted by Tribute Games which deserve the most praise as they showcase how to update a retro scheme without going overboard in pursuit of modernization (cough cough Re-Shelled). For starters, animations across the board have seen a significant facelift: whether it’s transitionary ones from stationary poses or dynamic movements, each is far smoother than any SNES game could ever be. Secondly is the implementation of pain expressions on enemies. Before, only the Turtles had large enough faces to distinguish displays of hurt; now, every single thug boasts unique body responses and wincing eyes should you strike them. Lastly are the inclusion of colored hit splats to indicate, well, hits on either yourself or others. Some may find these to be a bit too comic booky, but considering the letterhead origins of the Turtles, I’d say they’re appropriate and consistently layer your attacks with visceral viscosity.

Of course, you can’t mention attacks in a fighting game without talking about the sound effects, and this is yet another area where Shredder’s Revenge has significantly improved upon its progenitor. Punches, whacks, body slams, and more have all been synchronized with an appropriately arcadey din that concurrently packs oomph and nostalgic glee per a blow. While it’s unfortunate that more effort wasn’t put into diversifying each of the Turtles’ weapons, enemies at least get some variety, and I was pleasantly surprised whenever I encountered an attack that wasn’t pure mano-y-mano. And that’s a great segway to the gameplay, which is your standard beat’em up scheme of memorizing combos and enemy patterns to wrack up large points. Though you get the occasional wrench thrown in as far as a special archetype needing a specific strategy, the lion’s share of encounters are as slick and enjoyable as they were in their predecessors. Heck, efforts have even been made to redress complaints of TMNT IV, such as it being far easier to toss enemies, as well as removing the HP drain of the super attack (though at the cost of needing to build-up to it).

Unfortunately, while those are evergreen positives, I feel the following aspects of Shredder’s Revenge will limit its appeal to non-genre enthusiasts, beginning with the runtime; this is a very short game. It took my brother and I about 3-4 hours to beat the campaign, and though there’ll no doubt be repeat playthroughs, even three of those wouldn’t justify the $25.00+ asking price. I know some people will contend that this is about the length Turtles in Time was, which also came with a higher-priced cartridge at launch; however, the difference is buyer preferences and game production have radically changed since the 90s, meaning customers want equal bang for their buck and developers are no longer impeded from having to shove an arcade ROM into a consumer-friendly package respectively. Now, to be fair, a DLC called Dimension Shellshock is set to be released later this year, and, if it’s a free update, Shredder’s Revenge will be better priced (that said, a strong part of me believes it will come with its own MSRP).

Next on the negatives is the voice acting which, though heard in limited bursts, just isn’t good. I understand they brought back the 1987 cast, but the brutal reality is numerous incarnations of the IP have been released since then that feature better performers. I know fans will counter that Turtles in Time was most influenced by the initial serial and therefore warranted having those leads, both of which I respond with one, Turtles in Time actually took influence from multiple pieces of media (including the comics and movies); two, those VAs are much older now and consequently unable to sound like young adults, and three, Turtles in Time didn’t even have them! The unsung actors back then held even less screen time than here, but I honestly found their intonations much better than the few out-of-place garbles you’ll glean in Shredder’s Revenge. It genuinely reminded me of the voice acting of the NPCs in Skyward Sword, and yes, that’s a bad thing.

The OST is another aspect I don’t believe will be liked by newcomers. On the plus side, it’s a blatant love letter to the SNES score, with Tee Lopes doing a phenomenal job echoing those upbeat, electronica riffs Harumi Ueko famously composed in mimicry of the arcade cabinet (albeit with more vocal tracks). On the downside, it’s music that feels outdated given the decline of arcade corners (at least in the US), with such tunes more befitting for an EDM concert than a video game these days. I don’t know, YMMV as always.

My remaining critiques with Shredder’s Revenge aren’t things I believe will impede newer generations, but smaller qualms as a whole. In the graphics department, for example, I wasn’t a fan of a couple of the enemy redesigns: don’t get me wrong, the vast majority of villains are transposed well here, but Baxter, the Pizza Monsters, and especially Slash look lame compared to their counterparts in TMNT IV. Gameplay-wise, a minor experience system was thrown in to encourage replay value via completing collectables and optional objectives. Acquiring these unlocks new features for each character like a special move or increased health, but because points aren’t divvied, you end-up having to semi-grind to build up the remaining party members. It reminded me a little of the older Pokemon games before Exp. Share was made natural, which isn’t good, especially since you can’t switch between individuals after death the way you could in the OG game.

On the topic of the characters, attempts have been made to actually distinguish each persona via three stats: range, speed, strength. And while they’re actually noticeable in the field, you’ll quickly realize how little strength matters versus the other two attributes, meaning strength-focused heroes like Raph and Master Splinter end up feeling handicapped compared to the others.

If I can end on a positive note it’s that the story, while little more than a glorified chase scene, is more coherent than IV’s episodic format. I particularly liked how a few of the antagonists made recurring appearances over being one-and-done, which leant to a sense of cohesion.

In conclusion, I am definitely biased in favor of Shredder’s Revenge due to it recreating and building upon the classic formula many of us SNES owners cherish from the 90s. So much effort went into the craftsmanship that you can’t help but admire Tribute Games for their passion. It pains me then to say that some of those elements simply haven’t aged as well as I wish they would have, and combined with the short playtime, you may want to think a little before purchasing it.


NOTES
-I had a couple of performance issues, including lag periods and buttons not responding to presses, though I’m confident this is purely an issue with the Switch version.

Gave up on this after getting to the final boss. Combat is reasonably fun against most of the regular enemies, but basically all the bosses are essentially uncomboable. With the surprising exception of Shredder in the penultimate level, they basically rotate through simple invulnerable-vulnerable phases, with generally unengaging attack patterns. Only a few are interesting in their own right. Most are boring, made aggravating by the presence of adds.

Strongest point in its favour is the story mode basically acting as a chapter select for the arcade mode. That's undermined by including a level system. "Level your favourite turtles up to level 10 so you get full access to supermoves" oh yeah no thank you.

At least it's pretty.

Jogos desse gênero nunca foram a minha praia, mas eu me diverti bastante nesse, do início ao fim.

É um ótimo jogo pra se jogar com a mente desligada. Dê voadoras e pontapés em todos que aparecem na tela, siga em frente, enfrente um boss, repita o ciclo.

A trilha sonora incrível e a arte muito bonita do jogo complementam a experiência, que é indiscutivelmente muito mais divertida se compartilhada com um amigo.