This review contains spoilers
Small side-note: For some reason, Steam isn't showing up as a valid platform for this DLC on Backloggd, so I had to pick Switch even though I actually beat this on Steam.
By all means, this is a pretty bite-sized DLC. Perhaps I was expecting too much, but admittedly I was hoping there would be a second story mode campaign alongside the new Survival mode. That didn't happen, but this is still a pretty fun mode and a worthwhile addition to the game nonetheless. Plus, for only 8 bucks, you can't really go wrong.
The selling point here seems to be the playable characters. I haven't tried out Karai yet, but I was really looking forward to seeing Miyamoto Usagi in this game since I just started reading his comics about a year ago. Although he's a lot of fun to play, unfortunately I'm just not as good with him as I am with characters like Raphael and Splinter, so I had to swap to them to make much progress in Survival mode. Speaking of that mode, I'm relatively unfamiliar with roguelikes, having only really played Hades to the end (or, rather, one of many possible ends) and a tiny bit of Enter the Gungeon at a friend's house. From what I understand, the roguelike elements are quite light; you fight waves of enemies, and after beating a wave you have two portals with different powerups or benefits to grab. For instance, the Parasite perk lets you heal whenever you do damage for three waves, but it saps health from you if you aren't attacking enemies (it was barely noticeable for me though since I'm a pretty aggressive player in beat-em-ups). There's also some mutagen canister powerups that let you play as some of the bosses, specifically Bebop, Rocksteady, and Shredder. They're a lot of fun and very strong, especially since it works as a second health bar. The game has about seven dimensions, and you progress to the next one by collecting enough crystal shards. The shards are either very rare drops from enemies or obtained from going through a portal that has shards as its reward. One thing roguelikes are infamous for is punishment for dying, but thankfully the punishment here isn't all that bad since you don't really lose anything except for needing to start over from the first dimension again. You get permanent perks from leveling up, one of which gives you the ability to choose where you want to start at. You might think that feels like it eliminates the point of the roguelike, but, if you continue on after beating the intended final boss, you can't get back to exactly where you were (the dimensions are tied to "difficulty level" and a second harder run is just classified as Level 6+), so I guess that's still preserved. Also, the actual final boss was unfortunately a reskin of Super Shredder, but they did buff the fight so my complaints about the story battle against Super Shredder being underwhelming has been band-aided a little. Still only took me two tries to beat this new Super Shredder, though.
I think another big plus to this DLC are the skins you get. Unfortunately, they can't be used in Story mode as far as I know, but they do serve a really cool novelty within Survival mode. The different dimensions you traverse through are mostly based on specific parts of Turtle history, whether that be the obvious homage to their black and white comic routes or something more obscure like whatever Omnichannel 6 is meant to be. I'm a huge TMNT fan and I still didn't know what that was referencing, if anything at all. Regardless, the skins you unlock seem to be tied directly to these new dimensions you go to. There's also a good amount of skins you just get for free without needing to be unlocked and those are awesome too. Every character (except for Usagi of course) gets a skin based on the '80s live action TMNT movies, the 2003 TMNT cartoon, the 2012 TMNT cartoon, Rise of the TMNT, and the classic all-green Game Boy screen, respectively. As a huge fan of the 2003 cartoon in specific, I was really excited to see this, especially since it means characters like Splinter, Casey Jones, and Karai also got their 2003 versions. I wish I got to see Usagi's unlockable skins, but since I beat the mode almost entirely using Splinter I did get to see our favorite sensei rat's unlockable skins. He gets a black and white skin, a blue and white skin seemingly based on the screen of one of the Game Boy consoles (don't remember which one had that color combo), and an NES color pallet. These represent the Mirage comics dimension and the 8-Bit dimension.
Overall, I think this was a neat little addition to the game. Nothing too major, but the introduction of two new characters is appreciated and having a new game mode makes for more replay value. Survival mode wasn't all that interesting to me, but it did make for more beat-em-up action and I suppose that's all I could really ask for. Solid; earns 4 stars from me.
By all means, this is a pretty bite-sized DLC. Perhaps I was expecting too much, but admittedly I was hoping there would be a second story mode campaign alongside the new Survival mode. That didn't happen, but this is still a pretty fun mode and a worthwhile addition to the game nonetheless. Plus, for only 8 bucks, you can't really go wrong.
The selling point here seems to be the playable characters. I haven't tried out Karai yet, but I was really looking forward to seeing Miyamoto Usagi in this game since I just started reading his comics about a year ago. Although he's a lot of fun to play, unfortunately I'm just not as good with him as I am with characters like Raphael and Splinter, so I had to swap to them to make much progress in Survival mode. Speaking of that mode, I'm relatively unfamiliar with roguelikes, having only really played Hades to the end (or, rather, one of many possible ends) and a tiny bit of Enter the Gungeon at a friend's house. From what I understand, the roguelike elements are quite light; you fight waves of enemies, and after beating a wave you have two portals with different powerups or benefits to grab. For instance, the Parasite perk lets you heal whenever you do damage for three waves, but it saps health from you if you aren't attacking enemies (it was barely noticeable for me though since I'm a pretty aggressive player in beat-em-ups). There's also some mutagen canister powerups that let you play as some of the bosses, specifically Bebop, Rocksteady, and Shredder. They're a lot of fun and very strong, especially since it works as a second health bar. The game has about seven dimensions, and you progress to the next one by collecting enough crystal shards. The shards are either very rare drops from enemies or obtained from going through a portal that has shards as its reward. One thing roguelikes are infamous for is punishment for dying, but thankfully the punishment here isn't all that bad since you don't really lose anything except for needing to start over from the first dimension again. You get permanent perks from leveling up, one of which gives you the ability to choose where you want to start at. You might think that feels like it eliminates the point of the roguelike, but, if you continue on after beating the intended final boss, you can't get back to exactly where you were (the dimensions are tied to "difficulty level" and a second harder run is just classified as Level 6+), so I guess that's still preserved. Also, the actual final boss was unfortunately a reskin of Super Shredder, but they did buff the fight so my complaints about the story battle against Super Shredder being underwhelming has been band-aided a little. Still only took me two tries to beat this new Super Shredder, though.
I think another big plus to this DLC are the skins you get. Unfortunately, they can't be used in Story mode as far as I know, but they do serve a really cool novelty within Survival mode. The different dimensions you traverse through are mostly based on specific parts of Turtle history, whether that be the obvious homage to their black and white comic routes or something more obscure like whatever Omnichannel 6 is meant to be. I'm a huge TMNT fan and I still didn't know what that was referencing, if anything at all. Regardless, the skins you unlock seem to be tied directly to these new dimensions you go to. There's also a good amount of skins you just get for free without needing to be unlocked and those are awesome too. Every character (except for Usagi of course) gets a skin based on the '80s live action TMNT movies, the 2003 TMNT cartoon, the 2012 TMNT cartoon, Rise of the TMNT, and the classic all-green Game Boy screen, respectively. As a huge fan of the 2003 cartoon in specific, I was really excited to see this, especially since it means characters like Splinter, Casey Jones, and Karai also got their 2003 versions. I wish I got to see Usagi's unlockable skins, but since I beat the mode almost entirely using Splinter I did get to see our favorite sensei rat's unlockable skins. He gets a black and white skin, a blue and white skin seemingly based on the screen of one of the Game Boy consoles (don't remember which one had that color combo), and an NES color pallet. These represent the Mirage comics dimension and the 8-Bit dimension.
Overall, I think this was a neat little addition to the game. Nothing too major, but the introduction of two new characters is appreciated and having a new game mode makes for more replay value. Survival mode wasn't all that interesting to me, but it did make for more beat-em-up action and I suppose that's all I could really ask for. Solid; earns 4 stars from me.