A very interesting look back on this game since its the one that really set the trends of the 7th gen for 3rd person shooters for the most part. It feels a lot more like a 6th gen adventure game than you probably remember compared to the later installments. Way more rough around the edges than I ever realized back in the day. The framerate is awful, the visuals flicker and blur all the time thanks to unreal 3, its buggy as fuck. But the online still works in 2024 which i couldn't believe initially. Its charming in how earnest a lot of the shit in this game is. A bunch of stuff feels like it was put in there because the devs thought it was cool as hell and you know what, i agree. Gears is cool and don't let anyone tell you otherwise

genuinely baffled why so many people have rated this game so highly
i love tmnt as much as the next guy, particularly 03, and it is nice essentially revisiting the first season through this game
but the game just
sucks
i played through the game as leo, and at first, all seemed well. the combat, while simple, seemed satisfying enough. you got a light attack to do combos, and a heavy attack to knock back enemies. a button to knock enemies into the air, a button to throw shuriken, a button to jump and a button to dodge/dash. simple. when you're going through the sewers or the streets fighting common mousers or purple dragons that dont put up much of a fight, the game is fine. getting combos can be a tad strict, but since theres no benefit to them besides score (and who ever cared about score in any game outside of the arcades lets be real) it's not much of an issue. the game's not devil may cry, you dont need to worry about getting an S rank at the end of each stage. and as you go through the game you slowly realize.... this is it, this is all the game is. go through the level, beat like 3-6 enemies at a time, walk forward, repeat. spam light attack 3 times, dash, repeat. dont even worry about the other buttons, they're useless until the game starts giving you annoying flying foot ninjas. bosses, however, force you to deviate from this strategy... with some exceptions, you typically need to take little potshots at them, widdling them down over several minutes and then pray the level ends there when youre on your last plick of health, or for the level to give you a healing item before more enemies pop up. the bosses in general are just really annoying to deal with, especially the ones the game expects you to fight multiple times. i dont even wanna get into them, but they are just really really bad bosses. also for some reason the game has a lives system. i dont know why they did that, but it becomes especially annoying later on when you're dealing with annoying boss after annoying boss and so on. so thats it, thats the game. repetitive, overly simplistic combat and then a crappy boss, rinse. repeat.
good gameplay and music at least, and the visual style really captures the vibe of the show aside from the very off-looking character models. also you can play as casey jones so thats always a plus.