Hand-on with TNMT: Shredders revenge at PAX East

The past few years Dotemu has done its very best to nestle itself snugly in the depths of wherever my nostalgia button rest. With great remakes and re-imaginings of games such as Wonder boy , Wind jammers, Metal slug Tactics, Street of Rage 4 and so much more the company has established themselves as a bit of an authority when it comes to these type of games. When they announced a new Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles which is pretty much a spiritual sequel to TNMT: Turtles in time from a solid 3 decades ago , I knew it would be in good hands. And with the success of the recent release of Streets of Rage 4 expectations for Shredders Revenge are high.

This new Teen Turtle brawler action is being developed by Tribute Games in partnership with Nickelodeon and it is all too clear that they are fans of the old classics. Once again they bring Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael as for the player to kick some shell, but they also add new iconic characters to play with such as Master Splinter and April O'Neil the reporter with hard hitting questions and even harder hitting fists.

The game is a hearty mix of modern game design mixed with beautiful high resolution pixel art packaged in a side scrolling bear-em-up game that mirrors the designs of the previous side scrolling games from the late eighties and early nineties. We took a seat on a comfy sofa and booted up the demo jumping right into the action and were quickly captivated by the game's looks and gameplay.

Each fighter feels unique and comes with their own moves , taunts and special abilities. AS before pizza's are there to refill your health or boost your attacks with some spicy combos and you can play with up to four players simultaneous, making this game ready for some real fun co-op afternoons. The design has tons of homages some of which are easier to spot then others. One cool moment I experienced is when I grabbed a footclan soldier and threw him against the screen breaking the fourth wall. A move that was prominent in Turtles in Time.

Despite leaning on nostalgic moments, the game does not seem to be afraid to take lessons learned overtime in game design and brush up the game with some quality of life design decisions that just feel good and make sense. 

One such change is the use of the power attack. Even as a big fan of Final Fight ( only the best street brawler ever made) the use of this power attack would drain your life. A trade off that was often hard to justify unless you were in a real pickle, but otherwise useless. In TNMT:Shredders Revenge this move uses up energy of a separate bar instead of your health and the bar is refillable. A few taunt moves and you are good to go. Of course you have to be careful when to time those because the taunt leaves you defenseless for a bit and could cost you health or a life. The balance works well enough to not make it a spammable attack , but still be useful and fun to use. Another welcome addition is that of a sorty of auto-lock causing your attacks to hit more and not have you whaling in the air because you are slightly off on the pane.

The game is set to be released this summer on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch and PC. It will include the original voice actors for from the animated series as well as some original villain actors as well making the game feel like a Saturday morning cartoon. ( yes kids we only had Saturday mornings for ourselves). There are various special physical editions for sale right now as well so if you have been nostalgic or are just a fan of the Turtles you might want to check those our online or at your local retailer.

 

About the writer: DadGeek (Rob) is the co-founder of GeeksVsGeeks. He is a product of the eighties and never let go of his geek interest and hobbies no matter how often someone told him to stop. His love for gaming and all things geeks has been part of his parenting style and permeates throughout the whole family. A family of Geeks vs Geeks