Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

"This game defines the word 'redundant'."

When TMNT was announced for the next-gen consoles, nostalgia hit hard, remembering all the things that made this franchise so grand, however, this game is anything but grand. I really tried to like this game, I really did, but couldn't bring myself to do it with such a poor execution for gaming mechanics making one want to puke in their soup. So without further adieu, let's get this painstaking review over with.

Graphics-8/10
This is actually something the development team got done right, the graphics are very well done, the cell-shading really hits home in regard to the cartoon and over all comic book feel. Great cell-shading effects here, utilizing the pronunciations of sounds by pasting them on the screen, such as 'thwok, boom, whack, etc', these can however, conflict with gameplay at times, as they can roughly protrude over enemies and parts of the environments that you desperately need to see or it can be detrimental to your turtles life bar.

Story-3/10
Every Ninja Turtle fan could probably asses what the basis of the rehashed storyline is, but here's the low down anyway, the human can opener Shredder must be defeated, but before you get to Shredder, you have to face just about every single deviant and juvenile delinquents this side of the earth before you get to the showdown. It's pretty uninspiring, needless to say.

Sound-2/10
The second lowest part of this game. The sound while being crystal clear, has extremely bland background music comparable to or worse than any Steely Dan music you would want to forcibly be near to at any particular moment. The commentary between the Turtles and other numerous characters, be it in a cartoon cutscene or a normal one is right up on par with the gut-wrenching soap operas that are on during the day. What's even worse then these aspects of sound are the one liners from each individual turtle, you have to be subjected to during gameplay, more specifically, you hear these mind numbing lines right after you hit the strong attack, which you will be doing quite frequently in combat.

Gameplay-4/10
As I stated earlier, I really tried to like this game, but in the end, the combat just negated the decent aspects of this title.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are quite a force to be reckoned with, as they have very fast reflexes, fantastic martial ability in the plain of Ninjutsu, great use of weaponry, they back each other in every instance, and they pack power to boot. Well, not in this game..

Your main attacks consist of a weak attack and a strong attack that can be chained in different ways, but strong has to always follow the weak attack to be able to complete a chain or series of hits. There is an uppercut that can be followed up by either a strong or weak attack, the turtles also have shurikens to rely upon for long ranged attacks and come in a variety of three- regular, electric and explosive. Regulars barely accomplish chip damage, while electric stuns with a bit more damage, as where explosive can off quite a few thugs just with one placed throw.
They're last attack is the Genbu attack, which is probably the most entertaining aspect of this whole game. The tag attack is a pretty refreshing technique to accomplish between two Turtles, offering a nice touch in co-op.

This game is nothing short of being repetitive, what game isn't at times right? Well, this game is the pulitzer prize or the academy award winner in being lackluster in variety. It's understandable that Konami wanted to implement the classic button masher arcade we all liked, however, as time went by, a lot of us lost our simplistic taste and require the much needed variety to liven up gameplay. This is where this game drives into a nitro-glycerin plant carrying rocket fuel, the end result is just messy.

The whole core of gameplay is reduced to tagging the social misfits of society or your opponents in other words, with the same goddamn attack over and over again, hearing the same catch phrases repeatedly, good thing though is that the one liners can be turned off, the bad thing is that the shoddy gameplay mechanics are there to stay right with you until the end without any type of new and interesting move sets to kick the party into gear with excitement. Instead you use the intricate art the turtles have mastered over the years which is, weak, strong, or, weak, weak, strong, or perhaps, weak, weak, weak, strong series of attacks. This is as extensive as it gets, apparently Splinter has been neglecting the turtles of any new self-defense measures in quite sometime.

Speaking of lacking in self-defense, the turtles can't defend themselves by any means other then a dash attack or attacking back. No block button to be had, which is a loss to say the least, considering that thugs attack from all directions and can cancel your techniques at any time. Once they hit your turtle, the turtle has to take the beating until they decide to stop, hell, the dash is completely useless unless you have sufficient room to escape whatever situation you find yourself in, as the dash can be canceled by your enemies. If this was a sick joke and a cheesy harder difficulty setting they decided to thrown in for whatever reason, it works well enough to induce breaking anything that happens to be in your vicinity of the time you're playing this game. Another quick example of lack of self-defense in regards to the turtles, is that they can be floored in one hit by regular street punks. Since when did Splinter also seemingly halt strengthening and conditioning day for the fearsome four?

Enemy A.I is ridiculous, they tend to stand around, but in this infuriating gameplay, it's probably for the best considering the fact that when they start a combo, they damn well finish it, and anybody else is welcome to jump in and rack up some serious damage and high hitting combo against your turtle, yet the turtles can barely surpass the double digits combo-wise without tagging numerous enemies simultaneously, which happens to be ludicrous. It's always a test of stature when you happen to be trying to eliminate the opposition, canceled out of your combo by a simple minded pre-pubescent, punished severely by what seems to be a never ending combo by these under educated adolescents, while the foot clan is in the back throwing shurikens left and right and until you hit the floor and have to start all over again because you ran out of continues due to these criminals amassing homicide on the half shells in under five seconds. [end run on sentence/]

It's not necessarily without some fluid movement, but lacks in responsiveness and tight controls, as the turtles have terrible lag between moves significantly raising the chances of being pelted non stop with cheap tactics. Boss battles accompany themselves with very cheap maneuvers as well, sometimes the only means of defeating them are by tossing shurikens while you stand idly somewhere safe without being interrupted a quarter through your combo, this really basically applies to combat as a whole.

Replayability-2/10
No, just no. I found no redeeming quality, even with the unlockables/passwords that can't even aid in replay.

Over All, we have a very cheap A.I, shoddy mechanics, unresponsive controls, horrible lack of variety, and redundancy to the max with some extras that can't even boost any new motivation to pick up the controller and mentally prepare oneself for the repetitiveness that is TMNT.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 10/23/03