Teenage mutant ninja turtles is a cultural phenomena at this point, a franchise that started as a series of comic books from 1984 and since then has been a staple of every generation since. The first game for the series was published in 1989 for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) by Konami who continued to release video game titles for the franchise for decades.
The latest in the franchise called TMNT: Splintered Fate was developed by Super Evil Megacorp, a primarily mobile games developer. They had released the game on all mobile platforms on May 4th of last year and did not get the downloads Super Evil would’ve liked and thus on July 17th of this year the game released on the Nintendo Switch
A Roguelike Twist on a Classic Franchise
The game is a top-down, isometric roguelike much like the renowned indie hit, Hades. At first glance it does show what the original inspiration was. The general gameplay loop is to clear rooms of different biomes, getting various power-up and/or advantages along the way to at the end of each biome to face the boss.
This is a welcome change compared to most other TMNT games which were beat-em-ups. The story starts off with the brothers in search of Master Splinter in a devastated New York City. Eventually finding out that the Foot Clan has kidnapped him and it’s up to them to bring him back.
The Core Gameplay Mechanics
All the turtles are playable with each character having a unique ability complimenting their signature weapon. For example, Leonardo has melee attacks with his dual katanas and is well complemented by his ability to throw shurikens as enemies. Donatello’s attacks with his staff are always a safe bet on runs, Michelangelo has his multi hit nunchucks to stun lock enemies and finally Raphael’s ability to grapple onto enemies to then land critical attacks with his daggers are extremely satisfying.
The bosses of each biome are different and unique enough and they do introduce changes to their movesets when enough runs are completed to make it still feel new and fresh.However that feature doesn’t do enough to make the next runs feel unique enough, the new movesets the boss gets is usually 1 or 2 new attacks or such while in Hades picking that difficulty setting makes the each boss of each biome completely change their movesets.
The progression is determined at the end of each run with the currency that was obtained to then spend on permanent upgrades on skills, attack damage, health etc. Some upgrades, on the other hand, require loot that is only available after defeating a certain boss, much like Hades.
The game also has multiplayer support, meaning two players can choose to play two different characters and clear each room together and go till the end. The game does at most times make you feel that it should be played with a friend as from the start the difficulty is high with a large amount of enemies introduced right from the get-go.
A Few Cracks Here And There
Testing out builds is a good experience but there is only so much that can be done when each character is only locked to their weapon only thus harking back to each run feeling repetitive, while in Hades each weapon itself has 5 versions and each having a unique trait or an entirely new moveset.
What is Generally missing here is variety or options in the amount of weapons, each Turtle only has his signature weapon only and no other weapons to choose from. Which from a lore perspective makes sense but at the same time it is an opportunity missed for something new and unexpected for the player to discover or experience.
What It Needs To Be Worth It
It is always said everywhere as a sort of defense that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. But here in terms of exchanging money for it, it is a safer bet to spend it on the original. Hades offers everything this game has to offer and more. Better story, better character interactions and choose-your-own-difficulty setting and most of all consistent performance.
TMNT: Splintered Fate on the switch is inconsistent in its performance with regular frame drops and at times hard crashes, while the autosave feature is a godsend to help significantly losing progression it doesn’t bode well if a crash happens in a crucial point in the game such as for instance a boss battle. What is ideal is the game getting gradual updates such as bosses getting new movesets or the playable characters having more than one weapon to play with.
