Cowabunga, it is

I’m a pretty big turtles fan. Have been since I was a kid growing up in the early 90’s. Konami made some of the best TMNT games ever made with Turtles in Time being the apex of the beat ’em up genre. Unfortunately, Turtles in Time was the last great TMNT game…and that was released on the Super NES. That’s how long I’ve been waiting for a good game in the franchise. Well, the wait is finally over. Shredder’s Revenge takes what I loved about Turtles in Time and expands on it.

Shredder’s Revenge is just like the other beat ’em ups from yester year. Players choose a character, go from left to right beating up enemies. People know where they’re getting into here. Players can also team up with others via local or online play to beat the Foot Clan back underground.

MSRP: $24.99
Price I’d pay: $24.99
Platforms: PC, Switch, PS, Xbox

There is a full story mode that legitimately lasts as long as two full fledge beat ’em up games. Each level filled with tons of TMNT references, challenges to complete, and collectables to grab. Every stage, character, and enemy is colorful, vibrant, and animated with some fantastic visuals. A lot of care was taken to make sure this game felt both new and familiar to the old arcade classics.

Doing challenges and helping out NPC’s like Vernon and the Punk Frogs will give characters points that go towards leveling up that particular character. Leveling up gives the character more health, more stocks in the super meter, or more lives. With a total of seven characters to play as, there’s a lot of level up here. Each character has their own style and attributes. Of course, my first playthrough was with my man, Donnie, but I tried out the other characters and saw that they each had their strengths.

What makes the entire package great is the gameplay. It is superb. The controls are tight, the combos are fun and easy to pull off, and with co-op, players can both assist and combo attack. There are a ton of options for attacks considering this is really only a three button game with the fourth reserved for jumping. I could dodge attacks, follow up with a combo, or launch an enemy and take to the air with a string of air combos. I really felt like a badass ninja racking up 100-hit combos with ease.

If there were a few issues I had with the game, they would be minuscule. It does irk me that every time I start up the game it has to show me how to play. Granted, I can hold a button to skip that, but after booting this game up 10 to 15 times, that just made me sigh. One issue I did have was trying to play co-op with a friend. We couldn’t actually invite each other to our private game, but we were able to create an open game and my partner was able to just find my session. Hopefully, this is just because the game wasn’t released when we tried this and will be addressed during launch. The only other issue I have was with the challenges some of the the levels offered. Many of the challenges were simple, yet took effort to do. “Throw five enemies at the screen” or “Avoid falling into pits” that’s obtainable. But “Don’t take damage throughout the entire level including the boss fight at the end” is a tall order and one challenge I will never complete, and there are multiple of these throughout some stages.

The small issues aside, Shredder’s Revenge was the fan service I needed. The music feels like it came straight out of a 1994 arcade machine, the visuals look like it too, but with some great design choices, and the gameplay is just as smooth and fun as it always was all those years ago. If you’re a fan of TMNT, this is a no-brainer. If you enjoy a good beat ’em up or have had the itch to try out something like Streets of Rage 4 after beating it, you won’t find a better game to dive into. This is one for the books, guys.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.