The Good
- A throwback to the best classic beat-em-up arcade games.
- Terrific graphics, character design and environments that add to the humor and action.
- Variety of weapons to pick up from your defeated enemies.
- Level up your Turtle and unlock trophies by hitting key goals.
- Well crafted old-school arcade music and sound effects.
- Loads of moves and combos.
The Bad
- No multiplayer/co-op functions.
- Game is far too short.
- No pause menu – So you can’t quit out of a level or change any options on the fly.
- An out of character move has the Turtles committing a crime by destroying parking meters to steal the money inside. Very un-heroic dude! This ain’t Grand Theft Turtles.
The Story
With their arch nemesis, The Shredder, finally defeated the Turtles' family ties are being strained as they begin to grow apart. It's only when evil multi-millionaire, Maximilian Winters, enlists the Foot Clan to help resurrect a bunch of ancient stone warriors/monsters. Now the Turtles must learn to work together again, as a team and a family, to defeat the baddies by putting Shell to Foot!Features
- Power-up and summon one of your brothers to help in battle, or leave a healing food.
- Three difficulty levels.
- Trophy wall to display your achievements, and challenge you to new ones.
- Walk around the Turtles underground home, with an interactive punching back.
- Splinter’s Challenges: Mini-Challenges to hone your skills.
- Shop for Gear and Chinese Medicine to upgrade your character skills and improve your health/healing.
The Game
Told in flashback, the Turtles, Splinter and April reminisce about the events of the film, mainly discussing the major battles that transitions into the gameplay. The Turtles are pitted against everything from thugs, members of the Foot Clan, robots and ninjas, plus boss battles against ancient monsters. The gameplay features old-school side-scrolling action in both look and feel, almost as if a lost classic arcade game was just discovered.
Each level has you moving continually to the right, up until you reach the latest group of goons. Then the screen remains static until you’ve beaten the stuffing out of your enemies using a surprisingly large number of movies and combos. Once defeated, opponents with weapons will drop them, allowing you to grab items such as bats, swords, bombs and throwing stars, and use them against the next wave of creeps.
Between each level you hang out at the Turtles’ lair which is equipped with an interactive punching bag, a trophy room that displays your achievements, and your guru, Master Splinter, who sends you out on missions. Your home also leads to the street where you can go and buy upgrades and participate in Splinter’s Challenges, a series of mini-games that improve your skills.
The biggest disappointment is the length of the overall adventure, which I easily powered through from beginning to end while waiting at the mall for my girlfriend to finish shopping (about an hour and a half). Each of the seven levels fly by, and just when it feels like your getting started, you’ve already hit the final boss battle. Once completed the game tells you to retry at a different difficulty, but that hardly makes it a longer game. It just means you’re replaying the same game over again with enemies that take a few more (or less) hits to defeat.
With such a classic look and feel and with the enormous popularity of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game (which has recently made a comeback on Xbox Live Arcade) it was surprising that Ubisoft opted-out of including a multi-player function. Instead you play each level as a single Turtle and can call upon one of your bros to help out for a few seconds once you’ve reached enough power-ups. Although he can help out when you’re low on power and in a bit of a jam, sometimes he stands away from the battle, swinging at the air before he bounces off the screen again. Your bro can also help if none of your enemies are around by leaving you a tasty snack that will replenish your health.
With all of this classic arcade talk, don’t make the mistake that the Game Boy Advance version of TMNT is just for old-school gamers. This is another example of the GBA game far outshining its Next-Gen console and handheld counterparts. Anyone who enjoys action gaming will have a blast with the Turtles, leaving you wanting more.
Parents' Guide
TMNT has been rated E10+ Everyone 10 and older by the ESRB. It contains fighting, weapons and cartoon style violence. Characters get hit and fall down, but there are no fatalities, nor is there any blood.
On a positive note, the game exhibits the TMNT trademark, family togetherness. Although they go through their own separate angst (after all, they are teenagers) by the end they realize how important family is.
The portion to watch out for is where you can destroy parking meters to steal the money inside. An unnecessary addition, plus very un-TMNT type of behavior, which I’m surprised was put in the game. This is an action the Turtles would beat-up a criminal for, not participate in themselves.
Trivia
You may already know that the first incarnation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a comic book, but did you know that it was a self-published title that creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Larid put out themselves? In 1984 they set up a table at a local comic convention and quickly sold out of the first print run. A mint condition copy of that first printing is now worth over $1,000.00.
Also, the TMNT film director Kevin Munroe is no stranger to the world of video games. He previously directed and co-wrote the current-gen console game Freaky Flyers.
