It has been a bit over a yr since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem arrived in cinemas, and loads has modified for the heroes in a half-shell. Shredder’s Revenge has welcomed not one, however two DLC packs, THQ Nordic has introduced a Final Ronin adaptation and, in 2024 alone, the Change has already landed a pair of latest TMNT releases. Briefly, when Outright Video games and developer A Heartful of Video games introduced they had been engaged on a tie-in to the 2023 film, our response was one thing alongside the traces of, “Yeah, that sounds about proper.”
One yr on, and we’re fairly frankly impressed at how formidable that tie-in turned out to be. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed packs a complete follow-up story into its 15-hour runtime with great voice appearing and way more Persona (sure!) affect than we ever would have anticipated. It’s extremely a lot not with out its flaws — the fight is repetitive, the plot feels bloated, and the efficiency on Change repeatedly strikes at a snail’s (or ought to that be turtle’s?) tempo — but it surely does goal for one thing barely completely different, and that deserves reward.
For many who have seen the 2023 movie (and if you have not and do not wish to know what occurs on the finish, look away now), Mutants Unleashed takes place proper the place its supply materials wraps up. After Leo, Raph, Mikey, and Donnie save New York and defeat Tremendous Fly, Mutants are shortly welcomed into society. However because the Fab 4 begin to expertise the thrill of highschool, mates, relationships, and hobbies, a bunch of Mutant newbies (or “Mewbies”) start inflicting uncharacteristic chaos, placing the kids’ new-found life-style and the reception of all mutants, on the road.
It is a neat sufficient set-up, and whereas issues veer dangerously into the realm of massively overstuffed by the third act (there have been three separate events by which we thought we had been achieved, just for a brand new mission to emerge), we appreciated it amongst the same old plot swathes of ‘the Turtles want to guard a society that hates them’ or ‘time-travelling aliens are inflicting havoc, once more.’
Working by means of the principle storyline follows a easy sufficient components: the Turtles have an goal to get to and a bunch of Mewbies stand of their manner. The fight is button-mashy sufficient that it may simply be performed with a youthful Participant Two (two-player native co-op is offered all through), however there’s room for some advanced combos because of 4 Turtle-specific ability bushes that you’re going to unlock alongside the way in which. The platforming facet of this ‘Motion/Platformer’ mash-up offers little problem, however, once more, it is a tremendous welcome to these new to the style, and there are a few collectibles in every stage to maintain even the well-versed mildly entertained.
The issue is that every one this grows quite repetitive. There are solely so many locales by which these missions happen, and after hitting them up a few occasions to free a captured mutant pal, steal a thingymajig or monitor down a whatchamacallit, the stream of ‘Y’-mashing encounters started to really feel like a chore. Mix that with digicam controls which might be cussed at greatest, and the gameplay resembles one thing nearer to the TMNT film tie-in to a few of the higher makes an attempt we have seen in recent times.
Luckily, and this is the place that ambition comes into play, Mutants Unleashed is extra than simply its fundamental story. The plot is the central thrust, in fact, however the sport employs a Persona-style Day/Night time cycle between the principle missions with a ‘Due Date’ countdown earlier than you have to dive into the following. On this downtime, every Turtle has his personal facet story which unlocks a brand new ability tree stage — Leo takes management recommendation from a younger entrepreneur, Mikey begins a podcast, Donnie teaches a child how you can arise for himself, and, our favorite, Raph involves phrases along with his anger whereas befriending a Paralympic-hopeful swimmer. Alternatively, all 4 set out on pizza supply time trials or dojo fight minigames. So long as there are days left in your subsequent mission, you are free to do as you please.
These facet missions have the fabric bonus of increasing the heroes’ skillset, however, extra importantly, they break up the cycle of button mashing and supply some much-needed character growth within the course of.
Every sequence is offered by its voice actors, with Mutant Mayhem’s teenage fundamental solid returning to lend every Turtle a contact of child-adjacent whimsy that made the movie so joyful. Significantly, after listening to these 4 of their starring roles once more, we’re baffled at how the heroes in a half-shell have been of their darkish/edgy part for thus lengthy. There are even some good meta-callbacks peppered all through, with the Turtles’ obsession over a beat ’em up sequence known as Sushi Sharks being a specific spotlight.
Sadly, and it’s a quite giant sadly, the sport’s efficiency on Change mars these in any other case probably touching moments. Each line of cutscene dialogue is adopted by a prolonged pause which even the quippiest quip from Mikey cannot overcome. The visible model, which resembled one thing near Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse within the film, has not translated properly to the sport, leaving every character with a useless look behind the eyes in most cutscenes and making them tough to trace in fight encounters, significantly with two-players on-screen without delay. Massive body drops are frequent all through, and we encountered greater than a handful of exhausting crashes which noticed the sport unexpectedly shut and left us to restart the extent once more.
And that is to not point out the load screens. These pop up earlier than and after every stage, cutscene, and placement change, and repeatedly run in extra of 40 seconds. A day-one patch was launched to cut back these occasions, however we discovered the modifications to be marginal and did not discover greater than a handful are available beneath 35 seconds.
Usually, this would not be the top of the world, however when the sport’s most interesting facet content material (which could quantity to a one-to-two-minute cutscene) is wrapped up in not less than a minute of gazing a pizza field auto-save icon, it is tough to seek out the keenness to dive in.
Conclusion
We would all the time quite see one thing goal excessive and fall quick than accept one other dime-a-dozen motion/platforming expertise, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed actually sits nearer to the previous. A Heartful of Video games has made some noble swings right here and a few of them repay – heck, no person anticipated the Persona mission construction in this TMNT sport. Sadly, all this ambition is overshadowed by efficiency points that make even its most approachable components really feel like a chore. It is a tremendous welcome for youthful followers eager to kick some shell after watching Mutant Mayhem, however this joint requires some critical scrubbing whether it is to stay as much as its big-screen counterpart.