Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutants in Manhattan Review

Video games and movies often team-ups have a certain stigma… This doesn’t break it, our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutants in Manhattan Review.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutants in Manhattan (TMNTMIM) is a hack and slash game developed by Platinum Games and published by Activision. The Ninja Turtles are cultural icons started in the mid-late 80’s and continue to today. The Ninja Turtles are arguably one of the biggest franchises; second to I would say Star Wars. Not in their overall volume of sales, but in terms of mediums and reach, few come close. They’re on their 3rd long running cartoon, 6th feature film, 4th or 5th comic book incarnation. One thing the Turtles used to dominate, video games. They ruled the arcade with their hack and slash quarter sucker Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Then they ruled the NES with their stupidly hard Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and their port of the arcade game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II. There was also a third game that took place on a beach at first.

Then the big one that ruled arcades and SNES at the same time, the one with the Big Apple 3AM, the one that most people my age will agree is one of the greatest games of all time! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV Turtles in Time! It’s been pretty much downhill since. Nothing ever came close to capturing the joy of that game. The Gamecube ones are okay and have some cool features. The portable and mobile games never quite landed. Ubisoft made a passable 3rd person action platformer that had some parkour elements called TMNT, but the shallow character leveling and lack of co-op weighed it down.

So how does TMNTMIM stack up? Read the rest of our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutants in Manhattan review, or scroll to the bottom and watch the one minute review.

Story

TMNTMIM‘s story is broken up over 8 stages. The Turtles track down notable henchmen of Shredder and The Foot each stage, revealing more and more of the grander plot. The big plot being Krang invading the Earth. It runs parallel to the movies and takes a lot of history from the show. There are little side missions, but none contribute to the story. Overall it feels like they stretched an issue into a 3-hour movie. It’s not a bad story, but very poorly told.

Gameplay

Gameplay is where TMNTMIM has some saving grace. Platinum Games did put in some decent features like stealth killing and the ability to aim shurikens. Each Turtle has unique fighting styles and combos, as well as varying strengths and weaknesses. The camera work needs work. Also, the combos aren’t as fluid as they were on the Gamecube versions. It is a bit clunky, but it can be overlooked.

Mechanics

Minus 4 immediately for not having local co-op. The magic of Ninja Turtle games is local co-op. Being able to play with your friends, making them hold off the horde while you run to the bathroom is 75% of the fun! When your Ninja Turtle game has no local co-op, guaranteed it will not be good. The graphics are pretty good; it is a nice mix of movie and cartoon. However, a lot of environments seem the same and it is often hard to distinguish between objects, enemies, players, and general placement. The item system feels forced, and the level up system is needlessly complex. The game is close to being a decent game, but the mechanics never bring it together.

The Verdict

I want so badly to like this game. So much so, I’m probably padding an extra 2 points to the score. There are hints of greatness, but it never comes together. The story is somehow simpler than the 8-bit versions, the gameplay has some unique feature and overall appealing concept, but the mechanics never put it together. It’s like a 1st grader who tries really hard to read silently but whispers everything to himself. You applaud the effort, but the kid is ruining the lesson. Also, HOW DO YOU NOT HAVE LOCAL CO-OP FOR A TMNT GAME!?!? What the hell is wrong with you?

The best beat-em up, aside from nostalgic titles Turtles in Time, The Simpsons, X-Men, is Scott Pilgrim vs. The World The Game. Anyone trying to make a beat-em up, that needs to be your standard. I don’t care if you’re going side scroller or 3D. They did it right. TMNTMIM definitely didn’t. This is why I give Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutants in Manhattan 5.3/10

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutants in Manhattan One Minute – Review