TMNT Rankings, Supplemental

Let's get the important stuff out of the way first: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is still a Bad Video Game for a couple reasons which I'll get into, but I cannot in good conscience have it at the bottom of the rankings anymore. In fact, it clears not just the Game Boy entries, but I will go a step further and say it clears the original TMNT on the NES and honestly, I don't think it's even close! I can't even be like "the TMNT soundtrack is better" because Out of the Shadows' strongest thing is probably its extremely hip-hop influenced soundtrack (and hey, remember T-U-R-T-L-E Power by Partners in Kryme from the end of the first movie? Because Out of the Shadows does!). I'm even tempted to rank it above the lone Gamecube game I vaguely remembered, but honestly I need to get a copy of that (through totally legal and legitimate means) and check it out again before I get too hasty about it.

Here's the thing: Since I wrote the article, I was tempted - taunted, even - by the fact that I have a copy of Out of the Shadows sitting in my Steam account. I was in fact like a day-one purchaser of the damn thing, which meant that I was running it on the hardware available at the time (aka an eMachine laptop that I had for college) and it did not run well. Better than it ran on the Xbox 360 (watch the Quick Look on this very website for evidence of just what a mess that game looked like on there) but probably not by much. I had a better frame rate, I'll tell you that for free. Anyway, I gave into my curiosity - was the game as bad as I remembered it being? Did they ever un-fuck the online multiplayer? and got my answers which were "no, not really," and "no, absolutely fucking not," respectively. Modern technology has also blessed us with things like Parsec, so while I couldn't play online multiplayer, I could dragoon my brother into playing the game's split screen co-op mode with me, and...

Okay, so hear me out: the promise of Out of the Shadows was, in essence, "what if Arkham Asylum combat but Ninja Turtles" and running under modern hardware at 1080p (because the game does not go higher than that), the combat actually feels good. My one complaint here is that it is too much like Arkham Asylum's combat, which is to say it is very slow and deliberate in execution, which does feel a little at odds with being super-cool ninja teens. That's less of a problem than you'd think though, because it's still shockingly fun, and all the pickups you can get add enough variety to it that the act of beating the shit out of the Foot Clan (and mousers) doesn't get old! I have had a great time. The level design isn't anything to write home about, but it funnels you from point A to point B with just enough little side-areas containing extra pickups and collectables to keep it from becoming monotonous.

This is also, however, where it gets dicy - and why the game still isn't rising that higher in the rankings. In one level, I got stuck - I needed to pull a lever to open a gate that would allow me to proceed and only got un-stuck because a turtle (Raphael) phased through a door that didn't open like it should've, which allowed me to pull the lever and proceed. The game also has a hacking minigame, which mostly you just use to get extra stuff but is occasionally required to move forward - and if you immediately thought "I bet the minigame didn't open a door like it was supposed to" you are correct. I beat the minigame twice and still no joy. I ended up reloading a checkpoint (which was fairly far back) and got through the door that way, which is not really what you want. It's still kind of a buggy piece of crap in that way! The game is still a pretty glaring missed opportunity, because with some more polish this would be a classic. Tweak the combat to make it a little faster, fix up the bugs, maybe make the online play actually fucking function, and we've got an excellent game on our hands! As it is, what we have is a curiosity that hey, if you happen to get your hands on a copy somehow, it's a fun little time-waster. Which is something I desperately wish I could say about what is now the new bottom of the rankings - no, not TMNT: Fall of the Foot Clan, it's....

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan

First thing's first, I mislabeled TMNT III as "Mutants in Manhattan" when it is actually called "The Manhattan Project," a title that is I guess slightly more descriptive as the plot of the game is "Shredder stole the island of Manhattan with Krang's spaceship like he's Carmen Sandiego or some shit." Alas, I'm not talking about the NES game which is something I will boot up and play again willingly, I am talking about the 2016 Xbox One/PS4 release that was Platinum Games' most B of B teams making maybe the worst piece of shit imaginable and was, in hindsight, probably another sign that Platinum Games was no longer a safe bet for a good game.

I can't even say that it is a piece of shit because the game is broken or buggy - it's just a chore to play! I grabbed a copy through, again, perfectly legal and legitimate means and was horrified to discover that playing it feels not-unlike doing my taxes, except doing taxes doesn't involve listening to the same character barks repeat twenty times in five minutes. Yes April, I'm aware I can go back to the lair to get supplies from Splinter, thanks. Gameplay involves running around the emptiest open environments imaginable waiting for April to tell you where you should go next, and then you go there and complete and objective (usually "fight some guys" but sometimes "fight some guys and carry this thing over to this other location) until a bar fills up and April tells you "I found the boss they're over there" and you go do a boss fight. Out of the Shadows' level design isn't anything to write home about, but at least it fucking has design.

The part where you make your Turtle of Choice punch enemies is the only good part of the game, and it isn't even that good! I complained about how the combat in Out of the Shadows needed to feel a little bit faster, and this does nail that sense of speed well enough, but combat encounters are just not satisfying enough and occasionally feature "guys who throw like five thousand explosives so you spend 90% of the time hitting the air recover button as you have once again been thrown into the sky" or my favorite, "guy on turret who never focuses on anything but whatever turtle you're controlling and also never stops a constant stream of bullets." It's not impossible, it's not even particularly difficult, it's just fuckin' annoying! Also I just don't like the design of the turtles in this one, they look like they are a little too close to having human noses and that weirds me out. Bebop and Rocksteady look good though, that's the one nice thing I can say about 'em I guess.

I didn't play any co-op for this one, because my totally legally obtained copy cannot do that, and I couldn't get around it with Parsec because it did not support local co-op. Not terribly surprising, but still a bummer. I bet if you could play with people online it might be slightly better, in the way that a lot of games are improved by being able to sit on voice chat with people. I was in fact in a voice chat with my brother when I booted this up, and my "oh no, this is really just the whole game" probably brought him some kind of amusement. I can't believe what a turd this game is. Like with Out of the Shadows I've got some kind of idea of what they were going for, but who the fuck thought "run around this too-empty environment until you run into a group of enemies, beat them, repeat until the boss shows up" was compelling? There's no sense of getting anywhere. It's deadly boring, and the combat isn't satisfying enough to make it the only thing you do. It's just open and empty and depressing. Truly this deserves the bottom slot on the ranking of TMNT brawlers I have played.

Let's not end this on a bummer, though.

Hey What if Hades but Ninja Turtles?

Like most of you, I support the good folks here at Giant Bomb dot com and that includes sometimes checking out the sites of their sponsors - in this case, Deku Deals. I used that website to look for some TMNT games I've had half an eye on, one of which was TMNT: Splintered Fate, which I happened to be able to pick up for a song (like 11€ or thereabouts). So I got it, and I played some and you know what I think I like it!

What is the game, you ask? Well, you read the heading to this section, right? It's a roguelike where you are the Turtles and because Shredder is Shredder, he's got some new portal technology hooking shit up to the astral plane or whatever. So he used that to kidnap Splinter, because he knew that would fuck with the Turtles, and also get them out of the way while he tries to.... I'm not actually sure what he's trying to do, I'm pretty early in the game but I assume "take over New York City" is probably like step one. It is operating in, I think, the IDW comics continuity, although that's just a guess based on some of the back and forth between Kurai and Leonardo (most notably that she alludes to him being a former Foot Clan lacky (which he was during the City Fall arc (I think) and also refers to Shredder as her "grandfather" which is, usually she refers to him as her father in other continuities when she is not just totally unrelated to him). This... isn't important, I've just been reading a lot of TMNT comics recently.

Anyway you are out to save Splinter, and also there's some Mysterious Spiritual Entity that keeps shoving you into a portal back to your sewer hideout when things get too tough (aka "whoops you died"). So far, so Hades. Where it stands out (to me, anyway) is that hey, you've got four turtles, right? Wouldn't it be neat to have all four turtles running around?

HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU. You can do that online, or you can do it with couch co-op! I myself have only played with one extra player, but I bet it's pretty good with four! Progression involves spending a couple different currencies for permanent buffs to stuff like your max health or whatever in between runs and a separate currency (scrap) that you spend in the run at the vaguely creepy shopkeeper's shop for stuff like temporary buffs or new powers or health. It's easier than Hades (even in single player - obviously having a buddy or two around makes boss fights even easier), the writing is good enough and I have really loved the character design in it. It's a nice One of Those that you can play with a buddy or three and hey, I'm a sucker for teens who happen to be ninja mutant turtles. It feels good to play, and (importantly) each turtle's got their own distinct style. I'd rank this one comfortably between Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time and Turtles in Time Arcade.

Okay That's That

Barring me getting my hands on any further TMNT brawlers (of which there are plenty), that should be the end of this ranking nonsense. I have been playing another TMNT game, but it is Tactical Takedown and if you want to know what I think about that one, you'll have to wait until I get around to doing end of year stuff. I like that one too! Big Hitman Go vibes, for me. Stay tuned for that one I guess! I'm gonna go do another run in Splintered Fate, see if I can't make it to the ol' Shredder.

I assume the final boss is Shredder, anyway. I mean, he's the dang Shredder, after all.