Today I am checking out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Wrath of the Mutans! I am a massive Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan and have been for over 30 years at this point! When I got my NES for Christmas in 1990, I got the Teenage Mutant “Hero” Turtles set and that was what swayed me on an NES over a Master System. If you check out my Top 5 SNES Games article, you will see that Turtles in Time is my number one game. There have been many great Ninja Turtles games over the years, most recently the epic Shredders Revenge (check out my review of the Dimension Shellshock DLC) and we now have a new game… well kind of new.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Wrath of the Mutants is based on the 2012 TMNT series. In my humble opinion, despite being a kid of the 80s, that is my favorite incarnation of the Turtles. We already have two games released based on that and as the series has been off the air for many years, Wrath of the Mutants is a strange release, but I am not complaining. This was originally an arcade game made by Raw Thrills who are kind of keeping the arcade scene going these days. With the Turtles riding high on a wave of popularity right now thanks to the Mutant Mayhem movie, The Last Ronin comic book, and all the nostalgia, it was decided to bring this arcade game home.
Let me start by saying if you are expecting something of the substance of Shredder’s Revenge, you are going to be extremely disappointed. The best thing I can compare, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Wrath of the Mutants to is the Turtles in Time: Re-Shelled that Ubisoft put out during the Xbox 360 era, but that game actually had more content. With this game, you have five stages which if you complete, you unlock the final showdown with Shredder. There is no story, no cut scenes, and nothing that ties things together. You just pick a level, play through it, get a high score, and then move on to the next one. Even the ending is just pretty much still stock photos with the smallest amount of text.
The gameplay is shallow and like Turtles in Time: Re-Shelled, Wrath of the Mutants lets you attack in any direction. It is not like Turtles in Time or Shredders Revenge where you can move around the screen, but you always attack in 2 dimensions, here you attack in whatever direction you are facing. You only have one attack button and the game is a real button masher. As someone who loves old school arcade beat-em-ups, I found this to be fun, shallow, but fun. You can build up a Turtle Power meter that gives you a super attack and each Turtle’s is different for example, Mikey throws pizzas and Donnie uses his tech bo staff to electrocute people. You can also pick up tokens that will call in a buddy, Leatherhead, and Metal Head to clear the screen of enemies. This is neat, but I wish it let us take control of them, even if it is just for a few seconds.
Each stage has you making your way through it, beating up various forms of Foot Soldiers, mousers, and coolest of all, Squirrelnoids. You face a mid level boss and then an end level boss. You can beat a level pretty quickly, but the challenge comes from trying to get a huge combo and a high score. It plays decent enough, but you can feel the arcade roots as there are many cheap hits in this game, sometimes it is like no matter what you do, you are taking a hit. If you grew up playing classic arcade beat-em-ups, I am sure you will get a kick out of this. However, I could easily see why some people may be appalled that they are asking over £20/$20 for this due to how shallow an experience it is. For me, a huge part of the fun with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Wrath of the Mutants will be going for that Platinum Trophy, but one of them is to finish a level with four players and it is local co-op only so you need four controllers or you cannot get the Platinum! That kind of stinks to be honest with you.
To be fair, I think that TMNT Wrath of the Mutants delivers on what it promised. It brings this rather obscure arcade game home that otherwise would have been left and lost in the arcades forever. As a fan of the Turtles and as someone who collects the games, this is awesome. However, if I am being brutally honest, there is probably not enough here for anyone other than die hard Turtle fans, especially at the asking price.