When looking at iconic 90s franchises, are there any more turbulent and dare I say splintered than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? It seems that every couple of years someone comes along and either tries recreating former glories or reinventing the wheel with familiar faces to mixed results. This time, they’re lending their name to the risk vs reward world of roguelikes in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate.
Shredder Is Back Again, Again, Again
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate sees the Turtles’ sensei Splinter kidnapped by The Foot and their long-time antagonist The Shredder. At the same time, mysterious portals start appearing all over New York City. It is soon very apparent that this is more than a Foot Soldier plan; there are greater things at work hindering Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo.
Splintered Fate borrows a few ideas from Hades, which is often regarded as one of the very best of the roguelike genre. One of these is how it slowly drip-feeds its story to you. Yes, you can theoretically see the end of the story in one run of the game, but whether finishing a run by suffering defeat or success, the more you’ll meet more of the iconic cast. These characters not only unlock more gameplay options but also provide further story context as to what exactly is going on.
What may throw a few fans is that this is the second game based on the IDW comic book run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It’s gone a little further than the 2003 cartoon series and 2023 movie, Mutant Mayhem. You’ll still be delivering a beatdown to the bumbling duo of Bebop and Rocksteady even if you’re scratching your head at who exactly Nobody is. Characters like the Shredder’s daughter Karai, Metalhead, and Slash all play much larger roles than you would expect, but you don’t need to be familiar with them beforehand.
While the story isn’t particularly life-changing, this is a more nuanced take on the Turtles than some which is refreshing to see. Yes, Michelangelo is still a little more free-spirited than the others, but you also get to see his deeper side. The same with the hot-headed Raphael who has realized that his short temper is both his greatest asset and strongest weakness. It’s the perfect amount of fan service for long-time Turtles fans who are tired of seeing the early 90s cartoons define how the Turtles and their world act.
I’m Sure That Wasn’t There Last Time
As briefly touched upon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate is an action roguelike. For those in the know, think Hades with a TMNT skin. The game procedurally generates rooms of enemies for you to tackle until you reach the biome boss, and after you clear each room you are given a choice of rewards. You’ll either complete the “run” or die and everything resets and you try again until victory is in your grasp.
You have a basic attack, a special attack, a tool, and a dodge with invincibility frames. You’ll use these to fight iconic TMNT enemies such as Foot Soldiers and Mousers, up to showdowns with iconic enemies such as Leatherhead, Bebop, and Rocksteady. As you might expect, it culminates in a showdown with The Shredder himself.
The action is fast and chaotic. If you are not familiar with this style of gameplay, you’ll die a fair few times and get lost in the chaos. This is intended and all part of the fun with this style of game.
The rewards you can get after a room are either various currencies, abilities, special moves, or tools that you can replace your current loadout with. Except for two of the currencies, these only last for the run you are on, requiring you to decide how you want to build your character for this run. Do you want to focus on using “Ooze” which gradually chips away at health or go for a slower but big damage move? Maybe this time you’ll focus more on defense? Perhaps this time will be dedicated to just grinding out some currency for this run to make your next one a walk in the park.
Two of the currencies you can find either unlock permanent character upgrades such as a larger starting base health or stronger attack, while the one that doesn’t carry over can be used in that run either to buy upgrades or refill health. These aren’t unlocked from the get-go and require a few runs to get them all in play. Reaching the Karai boss fight starts to trigger these and from then on, you’ll be juggling all these different currencies. It’s a little overkill in my opinion and seems like it could have easily been slimmed down.
Turtle Power
You can play as any of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and they all play differently, with different weapons, tools, and skills. Michelangelo has a larger Area of Effect whereas Raphael has a much smaller area but hits like a truck. Leonardo is a little faster than the others and Donatello has range for weeks. The best part is that every Turtle is viable, unlike the NES game where Raphael and Michelangelo may as well just be spare lives. At a certain point in your run, you can choose a Turtle’s Inspiration which gives you attributes from another turtle, for example giving Raphael, Michelangelo’s area of attack range to create a truly devastating build.
The main loop of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate is to learn the patterns of enemies and bosses and pray to the gods of RNG that you’ll get offered the upgrades you want to see you through the run. Once you complete a full run and defeat the Shredder, you then unlock even more challenges and a tougher difficulty to test your turtling skills.
Each run lasts around 45 minutes to an hour. It has a really addictive pick-up-and-play control scheme, it’s quick to jump into, and most importantly it gives that “just one more run” mentality that’ll soon see your controller running low on battery.
The game has several difficulties. You can either challenge yourself or make the game easy to plow through to see the story. That said, the more you play the game, the more you learn and the real joy of the game is creating some truly disgusting builds to take on the bosses. One feature I liked was that when I was comfortable fighting Karai, she started pulling out new moves to keep me on my toes. Overconfidence is a killer after all and the game throws new things at you as you play more.
One fantastic addition that reminds me of the older Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle video games is that the game has local and online co-op. Yes, you can have all 4 of the Turtles questing to save Master Splinter, either controlled by those sitting next to you or across the world online. This hits the old rose-tinted specs and has me thinking of the hours of fun I had playing Turtles in Time on the SNES. Fortunately, the chaos on screen that ensues brings me back down to earth!
Looking Good, Brothers
Visually, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate employs a cel-shaded style of graphics that lean into the comic book lineage of the series. The drawings of the Turtles, Slash, and Metalhead are some of my favorite designs. They’re showing signs of slight aging and being worn down from the years of fighting off The Foot.
The game features an isometric camera view from a distance. Coupled with the art style, this makes the game look smooth but lacking in detail. It feels almost minimalistic in points with textures akin to that of a mobile or flash game. This isn’t a problem, or a surprise when you consider this game has been locked in the Apple Arcade jail for some time before finally escaping onto Nintendo’s aging hybrid with a PC release to come later.
The camera angle allows you to see the bulk of the stage. Enemy attacks are clearly shown via red outlines, and larger enemies are clearly displayed. Once you adjust your eyes to almost bullet-hell levels of action going on, you’ll have everything you need. It’s an ideal setup for this style of game and the lack of fidelity in the graphics doesn’t hinder it at all and is certainly not something you’ll pick up on when in motion.
On the Nintendo Switch, the game runs in handheld mode at a rather smooth framerate, but It does drop occasionally when a lot is going on at one time. This is even more the case when you factor in multiple players or trying to fight with the Nintendo Online Service and potentially iffy WiFi connections. Fortunately, the frame fluctuations were infrequent and didn’t impact my time at all.
Sounds Good To Me
The game features a fully voice-acted script which has been done with passion and brings the characters to life. What game would it be without the vocal talents of Yuri Lowenthal ? But it would be remiss of me to sleep on the other vocal legend that is Roger Craig Smith and or even Matt Yang King who reprises his role as the menacing Shredder. Honestly, this is a voice cast not to be slept on, and it was something that caught me off guard when I heard this was a port of a mobile game based on TMNT.
The music is mostly inoffensive background tracks, but there is a fantastic jingle akin to the 90s cartoon whenever you defeat a boss. Overall, the presentation from the sound to the visuals is top notch and you can feel the love and care the developers had for the source material, absolutely faultless.
Verdict
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate is easily my favorite TMNT game in recent years, standing side by side with the mighty Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. Roguelikes aren’t for everyone by their very nature. Not everyone likes to lose and start again, but if you can look past that and embrace it, you’ll find a constantly rewarding challenge worthy of the moniker of master.
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: SPLINTERED FATE IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
If you would like to see more roguelikes, you may be interested in our review of Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island.
Thanks to Super Evil Mega Corp for providing a Nintendo Switch review code for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate.
Pride of utopia & greatest thing ever, I found the One Piece, Collected the Dragon Balls & won the Mortal Kombat Tournament in one night, it was quiet for me that night! Follow me on Twitter @powahdunk
