Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is a gaming Trojan Horse. I don’t mean to suggest that, instead of the beloved heroes in a half-shell, this 2D side-scrolling beat ‘em up stars a squad of teenage mutant wooden horses. Rather, Wrath of the Mutants has used a cunning disguise to sneak past the discerning gamer’s ‘bad game’ sonar, just as the Greeks cunningly snuck into Troy all those centuries ago. This console release rides on the coattails of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, but while the two games share many similarities, Wrath of the Mutants pales in comparison.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is apparently based on the 2017 arcade ‘classic’. I’ve never played the arcade version, but based on this console port, it’s certainly no classic. Upon booting the game up, players can pick their favoured turtle from the 2012 Nickelodeon cartoon, with up to four players joining in through local co-op. This is nice, and the first of only two positive things I have to say about this game.
What awaits you once you load into the game, though, are just six puny stages – notably that’s three more than in the arcade game – and every single one of them has a chance to win the coveted “worst scrolling beat ‘em up level of all time” award. All that they offer is a stroll from left to right through bland environments, fighting the foot soldiers in your way using unresponsive controls.
I say fighting, but that’s giving far too much credit, these fisticuffs are more like two inebriated pub-dwellers drunkenly cuddling each other and rolling around as their friends cheer. Collision detection? Who needs that? Not Wrath of the Mutants apparently. Hitting an enemy or avoiding an attack is a lottery. There’s a pitiful number of moves for each Turtle, and none of them are exciting to execute. The developers even botch the iconic ‘through the foot soldier through the screen’ move. I mean, how do you mess that up?
Fight a few baddies, fight one of the thirteen deeply underwhelming boss, move on, and that’s it. The basic 3D visuals are ugly, the animation is lacklustre, and the game, despite being only a few hours long, still feels like it’s too long.
So, what’s the second positive thing I have to say about this game? Well, you can call in assorted bonus characters from the extensive Turtles universe to help out with special attacks. So, if you are a fan, you’ll like that. On the downside, your TMNT fandom might be shaken by enduring the rest of the game, so just bear that in mind.
