Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate – A Comprehensive Review
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The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) have captured the hearts of fans for decades, from their humble beginnings as comic book characters to becoming cultural icons through animated series, movies, and merchandise. Among the many adaptations, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate emerges as an exciting video game that brings the turtles back into action. This detailed review explores every aspect of the game, from gameplay mechanics and narrative to graphics and replayability, ensuring you get a complete understanding of what this title offers.
Gameplay: A Masterclass in Cooperative Action
One of the standout features of Splintered Fate is its cooperative gameplay. Players can embody Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, or Raphael, each bringing unique abilities and fighting styles to the battlefield. Whether you prefer Leonardo’s balanced approach, Raphael’s raw power, Donatello’s technical finesse, or Michelangelo’s agility, there is a character to suit every playstyle.
Core Mechanics
Combat: The game features a fluid combat system that blends button-mashing with tactical maneuvers. Players can chain combos, dodge incoming attacks, and execute powerful special moves unique to each turtle. The responsive controls ensure that every move feels impactful, with combat animations adding a sense of weight and intensity to every punch, kick, and special move.
Exploration: Levels are designed with a mix of linear progression and open areas for exploration. Hidden secrets, collectibles, and bonus missions encourage players to thoroughly search each environment. Environmental puzzles add a layer of complexity, requiring players to think strategically to unlock certain areas or gain extra rewards.
Co-op Multiplayer: The game truly shines in its cooperative multiplayer mode, allowing up to four players to team up. The synergy between turtles creates dynamic combat scenarios, making every battle feel fresh and engaging. Cooperative mechanics, like assisting a downed ally or combining special moves for devastating effects, add depth to the multiplayer experience.
Character Progression
As players progress, they can unlock upgrades and abilities, enhancing the turtles’ effectiveness in battle. The skill tree system allows for customization, ensuring no two playthroughs feel identical. Each turtle’s progression path offers a mix of passive buffs, such as increased health or attack power, and active abilities, like area-of-effect attacks or defensive shields.
Story: A Rescue Mission with High Stakes
The narrative of Splintered Fate centers on the abduction of Master Splinter. The turtles must navigate the seedy underbelly of New York City, facing off against the Foot Clan, mutants, and other iconic villains like Bebop and Rocksteady. The stakes are high, and the storytelling delivers a balance of humor, heart, and action that fans of the series have come to expect.
Key Highlights
Cinematic Cutscenes: The game incorporates beautifully animated cutscenes that advance the story while immersing players in the TMNT universe. These scenes are filled with dynamic camera angles, expressive character animations, and intense action sequences.
Engaging Dialogue: The witty banter between the turtles keeps the tone light-hearted, even during intense moments. The humor feels authentic, capturing the essence of the characters while balancing the darker aspects of the narrative.
Twists and Turns: The narrative includes unexpected plot twists that keep players engaged and eager to see how the story unfolds. The emotional stakes are heightened by moments of vulnerability, as the turtles grapple with their sense of duty and personal fears.
Visuals and Sound Design: A Feast for the Senses
Graphics
The art style of Splintered Fate pays homage to the TMNT’s comic book roots while incorporating modern visual effects. Vibrant colors, detailed character models, and dynamic environments make the game visually stunning. Each turtle’s design is faithful to their iconic look, with subtle updates that enhance their individuality. Enemies and bosses are equally well-designed, showcasing creative interpretations of classic characters.
Level Design
From the dark alleys of New York to underground lairs and high-tech facilities, the game’s environments are diverse and packed with detail. Each level feels alive, with interactive elements and background animations that add depth. Dynamic lighting effects and weather conditions, such as rain-soaked streets or dimly lit corridors, heighten the immersion.
Soundtrack and Voice Acting
Soundtrack: The soundtrack perfectly complements the action, blending upbeat tracks with intense battle music. Each level features a unique musical theme, reflecting its tone and setting.
Voice Acting: Voice acting deserves special mention, with each turtle’s personality shining through their dialogue. The voice actors deliver energetic and heartfelt performances, bringing the characters to life. Even the villains have memorable voice work, adding gravitas to their roles.
Features and Replayability
Core Features
Customizable Difficulty Levels: Players can choose difficulty settings that match their skill level, from casual gamers to hardcore action enthusiasts. Each difficulty level adjusts enemy behavior and resource availability, ensuring a tailored experience.
Unlockable Skins and Easter Eggs: Dedicated fans will appreciate the numerous nods to TMNT lore, including unlockable costumes and hidden references. These rewards incentivize exploration and replayability.
Boss Fights: Each boss encounter is uniquely designed, requiring players to adapt their strategies and use the turtles’ abilities to their fullest. Boss battles often incorporate environmental hazards, making them more challenging and dynamic.
Replayability
The game’s replay value is bolstered by:
Multiple Difficulty Settings: Replay the game on harder difficulties for a greater challenge.
Hidden Collectibles and Achievements: Completionists will enjoy tracking down every secret and earning all achievements.
Experimenting with Different Turtles: Each turtle offers a distinct playstyle, encouraging multiple playthroughs to fully appreciate their abilities.
Post-Game Content: Additional challenges, such as time trials and survival modes, extend the game’s lifespan.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Engaging Cooperative Gameplay: Perfect for friends or family looking for a fun gaming session.
Authentic TMNT Experience: Captures the spirit of the franchise with its humor, action, and storytelling.
High-Quality Visuals and Sound: Immersive environments and stellar voice acting enhance the experience.
Replayability: Offers plenty of content to keep players coming back.
Diverse Boss Battles: Unique and challenging encounters keep players on their toes.
Cons
Limited Solo Appeal: While the game can be played solo, it’s clearly designed with multiplayer in mind.
Repetitive Combat: Despite the fluid mechanics, combat can feel repetitive during extended play sessions. A wider variety of enemy types or more complex AI could alleviate this issue.
Short Campaign: The main story might feel too brief for players expecting a longer adventure. However, the additional content helps mitigate this concern.
Why Splintered Fate Deserves Your Attention
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Final Verdict
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate is a must-play for TMNT fans and cooperative game enthusiasts. Its engaging gameplay, charming story, and polished presentation make it a standout title. While it has a few minor drawbacks, such as its short campaign and repetitive combat, the overall experience more than compensates. Whether you’re a long-time fan or a newcomer to the TMNT universe, this game offers an enjoyable journey that’s worth your time.
Customer reviews for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate
DO NOT BUYWAY TOO MANY GAME BREAKING BUGSSo the overall game is kind of fun, kind of fun in that it is actually short, you could potentially beat it in less than an hour when first starting out, however, they make it have the "Groundhog Day" scenario where you get so far, die and have to start all over and use what currency you gained to become stronger.Unfortunately...The game seems to evolve along with you where if you gain 10% more damage the enemies have 10% more health, if you gain 2 charges of your special attacks more enemies with shields appear, and it quickly feels like the concept of becoming stronger is an illusion. That feeling never goes away, while I have now managed to make it though the scenario, I use a cheese setup that is very dependent on gaining certain power ups, mainly the ooze dash and anything that powers up it's damage over time effect.The aggravating and repetitive gameplay was not where this nightmare ended...So where do I begin, the game played well for several runs but...While I doubt there is a correlation, once we beat the final boss the first time, we started experience bugs.At first it was desync/severe lag in multiplayer, we would restart the game and it would persist, restart Steam, it would persist, resolving the issue just seemed like pure luck on if multiplayer between players would function correctly, and even that was unreliable as it seemed the longer a run would go on the less stable and more desyncronized the game would become until it was literally unplayable for one of us.Later issues would be switching the equipped artiifact during a run and then it would not let you re-equip it. In the vendor it would not let me select anything to buy nor would it allow me to leave the vendor. We have had infinite load screens, random crashes as well.My favorite, apparently, a common fix for these issues is to rename a folder in your %APPDATA% folder, which I did and fired up the game, it would not let me play in multiplayer as it kept saying my game was in use on another machine. I tried and tried, diabled steam overlay, turned off cloud sync, verified file integrity, reinstalled the game, and the problem persisted, until I restored the original %APPDATA% folder. So the fix for multiplayer, is to break multiplayer completely so you can play in single player only?Now, here is what really said no for me, apparently, these bugs existed on other platform before it was released on steam, which means the dev team is so phenomenally lazy that they could port a fixed version of the game, I realized that this is a common theme with shit developers but really with how bad this game is, it is just not worth the money.
I really enjoyed this game which is a lot like Hades but with co-op features which makes it a lot of fun to play alongside friends or even rando's. The powers are interesting and offer a lot of different combinations or builds to try out and each turtle has their own strengths. I feel like the biggest letdown in this game is it's music which is rather dull and bland in comparison to Hades. There are still some features which I think need improvement but as it is I think this game is a solid 7/10 roguelike.
I really really like this game. The Ninja Turtles are perfect for this genre of game. I have had nothing but a great time playing this game. I also plan on continuing to play this game until my fingers bleed because of how bragadosious it is to play for reals. kowabunga dudes purchase if one or many wanna have a totally rat-tickle time.
After close to 50 hours on the game, I can overwhelmingly recommend it.
Listen, it's fun. plain and simple.
BUT
If you don't understand the basic nature of action rogue-likes it CAN get frustrating or repetitive in the beginning. Basically, the entire game DRAMATICALLY improves and feels like how it's meant to be played, AFTER you kill Shredder for the first time. So yes, that first road to the end is slow, and at times hard, especially solo. The game does have "incorrect" choices and if you take them, you do suffer for it. So you do have to put some effort to learn how to combo abilities and match the right powers to get the best out of the run or that specific turtle.
NONE of the turtles play the same, and that is usually the big mistake I see. But rest assured, all turtles are more than capable of finishing the game.The only thing I would say is a negative is that it should definitely have more characters for you to unlock. Plenty of friends appear, and they should all be playable at this point. The DLC only unlocking Casey Jones was a big miss.
Great gameplay. Has a few issues in the mutliplayer side that could be corrected, but on the whole it plays really well. Each turtle plays different enough that changing between them feel good for each playstyle. The constant difficulty advancement is fun and keep the game where you want to play multiple runs in one sitting. Overall would give this a 9/10. Well done
fun roguelite esp for those who enjoyed TMNT during the 90s. not near ember knights in variability and depth (so far), but different enough with snappy combat and fun regardless. worth a shot for fans of the top down coop roguelites
This is the first rouge-like game I've ever played, and I absolutely love it! Even though it's still frustrating to fail a run, each loss teaches me something new about the game, and I really love how each turtle (and Casey) have their very own unique play-style and power-ups. I really enjoy experimenting with the different artifacts and team combos that are offered in this game.On top of that, this is an absolutely AMAZING Ninja Turtles game! The artwork/style, voice acting, dialog, combat, all of it! Absolutely flawless!I totally recommend this game! Cowabunga dudes & dudettes!
It's a pretty good take on a Hades style came, although the persistent power-ups you can buy don't quite seem as consequential as with other games of this style. The biggest problem is for some reason, the circle under one of the turtles you use to keep track of yourself is pretty much the same orange (or near enough) as the indicator for some of the enemies' attacks. As a result, it can be difficult sometimes to tell when you are about to be hit by an attack because you can't tell if it's your indicator or an attack indicator when things get busy.
I grew up on the original TV Turtles and Live actions. This game is absolutely delightful. Delightful is the word to use. I don't enjoy rogue-lite games much, but loved this one. I hope the plan for some more DLC. That's a fire pit I'd throw some extra cash into. Hint hint devs, hint hint.
an enjoyable Hades clone with the following differences:* bad writing
* a bit less responsive
* simpler combat
* less interesting metaprogressiondespite these cons it's still fun to play. easy buy if it's on sale and you enjoy the genre.
It's multiplayer Hades with TMNT. It's great. Solo is fun too but multiplayer is an easier version of the gameplay loop to enjoy with friends so both are appreciated.
Im pleasantly surprised. Was very hesitant on purchasing this but my roguelite appetite got the best of me when I seen it on sale and I must say it's a lot better than I had thought it would be.All the turtles have a different playstyle (Ralph and Mike stand out) and Casey Jones is pretty good too. Great power ups but if you've played other games like this you know what to expect with different elements and such. The difficulty is the real surprise because it's pretty tough on the normal setting. Ok story line plenty of one liners like saying Pizza covers all 4 basic food groups lol and all in all it's better than most of these early access titles I've played recently. Shorter than the top Rougelikes but still has a lot of teeth and a lot of bite.The Turtles came through for us again gamers
It is insane how good this game is. My favorite TMNT game used to be Turtles in Time. Then I played this. Splintered Fate gives you an old school vibe where you need to play over and over to understand which enemies will spawn where, which upgrades are best in certain situations, and there's a little RNG involved which is actually incorporated really, really well. The bosses are diverse and fun. The different combat styles of each turtle and Casey are really fun to exploit depending on how you want to play the game, and each build can be mixed for a unique challenge each run. You can change the difficulty at any time, and it's fun to jump back and forth seeing what's different. I cannot recommend this game enough, and I hope there is another on the horizon as soon as possible, maybe even with new playable characters or game modes where you take control of Rocksteady and Bebop or Karai. Fingers crossed. Pick this up, it's worth at full price, but if it's on sale, do not miss the opportunity to grab it.
Super fun roguelite game. Played with one of my friends and we had a blast. Reminiscing about the OG TMNT Movie and the anniversary rerelease coming up this weekend. Remember, it is a rougelite so expect to grind to get upgrades before completing the game. Lots of throw backs to the turtles and their journey. Would recommend especially with friends.
This got dull pretty fast for me.I don't think the game plays very well. The turtles feel cumbersome, chunky and slow and the dodge feels vague. There's a lot going on on screen with lots of un-necessary flashes, effects and even level geometry that obscure what you need to see. I play other fast paced games just fine but in this one, I was unable to stop getting hit and it was very annoying. You don't lose a lot of health, but it feels like getting hit is almost inevitable in this and it's "part of it", I don't really like that.The enemies like to play a "don't stand here" game with many battles devolving into you just looking at the coloured patches on the ground and dodging out of them whilst spamming the attack button. It's gets so bad that often during some bosses you're just endlessly dodging around them waiting for the coloured patches to go away so you can get close as nearly all your attacks, of course, use melee weapons. It's a pain in the butt, it does not feel fun to me.The runs feel the same too, the powerups are mostly stat driven so your moves look the same regardless of what powerups you get. They are pretty dull and mostly, for example, just replace the purple sparkly effects with green sparkly effects or whatever colour is on offer. Each turtle is outfitted with a medallion thingy that makes one elemental power more attractive than the rest and makes them appear more for you, this sounds good, but often you'll just get maybe one or two of those types you want, and the rest will be underwhelming nothingness, like a temporary upgrade that lasts 4 rooms or some cash for the shop that sells more of these almost identical "upgrades". I felt almost constantly underwhelmed with my powerups each run.The music is incredibly weedy for some reason and always sounds like it's coming out of a early smartphone, very odd. The graphics are nice though, the art is strong and the levels and characters look pretty good.
I highly recommend it. As a Turtles fan, this game hits the right spot and is incredibly satisfying. However, as a fan of the franchise and now also of this game, I do have some notes that could help with development going forward.I played most of the time in couch co-op with a friend, and while the small bugs we encountered didn’t break the game, they did get a bit frustrating at times. For example, the shop opening mechanic can sometimes be inconsistent. If player one opens the artifact shop, no one else can open it afterward. This didn’t happen all the time, but the inconsistency itself could be irritating. Also, player two can’t buy locked items when they appear and require a specific item to unlock; they only show up if the shop was opened by player one.Another thing I think is a big miss for modern games is the lack of a colorblind mode. My friend is colorblind, and there were many moments when he got really confused about which Turtle he was.That said, we still had a great time. Aside from these quality-of-life issues, you have a solid game in your hands. I’m eagerly waiting for new content, as this is the only game that has ever made me write a review on Steam, which should tell you how much I believe in it.
i once accidentally sat down and played this game for 8.5 hours straight. i did not move, i did not eat, i did not drink. something about combat-centered games eats my brain. if you enjoy hitting things until they do not move, this is a game for you. do i have complaints about this game? yes. but they are focused almost entirely on non-fighting issues. such as story and lack of new dialouge. "its not ruperts but it'll do" raph you have said this one thousand times please set me free please let me go please say something else. that issue is fixed by muting dialouge though. which i haven't done because its really funny when they demand their father back when he is,,,, at home. i finished the game. perhaps too many concussions in the field is finally doing them in. leonardo please go to the hospital and get your head checked out because im worried for you. also conducting that much electricity cannot be healthy. i expect the turtles in boxes tomorrow, splintered fate, you clearly don't know how to take care of them.anyways would reccommend. i've also played a shit ton of Hades, if you liked that, you'll like this, its like the same game but a bit easier and with 90% less story and unique dialouge.
Have to play this game with other people doing gauntlets, otherwise one cannot fully upgrade character without gauntlet coins or whatever. It's a decent game, just not for single players.
