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.
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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
I've played this almost entirely as a co-op game. I've played a lot of roguelites, its one of my favourite genres. This game doesn't come close to the heights of the greats like Hades, but its still really decent, it has a really good moment to moment game feel (unless you play as Metalhead). The systems and upgrades have their limitations and you bump into that a lot earlier than you would in better roguelites. But as a co-op experience it kind of doesn't matter that its not the best the genre has to offer. Because it's a lot of fun to play with friends, and other games simply don't have the option. I would probably also recommend this for kids too young for the adult themes in Hades, its all very PG. I've had had a lot of fun with it.
Its a good roguelike game with the TMNT theme I really enjoy it I would recommend getting it on sale the developers keep updating it giving the environment more detail adding more characters adding more ninja turtle powers (boons) to each type to make them more viable my only complaint is that there is no codex of all the abilities in the game so I can plan a build and that there is no big ultimate moves otherwise I enjoy everything else
Fun game, but not worth $29.99—definitely wait for a sale. The upgrades are enjoyable, but the core gameplay loop can get frustrating. If you make a good run and then die, you’re forced to start completely over. I understand that’s part of the design, but it still feels punishing. I haven’t finished the game yet, so maybe there’s a mechanic later that lets you resume from where you died, but I doubt it. Overall, it’s a fun experience, just not at full price.
Pretty straight forward game that is is entertaining and action packed. Looks good enough and has enough depth/passive unlocks to keep you going for a while. Once you understand the various powers and steer into proper builds it will open up.CONS: The dialogue is super obtrusive and exaggerated to the degree that all of it is an instant skip. I like TMNT but, come on, there has to be a more optimal way to lay out the story than forcing me to click through 20 pages of dialogue every time there is a development, of which 95% is complete fluff.Also, it has one of the worst Mouse+Keyboard implementations I've seen. Dash goes toward the movement keys instead of the cursor. What cursor, you ask? Beats me. It's around here somewhere. Trying to aim with no direction indicator is frustrating in a way that never seems to diminish.Anyway, use a controller. It's fun.
Yes it is a Hades clone, but still overall a fun romp! Honestly there's not really a feature of the game that is original; everything basically is taken/derived from that masterclass in gaming. Even being able to choose different turtles at beginning of each run is just this game's version of choosing your own weapon at beginning of Hades runs. Which brings me to the critique; they shouldn't make extra characters cost anything. The equivalent would be Hades charging extra to have access to each individual weapon in the game.I wish devs could learn to be better, like Hades, BG 3, and Clair Obscur devs. Charge once for a complete awesome game, enough with the nickel and diming. In conclusion, though on sale it is still not a bad price even if going for 'extra characters'. Also not a single performance issue, that's always a plus in today's modern gaming...Overall: 7.5/10
Really nice mechanics and progression. Could have 2 more bosses before Shredder to be perfect.
Played alone, with 1 and, sometimes 2 friens. WAY BETTER on multiplayer.
I just wish it had a stat for how much damage each ability did. Plenty of different builds, combos. I've been running a Utrom dash build as Raph. Utrom Dash (no upgrade needed) Electrifying, Chain and enemies take more damage while electrified. Rapidfire and Trailblazer. Light shell on dash, damage boosts while light shell is active and Light hammer. Gaining max health increases your damage and as Raph, when you stop to hit something? You hit hard if you end up grabbing some crit.There's crit builds, throwing out an insane amount of shuriken that bounce or return to you, ooze. And the characters feel pretty close. Dialogue is great and voice acted, music is good. If you like TMNT or roguelites, it's great. Portals are a great way of challenging yourself and getting extra meta progression. The first arcade missions are great for quick dragon coins and the mode itself is a fun alternate style where your builds can really go crazy. Especially when every attack becomes a final strike.Overall, it's just a really fun game. Even full price, worth it.
Honestly, this is pretty ... mid. If you're expecting anything close to the brilliance that is Hades, go look elsewhere. This is nostalgia bait, and apparently it was a mobile game that got ported over, which explains so much.Let's start with the "story". Skip. For a game that has so much to say, the dialogues really are that terrible. You could argue, well, it's The Turtles, a kids show ... but the Turtles show from back then was way more sophisticated than that.Now, enemy variety: poor. You'll be fighting those annoying little robots and Foot Gang soldiers for the most part. While they do get new moves and "variants" each level, this is ultimately quite boring.Bosses: The minibosses are very simple, the boss fights aren't really all that interesting, either. And there's only 4 of them with barely any meaningful connection to the wider narrative.Levels: See above. VERY simple room layouts, no choice in rooms after beating one. You just press GOGOGOGO all the time, then you get some reward. Random boring powers, or maybe some meta currency to make your character stronger, by *yawn* giving you 10% more health, 10% more damage, etc. etc. It's all VERY formulaic.There are also artifacts like in Hades, but they need some kind of currency to unlock? 150 a piece, and I have 0. The game tells me you get them by defeating "all veterans" and ♥♥♥♥. No clue what this means.Instead of different weapons you get to pick from the 4 different turtles (and 3 DLC characters). And that's that. There is no further customization here. You pick the one you like the most. In Hades you were incentivized to try out the different weapons and aspects even to get more currency or unlock more things. Here, it's just rinse & repeat.This game LOOKS decent. The graphics are okay, the audio is fine, but where I think it fails is with the gameplay. The character has an annoying tendency to always move forward when attacking, meaning you can't just attack a stationary target, your character will always MOVE, mostly in the way of harmful things you did NOT intend. The auto aim also cannot be turned off, so be prepared to do things you didn't mean to do. A lot. Also, deactivate the chain dash, since it's WAY too sensitive. You move rather slowly, your powers aren't just on cooldown, you need to actively attack to charge BOTH, meaning, there are exactly THREE moves you have available to you, which is likely something that is rooted in this being a mobile game with limited control options. You can't aim your ranged attacks, and all you basically do is spam X to attack, then use your special or tools whenever they're ready. It's a boring gameplay loop, especially since all Turtles' melee attacks are very similar, unlike with Hades. The comparison may be unfair, BUT they're selling this for a whopping 30 bucks almost.I got it in a Steam sale for 2.5. I don't intend to keep playing. Waste of time. But it was so cheap I'm also not going to demand a refund. Maybe some day when I'm super bored I may dig it out again ...
Heroes in a half shell! Enjoyed this beat 'em up with good progression design. Turtles each different but seemed like dash attacks were easy way to win most of the time.
wasn't sure about this game at first, but once I started leveling up and understanding the powers, I really started to enjoy it. Had a blast playing with friends and I would recommend playing it that that way as it adds abit more fun to the game, it can get a little boring by yourself. I hope in the future they add some more ememies, powers and stages to the game, to give it some more variety and depth. If your looking for a fun game that you can just pick up and put down when ever you want and you like TMNT. I highly recommend this one =)
On sale highly recommend. The price is too high for what it is. Its simple, but has enough to keep you hooked and wanting to level up your Turtles. But, for 40Cad, there's not enough meat on the bones. If you can get base game for 10-15 bucks, worth it. If you got lucky like me and got this for only 3 bucks, super worth it. Its Hades with a little less, and a TMNT shell. Story and the portals within are where this game shines. The Arcade is fun but its one and done when you complete all the sections. You can repeat arcade runs with modifiers but I really enjoy the story runs. Great achievement hunter game. Plenty of builds and they all blend together nicely. You mix certain abilities and legends unlock. That was cool to discover. You can play this game with a SNES controller through Steam Input. Online coop is done perfectly. Seamlessly drop in and out of active games.If you're fan of Hades and grew up on TMNT, you gotta get this on a sale.
