Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge does a great job of capturing the essence of the TMNT arcade game from 1990, which later came to the NES. At the time there was already a TMNT game on the NES, so this was given the title of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game.” It allowed up to four players to take on the Foot Clan as each of the TMNT. You can check out the Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_(arcade_game) It also very much reminds me of the Simpsons arcade game, which was popular.

This version allows up to six players online and offline. If you’re playing on Steam, you’ll have the chance to link to your Epic Games account. I haven’t played multiplayer yet, but it seems like a great game to play with both family and friends.

I think those of us who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s as TMNT fans will get the most out of this. I don’t know how someone who grew up outside of that time will see the game. I’ve enjoyed it although I wish it was longer. The game only has 16 levels and my average time of completing each one seems to be about 6 minutes.

One of my favorite things in many of these similar classic video games is breakable environments. This game has them. There are many boxes and parts of the environment you can break which will sometimes hide things like pizza that restores your health or a variety of other helpful items. Sometimes you’ll also uncover a “cameo.” These are characters such as Irma, Vernon, and others. They’ll have a quest which is that they’re looking for certain items hidden throughout the levels in these breakable things. Irma, for instance, is looking for pieces of her diary. Completing one of these quests will give the power points

Power points are like experience points used to increase your power level. Doing so increases your health and Ninja Power Gauge. As for the latter, it will increase as you attack enemies. Once it reaches a certain point, you can use it for a special move ("Y" by default for XBox One controller). With this special move, you can attack many enemies all around you at once. You can also use it in other forms.

There are levels to the Ninja Power Gauge. You reach a new level of this by not using it when it fills up. So, once you fill up one, the next starts filling up. Once you reach three, you can activate Radical Mode. Once activated, it gives you a damage boost, but it drains the Ninja Power Gauge. It’s great to use against bosses.

There are some achievements, which you can see and keep track of in-game. Some of them have to do with seeing every story ending and finding all cameos. I’ve only played through the game with Leo and Don. Pro tip: If you don’t skip the very end cut scene, you can see what your character is up to after the story is over.

The world map reminds me a lot of the first TMNT NES game. It’s been so long since I’ve played it. It’s the same kind of map you see in Mario games.

I’ve seen that there may be more content coming.

If you were a TMNT fan growing up like me, you’ll probably love and appreciate this as much as I do or more. If you have kids, this is a great game to play with them and introduce them to your era of gaming.

Let me know what you think about this! Did you enjoy the original TMNT arcade game?