Nintendo Switch Review : TMNT Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Fast Facts

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have a legacy across most entertainment platforms. One of the true Saturday morning cartoon classics, a modern Nickelodeon animated series, varying escapades in movies, a monolithic hop-hop career that launched the success of Vanilla Ice, and a whole bunch of merchandise to go with it. All of that is off the back of a comic book series made to poke fun at the panels of the time, and it’s hard to argue that they’ve had a good run. How about on Nintendo Switch?

In video games, the turtles haven’t coasted either. A variety of titles crop up over the years. Any game featuring our heroes in a half shell has to stand in the shadow of the classic ‘Turtle in Time.’ A game that erupted in arcades and home consoles in the 90s. The fantastic Shredders Revenge was fresh in my mind, and with my energies high after the infinitely stylish Mutant Mayhem animated film, I was excited to get my hands on TMNT Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants. The retro beat ’em up gameplay of the classics with the style and energy of the turtle’s latest film! Great right? Right…

How does it play?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Wrath of the Mutants didn’t have a lot to do. There’s a long list of side-scrolling beat ’em ups to pull from, especially with this IP. Unfortunately, the game manages to handle the absolute bare minimum. I refuse to put the blame on the perceived power of the Nintendo Switch there, either.

You move along the screen, which rolls to the side. You beat up the same half-dozen enemies over and over again through a paltry six levels. The basics here are there. The problem was there was practically no variety, challenge, or fun to be had. On harder modes, the game just peppered me with seemingly unavoidable projectiles, making the game feel more broken than challenging. Their enemy variety is, as mentioned, pretty poor; occasional bosses and mini-bosses feel like they’re there to shake things up, but they offer very little. Wander around the level, spam the attack button when they break their annoyingly similar patterns, and you’ll plough through them with no trouble. There just…wasn’t any fun. It was a choice between boring or unplayable. 

The game does throw a few items and throwables at you, but again, they feel limited and uninteresting. There are a few ‘companion’ style support pickups swell that wipe the bad guys away, and each of the turtles has their own ‘special move’ that is essentially the same across all four, just animated slightly differently. Unfortunately, that’s the story for the four playable characters. I go through them one by one and tell you how each feels different and interesting and offers gameplay variety, but…they don’t. They don’t. There was nothing to motivate me to change beyond wanting to try each turtle and then go back to Donatello (because he’s my boy, don’t @ me). 

Multiplayer

I will say that multiplayer does add a little extra fun. In all the same ways that throwing things at your pal usually does. But the novelty quickly wore off, and before we knew it we were just two people…equally disappointed with the game. If you’re one of the weirdly cheerful folks from a Nintendo Switch commercial, then I have good news! You can pop it on the table at a party and get together with pals! If you’re a regular Joe and/or sober, your miles may vary.

How does it look?

It was bizarre for me to look at some of the pretty awful visuals on display in this game. At times loading screens or menus look like they’ve been thrown together in MS Paint. Honestly, a game looking like this doesn’t belong on any storefront. In my opinion, it’s appalling. It’s hard not to be critical when I consider that all the heavy lifting, designing, and artwork is pre-packaged. This isn’t an original IP that missed the mark with its design team. This is one of the most recognisable cartoons in the world. 

In the game, there’s a slight improvement. Levels do look choppy and thrown together at times. But the modern aesthetic of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles just about carries the game. From moment to moment, it looked more like a mobile game than a console game of any substance. Although, with Shredders Revenge and TMNT Splintered Fate available on mobile platforms, that may be an unfair comparison. 

How does it Sound? 

The game sounds pretty good with voice-over work for most major characters and bosses throughout. It’s really hard to tell just how good any of this is when there’s so much noise in game. Overall, the voice work seemed solid. 

Without any real story or narrative thread there’s very little opportunity for audio elements to push through beyond the music. Again, it suffers in the shadows of what came before it but does very little to keep the pace. 

What’s the story?

There isn’t one. Honestly none. No opening cinematic, no pages of text, and no shots of exposition. I gues to some extent, it’s easy to get. They are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They fight Shredder, Krang, Bebop, Rocksteady and the rest of the goons. But an effort would have been nice. 

This is a re-release of a 2017 arcade game at the end of the day. A grandiose narrative adventure was never on the cards, but the complete lack of effort is a shame. 

How does it Run?

The game ran pretty well. There were no crashes or stuttering, and load times were solid. This would probably be the biggest positive for the game. Even after adding some new levels and bosses, it appears to be a re-make/re-release in 2024 that isn’t broken. 

Is it a sad state of affairs for the industry when launching a stable old game is a success? Absolutely. But bigger teams have tried and failed so let’s give flowers where they are due. 

Conclusion?

TMNT Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is a reasonable re-launch of a 2017 arcade game. I don’t feel it has a place outside of an arcade. It’s baffling to me why this game exists on Nintendo Switch at all. 

There are so many Ninja Turtles games available right now that are better than this one. It hazards the question of, why? Why this? Who is it for? I suppose if you were a big fan of the 2012 TMNT cartoon? Perhaps you spent a lot of time in arcades in 2017? If so, you might get a kick out of it. It does a good job of lifting that experience on to switch and expanding on it a touch. Ultimately, however, the foundations were never there for this to be any more than a blink and you’ll miss it port. 

Rapid Reviews Rating

2 out of 5

2

You can buy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Wrath of the Mutants for Nintendo Switch NOW via the Nintendo eShop.