Last year Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released on the home system, not being stupid I didn’t rush out and get it. The demo I played on it was good but not something I would paid 40-50 dollars to. So when I saw it on PC for just 20 dollars I bought. While it’s definitely not for grabs for the best game of 2003, it’s not a bad game for anybody looking for a bit of an old school brawler. Has long has you except that while the gameplay may be akin to the old school, the turtle series they focus around is very new school.

Story.
The story loosely follows the first season of the new ninja turtles series. So fans of the old expect to see some character changes from the old ninja turtles you used to know and love. And while the story of the newer series might be a lot better the old series, there’s just a few things missing in this game that make it weird to play from a nostalgic stand point. The fact that there no blowing up foot soldiers with some out of this world gear, and add on to that no brain dead rhino, or idiotic warthog to beat the stuffing out of does make me feel a bit lost at some points. But I got over that soon enough because Rock Steady and Bebop may be out of the picture there’s plenty of goons to beat up.

Basically the first stage is the first episode of the new series the turtles have been kicked out of there old layer and have to go up to the surface for the first time. They managed to beat up the purple dragon, make friends with Casey Jones, and save April from Baxter Stockman and mousers. However they also managed to tangle with an even greater threat the foot clan.

Graphics.
The graphics in this game aren’t pushing any boundaries. But there not supposed to be, they do however for the most part do copy the look of the new series. With a bit of cel-shading on the characters and the turtles and in the game to look right out of the series. To add a bit to the comic book effect there are plenty of wham, bam, thok letters that appear whenever you hit something.

The only real downside of the graphics is while the turtles and there enemies look great some of the 2ndary characters look really bad, April and Casey are 2 of the worst example. They are incredibly jaggy with some really messed up looking faces, I laugh whenever there on screen because they do look really freaky.

Sound.
The worst part of the game is the sound, while it is a bit more varied then just a remix of the turtle theme unlike the old. The music hear isn’t really memorable or anything that I would call great. But while the music is only so-so what will make you reach for the mute button on your keyboard is the sound clips. While the cut scenes and FMV scenes played in the game are done great by the 4 kids voice talent and you won’t complain. You’ll hit the mute button once the in game voices come in. To put it simply the turtles don’t shut up every time you make a move they have to open there big beaks and say something. The worse one is of course Leonardo and is infamous slice and dice which can drive anybody around you up the wall in a couple of seconds flat. The other turtles are a bit better because they have a few more sayings but they all get old pretty fast and you want to hit the mute button on them. And you think that all the things they say none of them say shell shocked when they die.

Gameplay.
There is so many reasons why I see why a lot of people hate this game, some because of the newer look, some can’t stand the old school approach, while others might be mad at some of the changes. But all in all it’s still a beater like Turtles in time was for the SNES. Put simply you walk around and when you find goon you smash there head in, continue meet a whole bunch of goons beat there heads in, continue in till you meet a boss and then beat there over grown heads in. Not very complicated on the gameplay end of the spectrum.

Ninja turtles of course offers a bit more to keep the game a bit more complicated. First of all you can do combo attacks. There is now a quick attack and a strong attack button. The idea of the combo system is to start off with quick attacks and then finish with a strong attack to do a bunch of combo that count’s on the meter. Some like Mikey and Don have a bunch of moves that can be done in this manner, and some of them are really cool and useful.
Another thing they added is the fact that the turtles now have to learn to jump kick, a real drag but they all have different jump kicks so it does help keep the turtle unique from each other. Raph can dive bomb into enemies and cause damage, Don’s Bo has good distant to his jump attack, and Mikey is just weird he just floats down to the ground kicking and using his nun chucks has a helicopter. The fact that you have to learn them is no big deal you learn them after the first episode, so you only need to play 10 minutes with each turtle to get them all.

Now the length of games have changed a lot in years, and since most brawlers lasted only an hour back in the day, the newer game would have to have more stages. So what Konami did was to take 6 episodes from the series, and then break them up into small stages. Each episode has anywhere from 5-7 stages in it, which is about the length of the classic ninja turtles game. You have the ability to save and quit after each episode. Which is good because like all brawlers you will want to quit after one or two episodes of this game and come back after a break.

While each episode is pretty much the same no matter what turtle you use, sometimes special events happen when you go through an episode, if your Raph you get to take on Casey Jones in episode 1 for an example. In order to beat the game you have to beat each episode with all the turtles in order to fight the real Shredder. In getting to the last episode with each turtle you will learn the secret art Geinbu which destroys all enemies in the screen in a single hit, even some minor bosses.

Unlockables.
This game has a lot of great extra’s to be unlocked in the game. In a lot of stages there are creates that contain scrolls that unlock art galleries, along with story boards for the new series. There is also a mode where you can play the game through has Splinter. Splinter is a lot like Yoda, he’s old, he’s feeble, he requires a cain, and boy can he whoop some a$$. He’s stronger then all 4 of the turtles and he’s got speed to boost. He can’t learn the Geinbu attack though but then he doesn’t need it.

There is also a VS mode that is like the one in Turtles in time, except you get to choose form more then just the turtles then just the turtles. It lasts about 15 minutes and then you never want to touch it again. There is also a boss rush mode where you have to battle all the bosses in the game, you have one live, and whenever you win you get a few short seconds to break through crates and pick up power items, to try to survive the next fight.

Bad things.
The game is not perfect though there are a few things that need to be fine tune in the next game. The first one is the fact that the combo system could be a bit tighter and there should be more moves that can be done while doing it. The most annoying though is that sometimes enemies don’t always become active when they should, you don’t find out about this in till you wind up hitting a force field that tells you to go back (Konami solution of the edge of the screen thing done in 3d), then you have to go back and beat them up in order to continue on. Usually just an annoyance but it can be a frustration when say you had to pass a giant swinging axe in the process of discovering the force field, then you have to get past it again to find the enemy you missed in order to go on. This is the biggest flaw and it will definitely happen, and it will defiantly annoy. Hopefully they’ll fix this in the next game.

Final recommendation.
If your looking for a good old fashion brawler, with lots of action and even more unlockables then this game is defiantly worth checking out. However it does have some flaws like the whole enemy’s not appearing thing that can be annoying. Hopefully they’ll fix these in the next game and the fact that there throwing in the original arcade game in the sequel will defiantly makes it something to look forward to any turtle fan.

Recommended: Yes