Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan

Of late, Platinum Games can do no wrong. That stops with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan. The latest game to feature the heroes in a half-shell, developed by the minds behind Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance? It seems like a match made in heaven. Unfortunately, the end result is a bland, repetitive game that doesn’t take advantage of TMNT‘s characters or settings.

Mutants in Manhattan does have strikingly beautiful models of the Turtles and their enemies. Its quasi-cel-shaded art direction looks great and getting to a new enemy or boss battle was a little reward of its own. What also works is a new charm system; you unlock various charms throughout the game, and they can be equipped to your heroes. Combining different charms on the four brothers can lead to some interesting, Platinum-like combos.

Otherwise, the combat in TMNT is boring. In most fights, you can simply let the three other AI-controlled Turtles do all the work. Each Turtle has four abilities which can be swapped out for others you unlock throughout the game. Some speed up skill recovery, health regeneration or provide massive damage or crowd control effects. As varied as all that is, I still myself found spamming the light and heavy attack buttons in various combinations, simply because that was the most effective and fastest way to progress.

The ten or so levels offer up the exact same experience: kill bad guys, defend a thing, collect an item over and over until a bar fills and the level boss is accessible. The Boss fights were the only battles that required a little more strategy — whittle down several overlapping health bars until it dies. Upon completion, each level gives you a grade, but even this didn’t make the most sense. I ended a perfect run with a B rank, and sat around doing nothing another time and magically received an S ranking.

Hidden through each level are collectibles that unlock the original TMNT comic covers. They’re cool for a nostalgia trip, but pointless otherwise. That said, I ended up slogging through the game a bit more to collect them, as I’m a massive 90s TMNT fan.

For a game that features four heroes, the lack of local multiplayer is Mutants in Manhattan‘s biggest sin. If this was restricted to provide a better in-game frame rate, that tact didn’t work; it’s locked at 30fps as last-gen versions of the title are being offered. Supporting characters like April, who could have at least helped to mix things up a bit, are restricted to comms broadcasts. In short, the game’s nothing to write home about; bland environments with basic environments in a story you’ll soon forget.

Some of these issues could perhaps be forgiven, considering the game’s lower price point, but that’s hardly a selling feature. For what you’re charged, there’s not enough game — hell, couch co-op probably would have addressed this. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan is like a pizza with anchovies – unless you like that kind of thing.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan was reviewed using a promotional code on Xbox One, as provided by the publisher.

Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan

The good Nostalgia. Great character models.	The bad No local co-op. Short. Bland.

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