Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Wrath of the Mutants Review

Try saying that fives times fast.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Wrath of the Mutants is exactly as it’s described, a console and PC port of a 2017 arcade title of the same name (perhaps minus Arcade). Priced at $50 AUD, it’s decidedly for fans of the 2012 iteration of our heroes in a half shell.

I’m not a diehard Turtles fan, but I am a child of the 80’s — the original cartoon and first couple live action movies are what pulled me in. That isn’t this; instead, Bebop is abnormally emaciated, Rocksteady is Russian, Shredder and Krang are Shredder and Krang (though the latter has lots of little brain-friends), and there are so, so many other villains that seemingly have been given the same mutagen-enhancements as our four heroes. I don’t know if Splinter exists at all.

For more recent fans, I’m sure all these characters and situations make sense, but for me, I had no connection. Nor did I to the gameplay that followed, a pale comparison of action found within the original Turtles arcade game… and, I must point out, given a loving facelift recently in the form of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Cowabunga Collection or a revival in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder’s Revenge.

Gameplay isn’t bad, nor buggy, but it is very formulaic. Mash the single attack button, hope you pull off a special slam or throw move when a projectile comes from across the screen, and keep an eye out for power-ups in the form of smoke bombs, throwing stars, and support characters. When you mash the attack button enough, you get a special Turtle Power move; hit that button when you can.

Wave after wave, screen after screen, you’re literally just doing that — attacking until you can hit a different pick up or until you can use your special, and repeating. Each level has a mini-boss halfway through, followed by an end boss. Both take a lot of punishment and deal damage you can’t really avoid. Die, die, use a continue, repeat.

My strategy — if you want to call it that — was effective on Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulties and made short work of opponents. I didn’t play in co-op, though local 4-player play is an option; there, I’d imagine you’d simply need to coordinate powers between all playing. You’ll be unstoppable, and that’s a problem because there’s not a lot of game to play, even with the addition of new levels and mini-bosses. 

Personally, I’d recommend Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Cowabunga Collection or Shredder’s Revenge over Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Wrath of the Mutants for all the reasons I described above, but you know where you sit with this franchise. Purchase accordingly.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Wrath of the Mutants was reviewed using a promotional code on PS4 and PS5 (primary), as provided by the publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.