Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is like a two-dollar slice of pizza you pick up while you’re walking home after a night out in New York City. It’s tasty in the moment, but it will leave you wanting a lot more.

Beating the entire game takes less than two hours, but it still somehow manages to drag. You can return to the game’s six stages to try and get higher scores, but I had zero interest in doing so. The arcade games of yesteryear sometimes lacked depth, but they at least had a hook that stuck with you and kept you itching to return to pump more quarters into the cabinet. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants strives for the greatness of the influential arcade hits of the past but falls well short. Thanks to uninteresting and annoying gameplay, repetitive enemy and boss encounters, and grating audio design, Wrath of the Mutants is little more than a shell of the series’ glory years.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is not the steaming cash grab that you might have assumed by seeing the publisher involved. Neither is it anything close to the action-packed highs that we have seen from the heroes in a half-shell in recent years. Instead, we are left with a game that is perfectly serviceable but ultimately forgettable, let down by repetitive levels and combat and lacking any reason to go back for more. If, for some unknown reason, this is the only Turtles beat 'em up that you can access, then you will likely have a perfectly fine 90 minutes of playtime. But the alternatives on Switch deliver much more memorable, satisfying TMNT experiences.

Wrath of the Mutants is a functional beat 'em up. I'll give it that. If you liked the 2012 show and want more TMNT beat 'em up goodness to play, it's fine if your co-op friends are nearby. Otherwise, there are far better options at similar or cheaper prices, even within this IP.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is a decent addition to the collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. It succeeds by playing it safe. The two original arcade games are regarded as great arcade brawlers in addition to being some of the better Turtles games, and the gameplay of Wrath of the Mutants is heavily patterned after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time. Fans of the franchise and genre will undoubtedly enjoy playing through the game once or twice, but outside of collecting all the trophies, there isn't much incentive for repeated playthroughs. There are no different game modes, no collectibles and the only difference in difficulty levels is the number of lives. Even with the additional content, it takes only slightly more than an hour to put an end to Shredder's plans and rescue April. It's fun enough to kill some time on a boring afternoon, but even the most hardcore Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan would hesitate to say this game kicks some serious shell.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is absolutely fine. If there is any nostalgia for the original cabinet this is a port that will ensure that love will be rekindled. For those not holding that sentiment, though, this will seem a barebones, standard hack-and-slash. With its price tag, unless a Turtles completionist, you'd be better off picking up many of the other related titles for now.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants excels in simplicity, and not everyone can appreciate that. This game comes from Nickelodeon, and that means that here is a Turtles game for kids.

They each have their own ‘Turtle Power’ which players can initiate anytime the meter is full to clear out the enemies on screen or deliver extra damage to the bosses. Leonardo creates a tornado, Raphael punches the ground causing an earthquake, Donatello channels his inner Thor and shoots lightning from his staff and Michelangelo throws pizza everywhere. Even though three of those make absolutely no sense with the character’s personalities and backgrounds, the Turtle Power is still a really handy tool for when things get tough.

Unfortunately, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants offers an experience far below expectations for a Ninja Turtles beat 'em up. The visual identity based on a more “recent” animation, even though there are already newer ones at the moment, could have been a great element, but the bland and uninteresting set ended up affecting what could be another great group game.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is not a bad game at all if it is aimed at a younger audience who will likely value the direct and uncomplicated fun of the Raw Thrills title more than the lack of depth and content that the game offers us. This is a classic beat 'em up that if we are fans of the 2012 Nickelodeon series we can enjoy it despite its limitations.