4.5/5 ★ – Hill417's review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge.

“If you want something done right, you do it yourself”. I imagine that is what the developers at Tribute Games said to themselves when making TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge. The spiritual successor to TMNT IV: Turtles in Time, Shredder’s Revenge might have surpassed its predecessor as arguably the best Ninja Turtles game of all time. The story feels like it was ripped straight from the 80’s cartoon. The statue of Liberty has been kidnapped by Shredder and Krang and the Turtles (plus April and Splinter) will chase their rogues gallery across all of New York to Dimension X. All of the levels and the artwork in general is exactly like the classic show. Even the original cast have all reprised their roles. It is a bit disappointing that it is just one liners, but I do appreciate it nonetheless. The length of each stage is just right. With a total of sixteen that are short and sweet so that multiple replays won’t feel like a chore. Every character is worth playing thanks to their different stats. Leo is an allrounder. Donnie has the superior reach, while Splinter is generally stronger. Seriously this is the most satisfying beat em up I have played since River City Girls. Combos are simple to learn and addicting to pull off. There is no proper tutorial so the game trust you to experiment and master the techniques on the spot and all at once with the onslaught of enemies thrown at you. It never felt frustrating with all of the Foot Clan soldiers bouncing off the wall with your super attacks. When it is time for the bosses you will be pleasantly surprised to face familiar faces like Bebop, Rocksteady, and Baxter Stockman. To being surprised from seeing enemies that only made one appearance. We’re talking deep cuts here. Thankfully you don’t have to go in alone as the game allows up to six player co-op. It is a little overkill and you might not be able to keep track of where your character is, but hey it’s still cool. The only stages that feel like drags are the vehicle sections. The stages where your feet are on the ground (aka the fun ones) also had hidden collectibles. When you collect all of them for the side characters then you are rewarded more XP for leveling up. As far as unlockables go, finishing the game just once will unlock Casey Jones! If this was any other publisher than Casey would have been DLC so making him a hidden character is greatly appreciated. I do wish the endings had more creativity put into them. All of them are literally “We now return to our regularly schedule programming.” We just see them going back to their daily lives. C’mon the name is “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” give me some whacky and over the top endings. Despite the few hiccups I immensely enjoyed my time with “Shredder’s Revenge” is probably the most fun I have had with a game all year. If you aren’t even a TMNT fan just try it out for the gameplay.