Audio
About what you'd expect from an arcade game – noisy music and shouty lines from each Turtle as they battle through Foot Soldiers, agents, Krang robots, and other foes.
Visuals
Some fairly crude character models and environments make for a fairly unremarkable-looking game. You can imagine being coaxed in to spend a couple of quid on this in the arcades.
Playability
A button mashing beat 'em up affair, with jump and spin attacks the only variation on offer. Turtle Power abilities and power-ups add a little spice, but that's all there really is to it.
Delivery
A single playthrough of all six levels will take just under an hour, and there's fun to be had playing local co-op with up to three friends. However, a lack of any other content kills this dead pretty quickly.
Achievements
A pretty poor list comprising far too many grind-based objectives. You'll have to play through the game more times than you'd realistically want to for the full 1,000G.
April 23, 2024
For me, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a 1990s phenomenon, albeit one that started in the '80s. After that, the heroes in a half shell ended, and everything that followed is irrelevant. But then, I'm an old stick in the mud – if I were the right age for the 2012 Nickelodeon version of the green-skinned mutant ninjas, then I'm sure it'd be the definitive version in my head. Nonetheless, it's the first hurdle for anyone of a certain vintage to overcome in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants – these aren't my Turtles and that's not the proper Bebop, Rocksteady, or Shredder. And who are all these other weird characters? Fishface? Really?
This is the least of the problems with developer Cradle Games' TMNT brawler. It's the brevity and the lack of depth that are the real issues here. You can quite easily burn through Wrath of the Mutants' six stages in a little under an hour, and the only real replay value to be wrung from the game is to play through it again, perhaps with up to three friends in local co-op. Assuming you can muster up three pals to play the game with you (there's no online multiplayer support), there's certainly some fun to be had, hammering away at a single attack button and building up your 'Turtle Power' bar to unleash a screen-clearing flurry.
Of course, each Turtle has their signature weapon and personality, while their individual Turtle Power ability dispatches enemies in a different, enjoyably outlandish way. Leonardo conjures a whirlwind that hoovers up enemies and spins them to death; Michelangelo whips out a pizza and cuts it into lethal pointy pieces that shower foes, in a delicious but deadly maelstrom of cheese and pepperoni; Donatello uses his bo staff to conduct sparks of crackling, conductive electricity; and Raphael frantically pounds the ground, eyes and sai ablaze. Fans of Nickelodeon-era TMNT will likely be in Turtle heaven.
As an enhanced version of 2017's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game, developed by Raw Thrills, Wrath of the Mutants is almost twice the size of the original, which boasted only the Sewer, NYC, and TCRI levels, before the inevitable showdown with Shredder. Cradle Games' home port adds new Amusement Park and Dimension X stages, which slot neatly into the game. It's almost like they were always there. And despite all of the items you can pick up and throw, as well as the various power-ups, like the Spin Attack, which enables you to whirl around on your shell knocking down enemies; Smoke Bombs that paralyse foes; Shurikens; and the Ice Cream Kitty pack, which sends a moggy ricocheting from enemy to enemy; there's simply not enough variety to Wrath of the Mutants' gameplay.
Mid-level and end-of-level boss showdowns do little to inject anything extra, and, although Wrath of the Mutants takes its cue from the best TMNT game ever, Turtles in Time, it just doesn't possess the same sort of arcade spark. You can rack up combos, throw around Foot Soldiers (hurling them towards the screen in classic Turtles in Time fashion), and attempt to post a high score on the leaderboard (reaching the top score is far easier said than done), but that's about it. If you're after an uncomplicated 3D scrolling beat 'em up, then this undoubtedly ticks that box, but the dearth of options, the absence of even a single unlockable character or some sort of bonus of some description, impacts the game's longevity in a big way.
After you've been through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: WotM once, you might be compelled to play it at a higher difficulty (there's easy, normal, and hard to choose from) on a new save slot, but after that there's simply no reason to return. Its gameplay just isn't interesting enough to hold your interest for repeat visits, and there's no incentive to keep playing – a virtually non-existent story doesn't help either. April O'Neil's been kidnapped and imprisoned by Shredder again for some reason. Who cares?
While it's nice to be able to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants in the comfort of your own home, and the additional levels are more than welcome, this just doesn't measure up to the Turtles' finest moments. The complete absence of bonus content is criminal (there's nothing to unlock beyond the hard difficulty level), as is the brevity of the game's six levels, and an almost total lack of replay value. Do yourself a favour and play through Shredder's Revenge again instead.