Game review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate for EGS

Before I begin, I’ll apologize for being late getting this review out. It was already done, but lately the weather has been changing from hot to cold frequently, sometimes as often as three or four times in a single day. Long time readers will know this makes both my body and brain sluggish, sending me to bed for nap times. In fact, I just finished a nap, but at least for once, I woke up feeling ready to work. So, here we are, and hey, how the heck are you? Me? Oh, can’t complain.

So, I was a wee pup when the very first black and white Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came out, and I loved it. I liked the Archie comics version, and the first TV show. I loved the first two live action movies, and have seen episodes of various series since then. The latest movie featuring a Black teenage April O’Neil as a high school reporter was also quite good, and if the related series ever comes to a local streaming service, I’d happily watch it.

I thin one of the reasons the turtles have such staying power is adaptability, but they also have a kind of relatability as well. They resonate with lots of kids simply because ninjas are cool, but for the outsiders, they also have a kind of resonant pull. They’re outsiders who want to be part of the so-called normal world, and I know I can definitely relate to that.

Well that, and they love pizza. Anywho.

During one of Steam’s Next Fest promotions, I picked up the demo for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate and thought it was doing a decent imitation of Hades. So I picked it up over on Epic Game Store when they had an irresistible discount.

The story goes that Shredder kidnaps eternal enemy Splinter before disappearing into a portal. Leonardo, the only turtle to see it happen, gives chase and discovers multiple dimensions full of blessings that slowly make him more powerful. The tutorial level sets up the premise, and when Leonardo is inevitably defeated by the tutorial boss (or at least, when I was), he gets transported back to his brothers in the sewers for the old rinse and repeat formula.

There’s a lot to enjoy with that formula too, as each turtle feels different enough from each other that you need to vary your play style within each run. It’s very much like selecting a different weapon in Hades, but the elemental and mystical offering for the turtles are different in that while there are “perfect” combinations for each of the brothers, any run can yield something unexpected, but still just as good. These powers are doled out at the end of each “room,” and while there are items that can enhance the chances of favoring a single element, once you’re in the run, you might find the game has decided to send you in a different direction.

Each turtle also has a signature tool that they always start out with, but just like the elemental powers, it’s possible to get a different tool to alter how a turtle approaches combat. Donatello’s power is a shield that makes him invincible for a short time, but it also deals damage when it’s first applied. When waiting for the dash cooldown to recover, it can effectively tank a few hits, making it quite useful if you use it with any of the other turtles. Michelangelo uses taunts to shake up foes, Leonardo throws three shuriken at random enemies, and Raphael throws out multiple grappling chains to pull distant enemies up close and personal for a rousing round of “hide the sai.”

Coming back to home base after a loss or a win leads to tinkering with the rules of the game. At first, you use Dragon coins to add more health, or buy a revive so you’re not just working off of one life, then adding more health recovered after a revive, or maybe add more damage to your attacks. All of these are gate checked to prevent you from trying to rig the game in your favor too quickly. Beyond the first one or two upgrades, you’ll need increasing amounts of tokens collected by defeating the mid-game and end-game bosses. Which at lower levels and with revives only doling out a slim fraction of a turtle’s starting health is tricky. It can be done, but it’s really only after the first three or so complete runs that each turtle’s shell starts to feel stronger than wet toilet paper.

Later on, the game adds Dreamer coins, and opens up a different shop in the sewers. As with Dragon coins, all of the upgrade options are kept in check with tokens, although several of them are only accessible in the end game, something I’ll cover a bit later.

Hades used extra plays to build on the world, deepening characters through repeated exposures. Splintered Fate is based on a more recent comic book run, but aside from name drops, the story never gets the same chance to unfold. In every run, the turtles fight Leatherhead, Oroku Karai (Shredder’s…erm, adopted/kidnapped daughter?), Bebop and Rocksteady, and finally old Shredhead himself. The first few times this happens, there’s a lot more chatter about the turtles not understanding what’s happening or what’s coming. Which sounds intriguing and invites extra runs to see what happens next.

Except nothing happens. By my fourth successful run, every boss had fallen into a much shorter speech before the fight, and after as well. Returning to the sewers hinted that I was nearing the end of the game, so I looked up online how many runs I needed to finish, and the very short and succinct answer was eight times.

I did that, and Splinter was rescued, but the mysterious bad guy behind all these portals says to find out what’s really going on, I would have to keep playing the game. He even repeatedly called it a game, so it’s either very meta or some kind of sly wink from the writers.

Anyway, I made it to run sixteen run without having topped out quite a few of the upgrades, and beyond run eight, the aforementioned shadowy leader stopped talking altogether. There’s no big reveal, no final boss, no nothing. If Hades went to the extreme in demanding a hundred runs to get to the true ending, Splintered Fate goes in the opposite direction by hinting at a grander plot, only to end with confusing brevity, expanding on nothing, and creating nothing more enticing than the button mashing equivalent of a hamster wheel.

And this is fine. Yeah, I wanted more, but I suppose you could say that’s a good thing. The story sets up a reason to play, and once you’re in the loop, it’s up to you how many runs you do. I can’t even say I’m done after sixteen runs, and I could see coming back in the future, treating this like any old arcade game. There is an appeal in trying to top my fastest complete run time (currently thirty-one minutes) or to find another “perfect build.”

There’s also the possibility of finding elemental combinations that unlock legendary powers. One of those combinations of light and water abilities led to a power-up that let my turtle recover health with every attack, so I ended up tanking hits against Shredder, snickering evilly by applying temporary invincibility and recovering everything I’d lost. It was most amusing.

Of course, as with most rogue-lite games, RNG can play a huge factor in how fun or frustrating any run can be. A run with terrible elemental offerings can lead to boss fights that just drag on and on and on.

This isn’t helped by the double whammy of “challenge portals” during the true end game. They sound okay in theory. One is called a Shimmering Portal, and you have to opt into them to access higher level Dreamer upgrades, but you also must complete these runs to collect on that other token currencies. (As in multiple tokens, some of which are tied to wins with specific turtles.) Each portal offers a slight increase in Dragon coins, Dreamer coins, and scrap to use in the shops within runs. But taking on these portal challenges either makes all the enemies stronger, or it makes your selected turtle progressively weaker. Which means every boss fight starts to drag on because they get more health, and you get a middle finger delivered in a hole of the game’s choice. And this game has a LOT of middle fingers aching for a hole to fill.

Gauntlet levels are at least slightly more forgiving, because you don’t need to beat the last boss to collect on their currency. It’s relatively simple to get enough of those tokens to top out whatever upgrade that uses them back at home base. But if you are a glutton for punishment, you can use both portals to get a weaker turtle going up against damage sponges who hit much, much harder. I chose one or the other for the most part because the few times I attempted doing both were not fun, even when I somehow managed to eke out another winning run. Oh, also doing the Gauntlet run on Shredder’s fight unlocks “Super Shredder,” making him slightly more annoying than fighting the eponymous final boss of Hades. He ditches his second phase in favor of coating most of the floor in damage traps. That fight is really special.

The game also offers an arcade mode, where beating one area unlocks higher difficulty ratings for that area, but also unlocks other areas to explore. The arcade mode’s defining difference is that each shop offers powers using a “hex and flex” option. You might be offered stronger attack damage, but in exchange, all powers from one elemental category will be banned from all future shops in that run. In these shops, you’re given a LOT more scrap to buy stuff, but you can only upgrade in these rooms. Completing the smaller combat rooms will apply level up bonuses to your purchased powers randomly, so instead of going to a menu to choose, you just go to the next room to keep the fight going.

In this sense, it is much closer to the older arcade versions of TMNT, so I didn’t dislike it. I just had more fun in the regular mode because I got to tinker with each build, good or bad. I also didn’t throw as many runs in this as I did in Hades because there’s a higher chance of turning a bad run around if I just find one good power to boost all the bad ones. Plus, there’s some fun to be had in finding two elemental powers that stack on each other, like fire and lightning, or fire and ooze, or lightning and water.

I’ll give Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate 5 stars. It didn’t offer me nearly enough story, but as a beat ‘em up arcade game, it’s able make most runs feel fresh and challenging. Considering that after every win or loss, I would frequently restart for “one more run,” I can call it addictively fun.