Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza or a rough game.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/69040/tmnt-mutants-unleashed-switch-review
The recent 2023 movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem was a delightful surprise in my household. I loved it and so did my two young boys. So when Outright Games announced TMNT Mutants Unleashed - a video game based on the movie - I was excited to hopefully ride that wave of turtle excitement into a fun video game. That excitement was fleeting as Mutants Unleashed is all over the place in its execution despite some good ideas and a presentation that follows up nicely on the style of the film.
Mutants Unleashed’s surprisingly deep plot follows up right after the events of Mutant Mayhem, showing the aftermath of the shelled quartet’s triumph and acceptance. More mutants (“Mewbies” as the teenage turtles call them) surface, largely to provide the beat-’em-up gameplay with some cannon fodder. The story introduces new characters, including a bunch of teenage human friends for the turtles to interact with. As per usual with Outright Games’ more children-oriented games, the amount of voice acting is great, especially for younger players. In general, the dialogue does a great job of capturing the vibe of the movie and while the plot veers more into side story than main event, it’s still a compelling tale.
Given TMNT’s beat-’em-up game history, I was looking forward to some fun co-op brawling, but the combos and systems in this game feel undercooked. It leans more character action than vintage brawler, which would have been a better choice if the character action felt tighter. Each of the four shelled warriors have their own abilities and skills, even if the multiplayer tops out with two players. While I was less engaged by the combat, I’ll give credit to the fact that it’s relatively easy to pick up and play, giving it broader appeal to all ages. However, unlike Outright Games’ more toddler-oriented games (Bluey, Paw Patrol, etc.), Mutants Unleashed skews to older ages, so the lack of depth and complexity to the combat is more of a detraction.
I was relatively unaware that Mutants Unleashed also hid some interactive social segments that seem inspired by Persona and recent Fire Emblems. You can take a turtle on different events to spend time with friends, but all of it is so slow and drawn out (and largely doesn’t feature voice acting)n that it grinds the pace of the game to a halt, even more so because the co-op play doesn’t really factor in much here. It draws out the length of the overall game to double-digit hours much to the detriment of the entire package because the content here does not withstand 15-20 hours of play. Adding fuel to that fire is the Switch port, which is adequate in motion but is bogged down by some technical hiccups and extremely long load times. Booting into the game took so long that I initially thought it was broken.
TMNT Mutants Unleashed has some really good ideas that don’t coalesce into a great game. The combat is fine, but nothing to write home about. The social RPG concept is novel, but not well executed. It’s all the more frustrating because the writing for the relatively engaging plot is great. Part of me wished this game had some time to be refined because the framework of something totally radical is here. It just doesn’t make it out of the sewers.
Topic: TMNT: Mutants Unleashed (Switch) Review (Read 94 times)
