There are two questions you should be asking yourself before playing this game:

Do I like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Did I play and enjoy SuperGiant Games’ Hades from a couple years ago?

If the answer to both questions is “yes,” you should absolutely play this game. If only one of your answers is “yes,” it’s still a fun time, because the gameplay is solid and easy to get the hang of. But I’ll just get this out of the way to begin with: Splintered Fate is more or less a reskinned version of Hades. And that’s okay! If you’re going to use any existing roguelite as a model for your own, Hades is absolutely the right call.

One thing that sets Splintered Fate apart from other TMNT games is that it takes place in the IDW comics universe, something only Platinum Games has done (sort of) with their now-delisted Mutants in Manhattan brawler. I really love the IDW comics and the character designs, which have been retained here. The voice actors are also great and give each of the Turtles a very different feel.

As the game begins, a letter from Shredder has Splinter abducted, but the Turtles are relieved to get a visit from their father’s spirit, telling them that he can use Dragon Coins to increase their abilities. Dragon Coins are Hades’ Purple Orbs, and you can spend them every time you’re sent back home. You then choose one of the Turtles, each of which has a different attack cadence, special attack, and “Tool,” which is a tertiary attack with a special effect: Leonardo throws three throwing stars in a cone, Raphael pulls several foes towards him with a chain, Michelangelo stuns & goads nearby enemies to his position, and Donatello temporarily boosts his defense. In Hades, we’d call these different weapons. Then it’s off to the battlefield!

As in Hades, clearing rooms will net you new abilities or pickups. For example, you might have the option to gain an attack bonus to dash attacks, swap out your “Tool,” or gain a batch of Dragon Coins. There are a huge number of options here, especially when you start including elemental and stacked damage bonuses.

You’ll face one or two mini-bosses per area, which are usually joined by underlings. Actual boss fights can be quite tough. Leatherhead, Karai, Bebop & Rocksteady, and of course Shredder are the big bads here. I had a lot of trouble tackling the warthog & rhino together (think Theseus & Astrius). These bosses also have variations which randomly show up, like a version of Leatherhead that heavily favors area attacks, or a downright cruel version of Karai who creates unsafe terrain all over the place and is therefore hard to actually attack.

Defeating Shredder’s granddaughter is the game’s first “benchmark,” as she provides an additional form of currency used to buy bonuses at the Lair. In fact, you’ll soon learn that there are quite a few currencies in the game that must be used alongside Dragon Coins and (before long) Dreamer Coins. I found currency tracking to be kind of annoying, especially since Dragon and Dreamer Coins only get you so far.

In general, Dragon Coins increase things like health and damage while Dreamer Coins increase the odds that you’ll receive certain drops. Another variable is Artifacts (Keepsakes in Hades), which you can carry one of at a time. You’ll select one in the lair, but you can swap them out at shops. These tend to guarantee you a certain type of ability, increased Scrap from Mousers, increase your dash chances, etc. Unlocking these have certain requirements (which are not hard to achieve) and they can also be upgraded.

Splintered Fate has co-op and online multiplayer options, for up to all four Turtles. I wasn’t actually able to get any of my friends over to attempt couch co-op (it was a busy week, apparently), but Neal Ronaghan and I tried out online multiplayer with just the two of us and it worked flawlessly–you set up a game and then tell your friends what the room code is. Apparently, new players can join at any time. When I joined Neal’s game, he was already halfway through the 2nd level!

However, our game was cut short by Splintered Fate’s biggest downfall: weirdly frequent crashes. During my time with the game, it was not uncommon for it to crash unexpectedly, kicking me out to the Switch dashboard. Thankfully, Splintered Fate auto-saves frequently, at least once per room, and you’ll be able to get right back to the action upon restarting. I’ll also say that the game’s difficulty blasts into the stratosphere after beating Shredder for the first time, because you start finding Shimmering Portals–alternate rooms–with modified challenges, like Foot Clan enemies doing more damage, or some of your own abilities disabled. But then normal boss fights get harder and challenge boss fights are even worse–imagine fighting a souped-up Leatherhead who summons a nonstop throng of Punk Frogs--arguably the toughest normal enemies in the game.

Unfortunately, if you want to keep upgrading your Dragon and Dreamer abilities, you’ll have to suffer through and win many of these challenge rooms–there’s no way around it.

Splintered Fate looks great, if a little unambitious. This is probably a consequence of its mobile roots, but character models are clean and everything is easy to see and discern. I honestly would have appreciated more enemy types, though. Hades is well known for having a menagerie of weird things to fight, from skeletons to rock monsters to demonic chariots. Here, you’re limited to rats, Mousers, Foot ninjas, and Punk Frogs. Sure, there are some variants here, like…larger Mousers, yellow Foot ninjas, and big/potentially cybernetic soldiers, but it’s pretty limited. You also don’t get many chances to talk to your NPC allies–I thought they’d wind up in the lair so you could talk to them from time to time, as in Hades, but that’s not the case. Casey Jones will pop in, say hi, and then he’s gone. The music is understated but quite good–I frequently got the tunes stuck in my head for hours after playing a few rounds.

I really liked Splintered Fate despite these complaints mostly because the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are my favorite superheroes, but also because Hades is the best roguelite developed since The Binding of Isaac. Much like the Darksiders games, Splintered Fate may be borrowing elements from other games, but it has its own identity. It’s absolutely worth a shot, especially if you have the ability to play multiplayer regularly. It’s good to see the Turtles in a game that’s not ostensibly a brawler, and I was surprised by how well they took to the roguelite genre.