Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate Review - Turtle Loop

As strange as the idea sounds--teenagers who are mutant turtles, who also happen to be ninjas--Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been a wildly successful franchise going back to its origins as a comic book in the '80s--so successful, in fact, that it spawned a legion of copycats, copy mice, frogs, sharks, and more. With that history of imitators in mind it’s funny to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splinted Fates act as such a direct clone of Hades, just with a TMNT coat of paint. Unlike Street Sharks or Biker Mice from Mars, though, this does an admirable job of capturing most of what makes its inspiration great.

As is tradition, Master Splinter has been kidnapped, and it’s up to the four turtles to battle through four levels of roguelite action to get him back. Each run starts in the sewers, moving room to room as you clear enemies and collect power-ups along the way. When you die, you are transported back to the turtle’s lair to regroup, buy a few upgrades, and start again.

Splintered Fates was originally a mobile game, but it was built with modern high-spec devices and access to controllers in mind. As a result, its solid core gameplay loop feels right at home on the Nintendo Switch. Delivering attacks before quickly dashing away to avoid damage generally feels fast and fluid. Intense fights near the end of a run can be a dizzying whirlwind as you prioritize targets and deliver blows in the small gaps in which enemies are vulnerable. Attacks quickly charge up a powerful special attack and a tool with a unique power, like Michelangelo’s taunt, which stuns and damages enemies in a small area of effect.