Despite its simple gameplay and retro aesthetic, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge has huge shoes to fill. 1992’s Turtles in Time is consistently ranked as one of the best Super Nintendo games of all time and represents the most iconic and recognizable iteration of the Turtles, even after all these years. Developer Tribute Games previously worked on beat-'em-ups like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and 2007's TMNT on the Game Boy Advance, but Shredder’s Revenge is the studios biggest endeavor yet. Based on my time with the first two missions, it’s clear that Tribute Games has deep reverence for the ‘80s Turtles, and plenty of fresh ideas to update the classic gameplay.
If you’re a big Turtles in Time fan like me, playing Shredder’s Revenge will feel like riding a bike. The abilities and combos are adapted from Turtles in Time so faithfully that I was able pull off throws, dash attacks, and perfectly time drop kicks despite not having played the original in decades. It’s got the shoulder charge, the weird spin jump, and even the awkward slide kick where you have to animation cancel a cartwheel. It feels like playing Turtles in Time in every way, including the weird positioning you need to find if you want to throw a Foot Clan soldier at the screen. It’s just as temperamental as it was when I was ten years old, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
There’s plenty of new features and some nice quality-of-life improvements as well. You no longer need to sacrifice your health to use super attacks thanks to a new charge meter that fills up as you do damage. You also have a charged heavy attack that’s useful against enemies that rush in and out of your attack range, like the little robots from Turtles in Time’s space levels. Each character has a taunt ability that fills their super meter, and characters can high-five and perform combo attacks in multiplayer. The new mechanics are light touches that add some nice variety to the gameplay without reinventing what made Turtles in Time work.
Shredder’s Revenge isn’t just a remake of Turtles in Time though. It features a brand new story with at least ten missions (Dotemu wasn’t ready to confirm exactly how long the game is when I spoke with the developers) and all brand new environments to explore in each level. The art style feels like a perfect balance between the retro pixel art of the arcade era and the poppy animation of the 1987 TMNT series. The bright colors, character models, and animations are just as inspired by the animated series as they are by the classic games, and I loved seeing Tribute Games' take on the Foot Clan and enemies like Bebop and Rocksteady in the early missions.
Every scene is filled with tiny details that will make it tons of fun to replay and explore. My favorite running gag is how poorly the Foot Clan ninjas try to blend into the environment to set up ambushes. In the street you’ll see them hiding in trash bags shaped like Foot Clan ninjas, then later when you enter an office building, you’ll see ninjas sitting at computers filling out spreadsheets while they wait for their opportunity to strike. Tribute Games has nailed the tone and personality of the ‘80s Turtles and I can’t wait to see all the different environments and character’s it’s created.
I loved Turtles in Time and I had an instant connection with Shredder’s Revenge. Rehashes of retro games don’t always work out, but as soon as I started drop kicking ninjas off of motorcycles in the first mission, I felt like I was home. It’s not easy to remake a classic, but it’s even harder to make a new game that lives up to one. Shredder’s Revenge looks like everything we hoped it would be, and maybe even more.