Review | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate - Satisfying Slicing And Dicing
Well, we’re here, folks. Another Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. But is this one actually good? We’ve seen an array of titles from the colourful bandana-donning terrapins over the years, but what makes Splintered Fate so special? The answer is simply that it is a very good game.
Fans of the series will know that only a couple of years ago we were gifted with Shredder’s Revenge, a modern retro-inspired beat ’em up in the vein of Turtles in Time which became a beloved addition to the Turtles universe. Meanwhile, there was also the release of the Cowabunga Collection a couple of months later which brought all the classic games together in one compilation. If you’re ever hungry to beat 'em up old school style in the arcade, or just want to hear the delightful overworld music of the original 1989 game like I do (and yes, it’s a problem), that collection has it. It really seemed like the turtles were back on form once again in the video game space. However, one other Turtles title flew under the radar when it made its debut on mobile a few months back.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate originally released on Apple Arcade in May 2023. A few months later saw the release of the much-maligned Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Wrath of the Mutants, a game more wildly available outside of Apple Arcade which many critics and fans alike believed was uninspired and poorly executed. Thankfully, as fans began to resign themselves to yet more subpar TMNT games going forward the team at Super Evil Megacorp announced the news that Splintered Fate was coming to console, on the Nintendo Switch, and there finally seemed there was some turtle-powered light at the end of the sewer tunnel.
When I first loaded Splintered Fate, I was immediately overjoyed by the music (always a good sign) which sounded appropriately cartoony and heroic, right in line with the franchise. I was less pleased with the following slow guitar sounds that came, but chalk that up to diversification — it can’t all be jumpy and exciting, and the game does a good job of varying the soundtrack, making the most intense moments sound great while allowing the times of preparation to have a more relaxed, ambient feel. Balance is a key component of what makes TMNT: Splintered Fate a great roguelike, and a straight-up great addition to the series. This along with the replayability makes this a game you can play at any time, whether you’ve completed it yet or not. You won’t be able to finish the game as quick as you might think, and there are pros and cons to the many times you actually have to face the gauntlet.
Dynamic progression allows for the evolution of enemies and their attacks as you get further along in the game, meaning it will never get too easy or feel the same. On the other hand, you might get annoyed thinking you finally completed the game, only to be told to do it all again from the beginning. There is indeed an original story that threads the game design, but more often than not it feels contrived and on the nose, too easily breaking my suspension of disbelief when Donatello mentions the science of the portals or the fourth wall is broken down completely. But this is a Ninja Turtles game, and no one comes here for realism. We come because the fighting kicks ass, the gameplay loop remains fun and fresh, and most importantly, it stacks up against the classic titles while delivering something different.
We can’t talk about Splintered Fate unless we also talk about the game that helped inspire it — Hades. When Supergiant released that game in early access, it became a hit across the gaming industry, garnering its title as Game of the Year at the 2021 Developer Choice Awards, for what many still think today is an extremely well-made and unique game that looks and runs great and offers tonnes of mythological fun. I happened to love Hades, and I also really enjoyed Splintered Fate, but Splintered Fate was the one of these two I actually completed. There are several things that Super Evil Megacorp may have taken as inspiration from the Supergiant hit, but in the Turtles’ world, it doesn’t feel like a rip-off, more of their own spin on the genre. Couch co-op brings something unique, the 2.5D style fits the game well, and dashing around the procedurally generated rooms feels superb, but I do still wish there was a jump or flip-like button like there is in Turtles in Time or Shredder’s Revenge. Nevertheless, this game feels very nostalgic for the days gone by and obviously a lot of care was put in to improve upon the mobile version to make it feel good on Switch. As a fan of TMNT since I was a kid in the late nineties and early noughties, I have always had a soft spot for this series. I’m no comprehensive turtle fan (and certainly don’t have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the expanded universe), nor have I even played all of the games, but I still love the idea of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — save friends, do cool ninja moves, and eat a tonne of pizza.
My criticisms are small but still notable. The story is a bit underwhelming, though the premise of the game is good enough — save a kidnapped Splinter from a mysterious netherworld. It doesn’t have to be a head-scratcher after all, but there are nice details that add to the lore, it’s just not that groundbreaking. Other more technical issues did come up; including glitch-repeated dialogue at the end of boss fights, words appearing off-screen when collecting Turtle Powers, and not least of all, the game crashing a total of seven times during my two and a half weeks with it. The currency systems are a bit convoluted, you’re only allowed one Turtle per run, and even despite procedurally-generated rooms the route is mostly the same and can become monotonous especially if you’re not great at the game. Docked mode is a bit chuggy compared to the handheld, and sometimes enemies are blocked from view behind the pre-rendered environments and you can’t see them or yourself. It generally feels a bit unpolished in places.
The good things about it are that even though it crashed seven times I never lost any progress, the gauntlet bosses remained fun and challenging the entire journey, it looks really good on handheld and runs smooth, and the randomness of the abilities and items makes every run novel. Will I get enough Splinter’s Revives for the final boss? Can I stuff enough pizza in my gob to keep the run going while I KO enemies with a pair of nunchucks? You never know what you’re going to find. The character models are fantastic too both in real-time gameplay and dialogue art — it feels like a proper TMNT game. And having played nearly forty hours to complete the main story and only getting impatient a very few times, I have to say I think this is a terrific roguelike, and a very engaging experience. The voice acting is well done, gameplay is smooth, music is good, button mashing doesn’t feel boring, and the different turtles at your disposal all bring something different to the table and allow for even greater replayability. Overall, for me at least, it’s in the top three best TMNT games of all time, and I would recommend it to anyone who is even mildly a fan. Cowabunga.
