Haven't blogged in a while, but here it goes....


.......this picture is huge and I don't know why.

TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled - Thoughts

When I first saw the screenshots and videos of TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled, I was underwhelmed at what I saw and just wrote off the game completely, and didn't think of it again. Today however, I has some spare XBL points and saw that the Turtles in Time was released today, and just figured, what the hell, I'll give it a try.

Now, the only time I ever remember playing Turtles in Time was on the SNES years and years ago. The six things I remember were the following:

1- You play as the Ninja Turtles in a game that plays much like the TMNT Arcade Game
2- Ninja Turtles game includes the Ninja Turtles theme song
3- Alley Cat Blue
4- You travel through time
5- You can throw Foot Soldiers at the screen
6- You fight Shredder and beat him by throwing Foot Soldiers at the screen

Of the six things I remember, only three of them are actually in the remake. You play as the Ninja Turtles, but they are modeled after the Turtles from the recent CG Movie made a few years back, you do travel through time (they couldn't honestly have fucked that one up), and you can throw foot soldiers at the screen.

I can't fault them for #6, since I believe that battle was only on the SNES version of Turtles in Time and not the arcade version, I still was disappointed. The other two are just pure nostalgia, I just figured since this was a remake of a TMNT game that did include the original TMNT theme (first level of the arcade game, also intro song to the SNES versions), that they would include it, since the game sales will be purely nostalgia based. #3 is more of a compliant about the soundtrack as a whole, the soundtracks in the SNES and Arcade verions are just much much better, again because of nostalgia and because the new tracks are so bland. I believe the songs are remixes of some sort, but they just sound too mellow and generic for a game like this.

Intro song should have stayed the same as well:

So fucking BADASS

One of my biggest complaints is the hit detection against bosses. Throughout the game it feels fine, but against some bosses, it feels off. During the boss fight at the "Bury my Shell at Wounded Knee" stage I got it the worst. After the boss preforms a sliding attacking 3 times, he stands up and either side of the screen and can be attacked, and a lot of the time I see my character models arms and weapons passing through the boss without any hits being registered, it was very frustrating.

Also, given this is a remake of an arcade game, you'd think friends would be able to drop into your game at anytime, but unfortunately, they cannot.

Now, despite all these issues I had with the game, I still found it fun to play. Multiplayer is great fun of course, easily the best way to experience the game. Fighting the Foot Clan in a 3D space works surprisingly well, which is why I don't understand why fighting the bosses can be such a pain. The game certainly feels like the Arcade game, with cheap traps and bosses to take away all your health in order to steal another quarter (Infinite continues thankfully, but it does feel like cheating at times).

Also, may I recommend busting out your arcade stick if you got one? Good fun.

I think overall, it's exactly what I was expecting, I enjoyed it, mildly, but I think I'd much rather prefer a port of the original over this remake. I'm very glad this game was priced dropped to 800 points because it's not worth much more than that, so you aren't getting ripped off if you choose to take a trip down memory lane. But just remember, there's very little nostalgia to actual be had here, and if you haven't already, just go buy the original TMNT arcade game on XBLA. I think I'm going to play that now.

I'd love to hear others thoughts on the game.