Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed

This may sound crazy, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed is on my 2024 games of the year list. I am a massive and I mean massive fan of this franchise so I am perhaps a bit biased and willing to overlook some flaws. However, this game offered me everything that I wanted in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. It is based on the most recent incarnation of the long running series and it actually serves as a sequel to the movie that came out a year prior.

The Mewbie Uprising

The plot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed takes place after the Turtles put a stop to Super Fly in the TMNT Mutant Mayhem movie. Mutants are trying to fit in and live peacefully in New York, but there are some tensions. These tensions are amplified when a mutant called Cammy, uses her pheromones to make the new mutants, who are called Mewbies act feral and cause all kinds of trouble. It is up to the Turtles to find and stop Cammy before the human/mutant relationships meet a point of no return.

The Social Network

One of the most surprising things about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed is that the game has more to the plot than just that. There is a social system here, kind of like a very basic Persona 3 Reload thing where you have several characters that you need to chat with in order to build a certain ranking. Each one offers something a little different and it is honestly a great way to add new characters and also flesh out the Turtles. Now, this is way more basic than you get in a Persona game, but it is still awesome and I think that it gives them a good base to build on if they were to make a sequel to this game.

Turtles Count It Off!

If you get that reference, what I am about to say will make a great deal of sense to you. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed as far as the combat goes, feels very similar to what the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game offered. It is a fast paced hack and slash 3D beat-em-up. Each of the Turtles has their own range of moves and their own skill tree. You can also call in the other Turtels to help you out in combat. There is some platforming here and some light exploration as well. I will say that the levels are a little small and there are many areas that you will think you can go to, but you are hit with a wall and cannot. The game does have a couple of tech issues, I got stuck behind stuff a few times, I fell through the floor and the game did flat-out crash on me twice. However, this is a budget game and for the most part, I found the gameplay to be fun, and exciting and they slipped in a bunch of extra content. There was the social stuff I already mentioned, but there is also stuff like delivering pizza for Bebop & Rocksteady, a kind of Pokémon Go style hidden object game, and a few other gameplay additions that give you something else to do apart from fight.

Just Like The Movie

As Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed takes place after the Mutant Mayhem movie, they have gone for the same kind of art style. It is like a 3D comic book and it looks awesome. The characters that they created for this game are a lot of fun, I especially loved Crabapault and I have an action figure of him hanging up in my game room. It is not just the looks that are great here, we also have a ton of voice acting. With this being a lower budget game, the amount of voice acting here truly did surprise me! I was very impressed with the quality of the voice acting. The social situations for the most part are not voice acted, but most of the other stuff is. I will say that the soundtrack is a bit disappointing, the movie had an epic licensed soundtrack and it is a shame that they could not have gotten those same rights for the game.

Pros:

• I liked how each Turtle felt different
• The Persona style social elements were awesome
• Combat is quick and fun
• There is way more to the gameplay than just fighting

Cons:

• The game did have a few technical hiccups as I was playing it
• I do wish all the social sections were fully voice acted