Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PS4
It’s an improved version of a 2017 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, so you could forgive yourself if you missed it the first time. The original was an arcade cabinet exclusive scrolling beat-’em-up, one of the rarest releases of the twenty-first century. Specifically, for a real arcade. in the real world!
There was some excitement around the game at the time because it seemed to resemble the well-known arcade brawler Turtles In Time from 1991, which was a high point for the genre and not just the Turtles. The game promised four-player thrills around a flashy cabinet, but it vanished from view since there was no home release planned. After seven years, it is finally ported to a console, complete with the catchy Wrath of the Mutants subtitle, but the people who will be most upset are probably the players.
This is a shoddy game by any standards, even with developer Cradle Games adding more boss fights and stages to the mix, thickening up what original developer Raw Thrills released to arcades. Even when playing alone, you can breeze through its pitiful six levels in about an hour on normal difficulty. In an era of endless 100+ hour epics, brevity could be overlooked—or even a selling point—if Wrath’s combat was outstanding and the game offered a ton of replay value. Sadly, neither of these statements is true.
While short levels, easy controls, and eye-catching graphics might be effective in an arcade, they fall flat when played at home.
Combat is monotonous and consists of repeatedly pressing the single attack button or jumping. For a straightforward dive kick, jumping and _then_attacking is the most impressive combo. Even worse, the game lacks even a basic dodge move. During some boss fights, there is a prompt to “JUMP!” to avoid ground attacks, which feels impossible to respond to in time. This is especially annoying because Wrath’s animation is surprisingly good, making it possible for players to read enemy attack patterns but giving them very little opportunity to block or dodge attacks. However, the AI of the enemies is so bad that even a dodge could leave players feeling overwhelmed. For example, if they attack an explosive item on a stage, like an oil barrel, they will actively approach it, negating any timing or skill needed to trap enemies in a blast.
Regardless of which of the brave quartet you choose to play as, there are hardly any noticeable differences in the gameplay beyond each Turtle’s signature weapon. The only thing that sets them apart is their Turtle Power attack, a unique move that can be used after enemies have been damaged to fill a gauge. Yet even there, although there’s some difference in appearance – Raphael fills the screen with fire, Leonardo creates a vortex, and so on – the effect is always just a one-hit KO of grunts.
The sole reason to replay a level is to attempt to get a better score on the scoreboard for that level. Every stage has an identical layout to the next: move to the right, defeat enemies, collect precisely two ally summons at predetermined moments in each level (one summons the mutant alligator Leatherhead, the other robo-turtle Metal Head), and defeat mid- and end-level bosses. Rinse and repeat five times, battle the ultimate stage’s antagonist Shredder, and then watch the credits roll. There’s no incentive for completing the game as a whole, short of unlocking a harder difficulty level.
Wrath also feels weirdly anachronistic now, drawing on the characters and settings of the 2012 CGI TMNT cartoon – a version of the Turtles we’re now three reboots removed from. Not that it matters much – there’s no story here, making it a shock when you clear the game and find out, via the medium of embarrassingly near-static cutscene, that you were apparently out to rescue April O’Neal from Shredder.
To its defence, Wrath is at least a budget release – £24.99 RRP – and fans of that 2012 cartoon will enjoy its fidelity to the source material, both visually and with returning voice actors including Seth Green, Sean Astin, and Gilbert Gottfried. It’s also, like most scrolling brawlers, more fun when you have friends in the same room playing along. But when contrasted against the likes of 2022’s superb Shredder’s Revenge — another example of the genre, also inspired by Turtles In Time, but with a wider roster of playable characters from TMNT lore, a passing but competent story mode, and a few unlockable surprises — Wrath feels like a half-hearted outing for the heroes in a half-shell. While short levels, easy controls, and eye-catching graphics might be effective in an arcade, they fall flat when played at home.