Right off the bat, TMNT Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants makes that much abundantly clear. On a surface level, and for anyone who’s only looking to engage with the game in casual fashion, there’s certainly some mindless fun to be had here, especially if you play it in local co-op, but the game lacks the sort of depth and mechanical tightness that you’d want from a Turtles beat ’em up. Your moveset, for instance, is surprisingly limited. You can attack enemies using one button, jump up using another, and acquire the occasional pick up or item to throw at nearby foes. You can also unleash a special Turtle Power that attacks all on-screen foes once you’ve filled up a bar- and that’s pretty much it. If you’re looking for meaningful weapon variety, different combos to master, or new moves and abilities to learn, TMNT Arcade will likely let you down with its straightforward offerings.

"And though it’s a functional game in the barest sense, TMNT Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants ends up falling short in some key areas where a beat ’em up can’t really afford to stumble."

Weapon pickups in particular are quite disappointing. Ordinarily a staple of the genre that can make or break a game, in TMNT Arcade, the items and weapons that you can pick up during gameplay come from a painfully limited pool, while also lacking imagination and inventiveness. Pickups range from shuriken, garbage cans, exploding barrels, and more to items that temporarily let you spin about the battlefield inside of your shell, or summon allies for momentary aid. In total, however, the amount of options leaves a lot to be desired, and even running through the game’s six levels just once, pickups quickly start feeling repetitive.

Other issues exacerbate the flaws in TMNT Arcade’s lean gameplay core. There are four playable characters with Leonardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo, and Raphael, but virtually all of them play identically. At first glance, they do have some noticeable differences in their special Turtle Powers and the weapons that they use, but it doesn’t take long for it to become clear that all of those changes are purely cosmetic. Turtle Powers all have the exact same effect – all on-screen enemies (barring bosses) are obliterated – even if they each have their own unique animations, while the different weapons each Turtle wields don’t come with any actual differences in terms of range, speed, attack power, or anything of the sort.

Then there’s the fact that the general game feel in TMNT Arcade is probably best described as “sluggish”, which is perhaps its most glaring issue. You expect a beat ’em up to have tight and responsive controls, for it to have crunching and weighty feedback during combat, but all of these things are missing here. Movement feels slow, and especially in moments where you’re expected to quickly get out of the way of an incoming attack or avoid an environmental hazard, the frustratingly lethargic movement can make it feel like you’re wading through molasses. Even more unforgiving is how tame and soft the combat feels- very rarely does a hit connect with any real impact, thanks to the almost complete lack of the sort of weighty crunch that is so crucial to the moment-to-moment experience in any game that’s focused on combat, let alone a beat ’em up.

Clearly, then, there’s a lot of significant issues to contend with in TMNT Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants. It’s not all bad though. Bosses, for instance, can be occasionally fun, while the game does have a couple of decently designed stages. One in particular that sees you moving through an amusement park is a genuinely fun one with its charming house of horrors and its unique environmental hazards- or it would be, at least, if the game didn’t have as many major issues in crucial areas as it does. Again, for those who’re just looking to just dip in for a casual jaunt through a straightforward beat ’em up, running through each level once and fighting against their bosses can be enjoyable, but the more you engage with the game, the more frustratingly apparent its issues become.

"Even more unforgiving is how tame and soft the combat feels- very rarely does a hit connect with any real impact, thanks to the almost complete lack of the sort of weighty crunch that is so crucial to the moment-to-moment experience in any game that’s focused on combat, let alone a beat ’em up."

In fact, that feels almost like an inevitability with this game, because of how lean its content offerings are- you can easily blow through all of its levels in an hour (or two at most). Of course, shorter runtimes are par for the course for the vast majority of beat ’em ups, but where the good beat ’em ups encourage you to run through their levels repeatedly to try and maximize your scores, find new secrets, and the like, in TMNT Arcade, what you see is exactly what you get, which means there’s little to no reason to replay the levels. Each playthrough of a level is bound to feel almost exactly the same, with little to no variation to speak of. Yes, you can try and beat high scores to climb higher in the leaderboards, but when the core gameplay foundation is as shallow and flawed as it is here, why exactly would you want to?

Launching at a price of $29.99, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants doesn’t have nearly enough meat on its bones to justify its price of admission. Not only are its content offerings surprisingly lean, it also doesn’t offer too much replay value. On top of that, it commits the even graver error of falling short with its core mechanics. With beat ’em ups, a relative lack of content can be much easier to forgive if the core gameplay is fun, but TMNT Arcade falls short of the mark even in this area. Add to that the bland visuals, a non-existent narrative framework, and polish issues (such as frequently glitchy audio mixing and volume levels), and it becomes increasingly harder to freely recommend this game to anywhere, no matter how big of a fan you are of beat ’em ups or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IP.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

An expanded version of the 2017 arcade game of the same name by developer Raw Thrills, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants features solo play, as well as local co-op action for up to four players together on all platforms. The game is based on the more modern incarnation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Nickelodeon.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants features six stages and 13 different boss battles. This includes three new stages and six new boss battles that weren’t originally in the arcade title. Players will be able to take on the roles of any of the four turtles, and can use their special super attacks to take on hordes of enemies.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants, originally released on arcade machines back in 2017 by Raw Thrills, will feature the voice actors from the show reprising their roles. The game will also include 4-player local co-op multiplayer.

The game will feature 12 stages, along with 19 boss fights for its home release. For comparison, the original arcade release featured 6 stages and 13 boss fights. The title acts as a spiritual successor to classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade games.

Fans of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have had it quite good in recent times, with the critically acclaimed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge having come out a couple of years ago, followed by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection. Another game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin, is also in development.

To access the new DLC, gather 50 percent of data and then go to the Observatory to speak to a new NPC. You can now venture to the Blue Sun dimension which consists of The Core, Gehenna Prison, and Dominion Baths. Three new Contract quests have been added for PvP/PvE, NPC Invasion and Stacking in New Game Plus.

The DLC also adds new weapons, armor sets, masks, shields and new enemies. Naturally, there are new bosses along with additional programs for the Jukebox and Taunts. In addition, Update 484 has added the option to respec Stats at The Pond’s console and sort one’s inventory with different filters. Check out the full list of changes below.

Update 484

MAIN UPDATE FEATURES

Stats Respec

• You can now respec your stats at the console of the first location: the Pond.

Inventory Management

• You can now sort items in your inventory by a number of criteria.

THE FULL LIST OF CHANGES:

• Added entries to the Blue Sun levels;
• You can now take contracts for specific challenges and rewards;
• New NPCs are mow populating the Irid Novo space station;
• Added a new audio occlusion technology;
• Local co-op splitscreen can now be set to vertical an ultra-wide monitor is detected;
• Major bosses now scale better with progression;
• Some NPCs no longer get stuck in some stairs;
• Hungarian language added;
• Optimization and minor bug fixes.

Taking recently to Twitter, Cradle Games announced that “due to technical specificities of the platform”, Hellpoint’s Xbox Series X/S version has been delayed. It’s now expected to launch in “one to two weeks”, though an exact date hasn’t yet been confirmed.

Cradle Games also says that this doesn’t affect the Xbox launch of the aforementioned DLC, Hllpoint: Blue Sun. Players on Xbox Series X/S should still be able to play the Xbox One version via backward compatibility, and any and all save data will, of course, be compatible with the native Xbox Series X/S version when it launches as well.

Hellpoint has, however, launched today for PS5. It is also available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

An announcement regarding the release of Hellpoint on Xbox Series X/S. pic.twitter.com/yMqFfZCTVP

— ⚫ Hellpoint (@CradleGames) July 11, 2022

Blue Sun will take players to “strange, never-before-seen locations within Irid Novo, behold the influence of the cosmic gods and discover the true cause of the Merge cataclysm.” The expansion will launch on July 12.

On the same day, native PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of Hellpoint, first announced in 2020 with a 2021 launch window, will also be releasing. Cradle Games promises 4K visuals, 60 FPS frame rates, and “drastically decreased” load times.

You can check out a trailer for the current-gen upgrade and the Blue Sun expansion below.

Hellpoint is currently available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Cradle Games and tinyBuild released their sci-fi Soulslike RPG Hellpoint last year for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The game was scheduled to launch for the Nintendo Switch at the same time, but got delayed into late 2020. That late 2020 launch didn’t happen either, but it’s now been announced what the new release date is.

Cradle Games and tinyBuild have announced that Hellpoint will finally be releasing for the Nintendo Switch on February 25, about a month and a half from now. It will see both physical and digital launches, and will be sold for a price of $34.99 / €34.99 / £29.99. Of course, you can expect the game to have all post-launch patches and improvements on Switch that its PS4/Xbox One/PC versions have seen so far.

In November, it was also announced that Hellpoint would also receive PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions in 2021. On the PS5 and Xbox Series X, the game will have a performance mode for dynamic 4K and 60 FPS gameplay, and quality mode for native 4K and 30 FPS settings.

For a Souls-like title, Cradle Games’ Hellpoint didn’t exactly make the biggest splash on release. Nevertheless, after its current-gen release, the developer has announced that it will be coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2021. PS4 and Xbox One owners will receive free upgrades for the same.

All three consoles will experience faster load times. However, on Xbox Series X and PS5, there will be two modes available – Performance and Quality. The former offers 60 FPS running in dynamic 4K while the latter runs at 30 FPS in native 4K. Xbox Series S settings have yet to be revealed.

Of course, the current-gen versions will be backwards compatible on the new consoles when they launch. Along with improved performance, there will be an option to unlock the frame rate. It won’t look as good as the proper next-gen upgrades but should help substantially improve the performance.

Hellpoint is currently available for PS4, Xbox One, PC with a Nintendo Switch release still to come. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

There’s a lot of Dark Souls inspired games out there nowadays, and I do mean a lot, so it takes quite something for one of them to stand out. Hellpoint is one of those stand outs with a unique and striking art direction, as well as an interesting setting of a space station in the far future that has merged with an inter-dimensional hellscape. The game was set to come at the end of this week for all current systems, but seems you’ll have to wait a bit longer for the Switch version.

On the game’s official Twitter, it was announced that the port for Nintendo’s system will be pushed back a bit. Developer Cradle Games say they want to do all they can to deliver the best version possible for the system, so they’ll need a little extra time. The new date is not determined, but they are still aiming for 2020.

Hellpoint will still release on July 30th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. We got to chat with the game’s developers earlier in the year for a detailed look at the game, which you can check out here.

https://twitter.com/CradleGames/status/1286021793464164355?s=20

Cradle Games’ Hellpoint has a new release date. The action RPG, which was delayed to Q2 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will now release on July 30th. Check out the latest release date trailer below which showcases the game’s co-op mechanics.

Hellpoint takes place in the far future where the Irid Novo space station has been taken over by inter-dimensional horrors. An incident called “The Merge” has happened and it’s up to you to find out what that means. Combat is very Souls-like with Stamina Points and the ability to dodge away from attacks.

The game’s main calling card are the dynamic events that can happen due to the black hole that Irid Novo orbits. This can result in enemy positions and stats changing, bosses appearing and much more. Co-op is useful in this sense and you can either play with someone online or via local play.

Hellpoint is coming to Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch. For more details, check out our interview with Cradle Games’ Matt Boudreau and Marc-André Jutras here.