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.

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.

As part of an AMA on Reddit, Raw Thrills’ Eugene Jarvis answered some questions from the community about the game. There he confirmed that online multiplayer would be coming and that it was their “next goal” as far as updates. On top of that, Jarvis also said that more content would be planned after they had the online nailed down. Unfortunately, there was no timeline given or specifics on what DLC would come after multiplayer.

Cruis’n Blast is available now on the Nintendo Switch.

Tracks are broken up into different Tours. You have HK 2089, Wild Safari and Night Riders in the Night Tour; Oxford Circuit, Neon Tsunami and Typhoon Alley in the Storm Tour; and Dangerous Dinos, Dino Star and Dino Janeiro in Dino Tour. Each track has its own unique spin, whether it’s dinosaurs or rampaging UFOs. There are over 30 in total, which means plenty of chaos and thrills.

Cruis’n Blast releases on September 14th for the Switch. It features 23 custom vehicles ranging from Lamborghini and Chevrolet cars to unicorns, dinosaurs and helicopters. Multiplayer for up to four players is also supported. Stay tuned for more gameplay leading up to its release.

Cruis’n Blast offers 30 different tracks with locations like Death Valley, London and Singapore to race on with 23 different vehicles. Though there are realistic cars from brands like Lamborgini and Chevrolet, you also have bonus vehicles like a Unicorn, Dinosaur, Helicopter and more to choose from. If you’ve played titles like Cruis’n USA or Cruis’n World, then you should be right at home with Cruis’n Blast’s aesthetic and fast-paced action.

The title will be available both physically and digitally when it releases and has an install size of 3.6 GB only. Stay tuned for more details and gameplay footage in the coming months.