Dr. K's Waiting Room

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Since Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) first appeared in May 1984, they’ve achieved worldwide success thanks to many influential cartoons, videogames, and action figures.

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Quick Facts:
Following Michael Bay’s monstrous reimaginings, Nickelodeon partnered with Seth Rogan and Jeff Rowe on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Rowe, 2023), a visually impressive box office success. Mutant Mayhem was accompanied by this tie-in videogame, which was marketed as a direct follow-up and bolstered by downloadable content (DLC). While the visuals and writing were praised, the game’s performance was heavily criticised.

Gameplay and Power-Ups:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed is a direct follow-up to the surprisingly energetic and entertaining 2023 animated movie of a similar name and directly follows the events of that film, with mutants like the TMNT living freely in New York City. However, when the malevolent Techno Cosmic Research Institute (TCRI) sends mutants into a frenzy with a pheromone harvested from anthropomorphic chameleon Cammy, players must journey through the sewers, subways, and rooftops to subdue the threat and find a cure. Unlike most TMNT videogames, Mutants Unleashed only offers single or two-player co-op and, as far as I can see, there are no team-based attacks on offer (though you can compete for letter grades). The TMNT all share the same basic controls and are somewhat differentiated by their weapons and gameplay. Raphael, for example, seems slower and has a shorter reach, Michelangelo seems much faster, Donatello has great reach, and Leonardo seems like an all-rounder. Combat is extremely simple, with players unleashing basic combos by tapping X (or holding it for a stronger attack) and performing a stronger dash attack with Y. You can string these buttons together for more elaborate combos, but mashing X or Y generally does the job. Players jump with A, double jumping by pressing it twice, and run by holding the Right Trigger. This allows you to wall run, hop to pipes to skate across gaps or areas, and perform additional attacks. You hold B to block or tap it when indicated to dodge roll from enemy attacks, unleashing a powerful counter with either X or Y (though these can leave you vulnerable). As ever, pizza restores your health, though you must restart the mission if you fall in battle as there’s only ever a checkpoint before a boss battle, which can get aggravating.

Pizza and other temporary power-ups, like fizzy drinks that increase your attack power, are dropped by enemies or found in destructible objects. You can hit explosive barrels to damage enemies (though these also blow up in your face!), knock them off rooftops and into water (both of which damage you as the TMNT can’t swim!), and use environmental hazards like speeding subway trains to hurt enemies. As you complete missions and collect VHS tapes, you’ll earn experience points (XP) to spend upgrading characters in their sewer lair, adding additional moves to their arsenal. You can also increase their maximum health, their damage, and how fast and long the assist gauge raises by finding hidden ooze canisters. You can also find arcade tokens to spend on single-use items that, for example, refill your health when it’s drained but, to get the most out of each character, you must chat to various non-playable characters (NPCs) to offer encouragement, guest star on podcasts, and complete combat and time trial missions for additional XP and rewards. As you dish out damage, the assist gauge fills and allows you to call in another character to assist you using the Left Bumper, either by attacking enemies or spawning pizza and fizzy drinks. I found these extremely temperamental as most have a short range, cutscenes cancel them out, and you must smash crates to get the power-ups rather than them just appearing. Donnie, Mikey, and Raph also have unique special abilities: Donnie stuns enemies with a camera flash, Mikey automatically twirls his nunchaku, and Raph briefly enters “Rage Mode” after a successful dodge and counterattack. Again, I had trouble with these, and they weren’t as intuitive as I’d like. The game is also extremely finnicky with its lock-on and camera, which makes platforming a chore, combat a hectic mess at times, and often sees you taking a plummet or being bashed about and forced to frantically mash B to get up before you’re stun locked.

Mutants Unleashed uses an odd time-based mechanic where some missions must be completed within a certain number of days. Time passes as you chat with NPCs and complete tasks, like running obstacles courses to deliver pizzas for Bebop, Rocksteady, and Ray Fillet, battling enemy waves as part of Splinter’s training regime, and hunting down “contagious” enemies. I’m not sure what the penalty is if you miss the deadline for a mission as I completed them all on time, but it was frustrating being limited by this mechanic. Most of these sub-missions involve revisiting the same areas and battling the same enemies but in different configurations and contexts, though you do unlock additional apps for your smartphone, such as a monster finding game and fun stickers to virtually place on people’s heads! When in story-based missions, you quickly see everything Mutants Unleashed has to offer as you visit the same locations over and over, sometimes at night or in reverse, with little variation beyond tougher enemies. You can make enemies more manageable by passing time on the world map and even run past most of them unless you’re forced into a fight. Environmental hazards like electrical pylons and live wires, giant fans, sticky oil, and moving or bouncy platforms can really mess up your combat especially as it’s easy to get snagged on the environment. Occasionally, the mindless action is broken up by the odd zip wire or autoscrolling section, with you often battling through (and on the roof of) subway trains or hopping to various vehicles on a busy highway (extra dangerous given the janky camera and controls!) You’ll hop to submerged shipping containers (some of which sink), run across collapsible wooden planks, jump to rooftops and giant fans over dangerous sewer water, and occasionally chase the TMNT’s infected mutant allies (though this is merely a ploy to lead you to the same platforming and combat sections). Mutants Unleashed can be surprisingly frustrating even when you’re at full power. The TMNT can be pummelled to death quite easily if you’re not careful and the lack of checkpoints gets especially frustrating in the late game, where enemies are naturally more formidable.

Presentation:
Mutants Unleashed does a fantastic job of mirroring the art style and action of Mutant Mayhem, a fact helped by the four leads being voiced by the same teenage voice actors from the movie. The graphics adopt a sketchbook-like, cel-shaded style that mimics the unique presentation of the film and adds some interesting touches to the action, such as scribbles for shadows and character outlines when they’re obscured. This comes to a head in the endgame when Cammy riles the “Mewbies” into a mob, with the rioting crowd represented by shifting, distorted, potentially 2D art, which is a nice touch. Comic book style sound effects and cutaways add to the combat, though the voice samples do get quite repetitive. I did like that the TMNT chat with each other and their allies to progress the plot, though I wasn’t expecting the game to focus so heavily on NPC interaction. Each character has an NPC they interact with alongside the team helping their other allies in various ways. Leo gets leadership and self-confidence pointers from shifty influencer Toby, Raph helps a disabled swimmer get back on form, Mikey guests on a podcast, and Donnie helps a young, drone enthusiast. You also snap pictures of graffiti and learn about art from Mondo Gecko, help budding reporter April O’Neil chase leads, watch movies with Splinter, and play dance rhythm games (in cutscenes…) with Wingnut. Each area changes as you progress and explore, with different NPCs in the background or changing entirely, such as scientist Sai Modi being forced from his laboratory and Bebop and the others temporarily relocating their pizza business. The TMNT have some fun banter with each other, with Raph surprising the others with his knowledge of various animals after binge-watching nature documentaries and the others mocking Leo for his crush on April. Mutants Unleashed is surprisingly long, too, with a lot of cutscenes to sit through (which you can thankfully skip), which is very unusual for a videogame tie-in to a movie.

Sadly, as good as the presentation is, it’s very visually repetitive. Between missions, you wander about the TMNT’s cramped sewer lair, upgrading characters or engaging with Splinter, before choosing your next mission from the world map. Almost every mission has you venturing to the city streets from either the sewers or the subway, hopping across various rooftops, or visiting the docks. These areas have many variations, with the subways tunnels sometimes being active, flooded, or you fighting through moving trains and the rooftops being at different times of the day, but it all gets very old very quickly. Sometimes, you revisit an area backwards (meaning you start at where you exited before and head right instead of left) or at different times of the day, or tougher enemies and new hazards appear. These are usually giant fans that blow you into the water, bouncing washing lines, or more water and bottomless pits. Areas are pretty well detailed, for the most part, with the city streets being an obvious standout. You’ll see businesses, graffiti, alleyways, overground trains, and sewer pipes all around and it can be fun veering off the painfully linear path to explore or wasting time in the skate park. Some missions see you stuck in claustrophobic interiors, such as the abandoned movie theatre, the cramped shopping mall, or the hazardous TCRI facility, where pistons threaten to crush you or push you into spiked walls. Other times, you’re attacking generators to briefly disable electrical hazards around construction sites, desperately avoiding the rushing tarmac on the highway, or clambering to piles of shipping containers or disused boats. Mutants Unleashed eventually adds a bit more variety, such as snow or you battling across the wreckage of the Brooklyn Bridge. In the endgame, you venture into TCRI airships, grinding around the wings and smashing consoles inside, before storming their main facility, battling hordes of the game’s worst enemies and smashing power nodes to stop them pumping out the madness-inducing pheromone.

Enemies and Bosses:
Mutants Unleashed has you striking down waves of Mewbies, bizarre anthropomorphic animals driven crazy by TCRI’s pheromone. While you are forced to fight waves of them, as indicated by the anime-like cutaways and annoying focus on nearby groups, others can simply be avoided (which I would recommend). Although the same Mewbies pop up all throughout the game, each has different variants and they’re all aggravating in different ways. Crabapults are the most common, weakest enemy and even they can protect against your attacks by hiding in the bins strapped to their backs and toss rubbish from a distance that always seems to hit! Later, defeating them sees a smaller variant linger about, which was very frustrating as they also always seemed to do damage. Rumblebees are also very common and can be tricky to hit with your mid-air attacks. They swoop at you, attack with their boxing gloves, and later swing chainsaws or emit a damaging gas cloud and even explode upon defeat! The luchador-like El Hippo takes quite a pounding before going down and charges up a punch or especially annoying charge that send you flying, or performs a belly drop that homes in on you to make dodging it even more frustrating. Fin Harris attack with tridents, charging a dash and sometimes protecting themselves with an electrical field, while the bulky Eel-A-Watts also employ a body slam alongside a devastating laser cannon! Zebrakens can be ridiculously annoying as they can snag you with their extendable, crab-like pincer; Rock N Moles pop up from below, sometimes sporting drill-like noses or unleashing a soundwave; and Roller Blade mantises quickly dash about on roller skates. I found the worst enemies were the Roaster Fish and Maul Tusks. Roaster Fish weild flamethrower-like blowtorches and nail guns that constantly knocked me out of the air, sent me flying, or hit no matter where I was; and they teleport, too! Maul Tusks are mutant snails that swing massive mallets to decimate your health bar or unleash a barrage of rockets, sometimes being protected by forcefields and fought in small areas where you either can’t dodge or get snagged on the environment!

Despite Mutants Unleashed featuring a world map and many side missions, the story follows a linear path, and you battle the TMNT’s crazed mutant friends in a set order, often after chasing them or cleaning up their messes. As is common in TMNT videogames, your first boss battle is against the duo of Bebop and Rocksteady, who take it in turns battling you in a mosh pit. Rocksteady tries to gore you, though gets stunned if you trick him into running into the walls, as Bebop tosses grenades from the DJ deck, while Bebop fires a laser from his ghetto blaster and tosses those same grenades as Rocksteady fires flames. After besting both, they attack together, which can be a tough fight even with pizzas being flung into the arena (I recommend focusing on Rocksteady first). The first fight against Genghis Frog is merely a teaser as he quickly flees after a short battle. When you fight him in the water treatment facility, his axe game is much improved, with him swinging it wildly and in an overhead arc. When he hops to the background, you must trick him into snagging explosive barrels with his tongue and pummel him when he’s stunned. Leatherhead was a much trickier boss as you must sneak around her lair from a quasi-overhead perspective, avoiding making noise or being spotted or she basically immediately kills you with her shotgun. Instead, you must follow glowing cables to a generator that must be attacked to temporarily blind her, and then do this again but without visual indicators. When you finally confront Wingnut at the cinema, she’s fought on a 2.5D plane before the movie screen and attacks from above, swooping low before landing and firing energy waves both high and low. After enough hits, she adds a bombardment of flaming projectiles to her arsenal, but her attacks are easily telegraphed so she’s not too difficult to beat if you time your jumps properly.

When Mikey also turns feral, he’s temporarily removed from the playable roster and you must track him to the city streets. Although he’s fast and seems to boast all his regular attacks, Mikey was the easiest boss battle and went down in no time. At first, this is true for Cammy, who you fight a few times amidst the rioting Mewbies. Each time, I hit her enough for her to flee and tag in her minions, so I never saw her use a single attack. After she joins the TMNT in opposing TCRI, Cammy’s mutated into the far more monstrous and formidable “Turbo Cammy”, who’s fought in three phases (with no checkpoints). Turbo Cammy first attacks with claw swipes, a big stomp, and turns invisible, which is pretty manageable. She then uses her extendable tongue, adds a charge attack, and leaps across the wrecked bridge to crush you. Finally, she spews ooze, spitting at you, and adds faster combos to her arsenal. Luckily, your allies toss pizza to help, but this was a gruelling boss battle as I kept getting stun locked, caught on the environment, or tossed about due to the dodgy lock-on gimmick! After Cammy seemingly dies, Leo’s ally Toby is revealed to be a traitor and is fought in a giant, distinctly Krang-like mech aboard a TCRI airship. This was a much easier boss battle as it’s ridiculously easy to avoid his missile barrage, sweeping lasers, and jet powered drop. Even when Toby regenerates his health for the second phase and adds more lasers, a flying attack, and a punch combo, it’s super easy to get behind him and pummel him into submission, especially if your TMNT are fully upgraded.

Additional Features:
Twenty-seven Achievements are up for grabs in Mutants Unleashed, with one awarded every time you defeat a boss, upgrade a character, or reach maximum friendship with each NPC. You’ll snag another if you find all the “DigiMutants” using the smartphone app, photograph every piece of graffiti, and locate all the ooze cannisters to max out your health, damage, and assist gauge. Even playing casually, you should manage to complete all these Achievements on a single playthrough, though it was surprising to not see extra Achievements for playing with a friend or defeating thousands of enemies. Beating the game unlocks “New Game+”, which carries over all your skills and makes the enemies even tougher, though I wouldn’t recommend playing this game more than once (specially as there’s no Achievement for clearing New Game+). By inputting codes into the TMNT’s computer, you unlock additional skins that see the characters transformed into action figures or wear their casual clothes, and extra skins can be bought as DLC to turn them into Metalheads or their counterparts from the 1980s cartoon and original comics. The “Fresh Meat Mission Pack” offers additional missions, featuring three new enemies, a “Horde Mode”, and a new boss battle against Scumbug, though there also aren’t any Achievements tied to the DLC so you’re probably better off saving your cash.

Final Thoughts:
I was expecting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed to be another arcade-style beat-‘em-up that simply saw one to four players battling waves of mutants through the sewers and streets of New York City. Instead, the mission-based narrative and focus on side missions and upgrading the TMNT has more in common with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan (PlatinumGames, 2016) than the simple, mindless simplicity of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (Konami, 1991). On the one hand, the game is thus far longer and more involved than I would expect from a videogame based on a movie, cramming in so much story and so many character interactions that it starts to become tedious. It feels unfair to criticise this as it’s clearly not a cheap cash-in like other tie-in videogames, but Mutants Unleashed wears out its welcome very quickly. The basic combat is fine, but it’s thrown all out of whack when you sprinkle in platforming or precarious environments to fight in. It’s especially aggravating that the TMNT take damage when they fall in water, that they can easily get caught on the environment and pummelled by enemy hordes, and that the game’s so stingy with checkpoints. I didn’t mind the NPC side missions, but most are just cutscenes or reskinned areas you’ve already visited a dozen times. The deadline gimmick seemed an arbitrary way to extend the game’s life, as was forcing you to repeatedly do the same tasks for basically the same rewards. While the game faithfully captures the look, humour, and atmosphere of the movie, I felt no sense of accomplishment from upgrading the characters, barely cared about the NPCs, and was extremely disappointed that the 16-bit titles have more variety in their environments. The bosses could be fun but were also extremely cheap at times due to the dodgy controls, janky camera, and awful collision detection. With little incentive to replay the game and no collectibles or unlockables worth shouting about, I’d definitely say you’re better off avoiding Mutants Unleashed and sticking to the classic TMNT videogames as they might be short, but at last they’re fun!

My Rating:

Could Be Better

Were you also disappointed by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed despite how long the story mode was? Did you enjoy how it mimicked the presentation and continued the story of the movie? How invested were you in the NPC’s problems? Which of the bosses was your favourite? Did you also get frustrated by the controls and collision detection? Which TMNT videogame is your favourite and how are you celebrating the TMNT this month? Tell me what you think in the comments and go donate to my Ko-Fi to suggest another TMNT videogame for me to review.