Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time Re-Shelled (Review)

The 2nd Ninja Turtles arcade game: Turtles in Time, and more specifically the Super Nintendo enhanced port of the game are not only the high point of Ninja Turtles nostalgia, but also represent the peak in quality of the beat em up genre. To celebrate the turtles 25th anniversary, Ubisoft has updated the arcade version for the X-Box Live Arcade (it will release later for the Wii and PS3). I use the term "update" loosely as all that has really been changed for this version is a nice graphical improvement and the voice work being handled by the cast of the current Ninja Turtles series. The only major gameplay change comes as a result of the new 3d environments. Instead of just being able to attack in two directions, the turtles can now attack in all eight directions and since your enemies can also attack in this fashion, things get pretty hectic at times.

The game still has some of the cheap trappings of an arcade game trying to steal quarters out of your pocket, but its actually fairly manageable here, unlike the 1989 arcade game. Also unlike the 1989 game, the game is fairly enjoyable in single player. There still isn't any sort of delay time when you get knocked down so enemies near you when you try to get up will still easily attack you again, but it's not as punishing this time and doesn't seem to happen as frequent. Bosses are actually fun and seem to have some semblance of a legit attack strategy (well most of them anyway). Just like the 1989 game, the game is a lot more fun in mulitiplayer and much easier. The only major downside to this release is that its an update to the arcade version of Turtles in Time instead of the SNES version that had more levels and better boss choices. Despite its quirks, I'd say this remake gets a recommendation. It's a pretty fun game to play by yourself, and even more fun with friends.