TMNT: Turtles in Time Reshelled

The Short


Pros
- Has all the turtles
- You can play four player
- Unlimited continues
- Based on a game that was pretty awesome

Cons
- Total garbage
- Looks horrendous
- Has done nothing to improve the formula
- Super short
- Replaced all the classic 90s goofy turtles with the "modern edgy" turtles
- Missing levels from the SNES version, including the final one and final boss fight
- Cheap deaths, unfun, boring, and just all-around awful

Cowa-sucks-a!

The Long


TMNT: Turtles in Time is an arcade and SNES classic. Basically just a beat 'em up in the vein of Golden Axe or the previously released TMNT: The Arcade Game on NES (which is also good), it still holds up pretty good as some solid, arcade fun. I'm well aware I've ranted about games being simple just to eat quarters, but the fun in these games derives from playing it with friends, which takes away the sting of the games being simple and turns them into a good time. That being said, I'll admit that it puts these beat-em-ups on razor's edge, teetering between being "fun" and being "a total suckfest."

TMNT: Turtles in Time Reshelled is "a total suckfest."

Essentially a remade version of the classic SNES game (or the Arcade game, since the SNES game has more levels and bosses which are omitted from this "upgrade"), Reshelled is an abomination. Everything that makes beat 'em ups fun: the challenge while still feeling reasonably fair, the controls, the interesting setpieces: all are ruined in this remake. It's a horrible, awful reimagining of a game that is a "classic" (though not really the best game in terms of holding up today) that should just not exist.

The original SNES version looks better than the "remade" version above. 

First off, the game looks like garbage. Everything looks like Vaseline was smeared all over the screen, the remade character designs lifeless and boring. I get that in the original game you just fought the same thugs over and over, but at least they sort of looked interesting. These all look like bland pallet swaps, or if they aren't they still look awful. The background are especially big offenders, losing whatever pixelated charm the original had with bland, ugly scenery throughout. Effects are also bad, with enemies dying with bairly a "pop," explosions looking poor and underpowered, and pretty much the whole thing looking like crap. The animations also look janky, the turtles look bad (they are their "hardcore" reboot version, which is stupid) and it is just a crappy looking product all around.

The addition of voices doesn't help the game, either. Since these are the rebooted Turtles, rather than corny lines they instead just repeat the same lines of awful dialogue over and over. As a bonus, I think one guy did the voice acting for the entire thing, since every turtle sounds exactly the same. Nice work. 

The "throw the enemy at the screen" kill is back, and it goes to show just how little effort went into these graphics. 

But hey, as long as the game plays ok, who cares if it's hideous, right? Well, it plays bad. Really bad. First of, they added "eight directional movement" and attacks, but didn't seem to give it to the enemies (who still only attack in four directions) meaning the game is pretty much a total cakewalk. Because of the poor design and zoomed in camera, when you play with four players you can hardly see what is going on due to the massive amount of guys just waiting to be killed. On top of it, the controls are poor. I never really felt in total control, either when moving or attacking or picking my direction. Something was really off, which feels like a lame cop-out description but if you played it you'd know what I mean. The lack of precision makes levels where there are environmental hazards all the more obnoxious.

But perhaps Reshelled's biggest sin is that it's just...boring. It's a monotonous, grinding routine that isn't very fun. The game certainly throws loads and loads of enemies at you, but it does little to pick it up. Sure some levels are on rafts or boards, but the principle of just "mash attack at the nearest guy" is still in full effect. In fact, the more enemies make it worse, with killing guys being completely unsatisfying about half-way through the first stage. Even four player, which is how we played it (and have played plenty of these types of games, including Castle Crashers and the Arcade X-Men game) is just drawn-out and boring. As a bonus, you can beat the whole game in about 45 minutes, with no reason whatsoever to revisit it unless you like playing with less lives for some reason.

It plays as bad as it looks, people. 

I paid $2 for this game on sale. I want my $2 back. Even for the Achievements it wasn't worth my time or hard drive space, much less my money. Apparently Ubisoft realized this game was festering rancid vomit as well, because they completely pulled it from both XBLA and PSN, so you can't even buy it anymore. All for the better: let this game disappear and die forever, thrown away like that week-old pizza that's beginning to grow mold. 

At least we'll always have the SNES version. Zero out of five stars.