The Weird Pixel

Review: Turtles in Time: Reshelled

By Newton13 - August 5, 2009 - 18:05 UTC

This isn’t the game I remember.

Game Length – About 1 hour, this shouldn’t take you too long to blaze through.

Replayability –There’s four player co-op online and leaderboards to keep you going, but the extra modes (survival, and quick play) don’t really add much more than a distraction.

Technical Aspects (Looks,Sounds,Controls) – The graphical upgrade on this game looks very good, I do wish you were able to go back to the original graphics like say, Monkey Island, but the revamp is a nice looking touch.. Sound has been mildly improved with new voice actors providing the turtles one-liners and Veronica Taylor (Ash Ketchum) as April O’Neil

Online Capabilities – Up to 4 player online co-op, a lot of fun but a bit hard to see your character admist your allies and enemies alike.

Value For Money – Thank God they didn’t go for the $15 price point or I would really feel ripped off, but this isn’t enough for the $10 you have to shell (PUN!) out.

I’ll admit it, I’m a big ninja turtles fan, growing up with the cartoon and comic books in the ‘80’s, the turtles were always a hit, and Turtles in Time was arguably the best release of the classic beat ‘em up game to date, but, sadly, all is not well in the retelling.

Turtles in Time: Reshelled is probably not what you think, you might think it’s a remake of the SNES game released several years ago, and you would be wrong.. This is a reshelling of the arcade version released in 1991, you may ask yourself what the difference is? Well, I’ll tell you. In the SNES version, you had quite a few more bosses and levels as well as (my most memorable level) the level where you throw foot soliders at the screen to beat Shredder hanging out in a giant mech that’s in your face… You get to fight the Rat King in the sewers, and Tokai and Razzar are met long before you reach the boat.

In the arcade version, you won’t fight Shredder til the very end, and even then this fight is more reminsant of the last fight in The Hyperstone Heist than it is the SNES title, Shredder just has a big sword and runs around the screen smacking you, he’s easy enough to kill and dodge but…. Epic? Far from it. You also will not be fighting the Rat King in this version, as far as the arcade is concerned, he does not exist. Who would have thought you would go to the sewer only to have *Spoiler* Shredder appear and warp you throughout time?

Now, it is not that this is a bad game, it just doesn’t live up to the TMNT legacy.. You remember the 1989 arcade game released how many years ago on XBLA? Sure, it was merely a port of the original arcade version with nothing new short of online multiplayer, but it was only $5…. A drop in the bucket considering how much I spend on that game as a kid, now I spend quite a bit on Turtles in Time in the arcade, but I spend more time on the SNES game, and, quite frankly, prefer that version to all others, more levels, more bosses, just more fun.. But there is one thing that Reshelled has that the SNES and arcade cannot recreate.

That is Online play, up to four player co-op, this is still a lot of fun playing with friends and battling the bosses, did someone say “Turtle Power!”? But when grouped with strangers expect to be battling for pizza from people who clearly don’t need it. There is no lag that I ran into in my play sessions online so it runs smoothly, but this game may merely be an excuse to get 200 more achievement points and then shelve it for life, sorry Reshelled, you missed the mark.

In conclusion, Reshelled is a fun little distraction, but the flaws (namely the price tag), outweigh the benefits of this great game, you might want to give it a try before completely shelving it, but the fact is, this may not be the TMNT: Turtles in Time game you remember.

                      

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