Created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird all the way back in 1984, Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo, who make up the legendary ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’, have been one of the biggest pop culture icons for the past 40 years. The Heroes in a Half Shell have had various iterations in comics as well as live-action and animated movies and TV series, each with their own continuities.

After Nickelodeon bought the rights to the franchise in 2009, they created their own animated series which debuted in 2012 and ended in 2017 with 124 episodes over 5 seasons. This series had a very unique design for all the characters which certainly upset diehard TMNT fans, but it was still a very successful cartoon and popular with kids. In 2017, Raw Thrills developed an arcade beat ’em up game based on this series known as ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants’, which has now been ported to home consoles including PlayStation 4|5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and PC, developed alongside Cradle Games and published by GameMill Entertainment.

April O’Neil has been kidnapped and held captive by the evil Shredder and it’s up to Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo to jump out of the sewers, take on the Foot Clan and various other villains, rescue April and put an end to Shredder’s maniacal plan. Being a port of an arcade game, there isn’t much of a plot, but it gets you straight into the action.

Just like the arcade version, the controls are very simple and easy to pick up and play. There are some simple tutorials in the short loading screens that explain the game mechanics which is quite handy. There are only three buttons jump, attack and Turtle Power, but it still offers a small variety of moves. The gameplay mechanics clearly borrowed a lot of ideas from the classic TMNT arcade games in the 90s, which play a big part in gaming history.

Fans of the arcade classics will find the gameplay quite familiar in Wrath of the Mutants. Up to 4 players can play together for some couch co-op fun and select any of the four turtles. The turtles have their own moves with their weapons of choice which is always fun to watch, but it doesn’t feel there’s much difference when playing them.

They each have their own ‘Turtle Power’ which players can initiate anytime the meter is full to clear out the enemies on screen or deliver extra damage to the bosses. Leonardo creates a tornado, Raphael punches the ground causing an earthquake, Donatello channels his inner Thor and shoots lightning from his staff and Michelangelo throws pizza everywhere. Even though three of those make absolutely no sense with the character’s personalities and backgrounds, the Turtle Power is still a really handy tool for when things get tough.

There are also various items for players to pick up to either attack the enemies, replenish health, build up their Turtle Power meter and even summon either Leatherhead or Metalhead to take out all the enemies on screen.

The console version adds three new stages not seen in its arcade counterpart. Each stage takes place in different locations from the sewers, the streets of New York, a theme park and more, taking on the Foot Clan, city crooks, robots and more, and each stage features boss battles.

Players will encounter many familiar faces including Rocksteady, Bebop, Baxter Stockman, Kraang and more, but most of them basically attack the same way with different animations. Even worse is that sometimes there isn’t a clear indication that the boss is about to attack, leaving players unable to anticipate them and get hit out of nowhere.

The graphics look like they were taken straight from the 2012 series and even the voice actors reprise their roles. The voices of Jason Biggs, Rob Pauline, Greg Cipes, Sean Astin as the turtles and more talented voice actors can be heard throughout the game, even if it’s mostly one-liners. It’s also really nice to hear the voice of the late great Gilbert Gottfried as Kraang Sub-Prime again which will surely tug at the heartstrings.

The graphics and voicework are fantastic, but the same can’t be said about the music and sound effects. Other TMNT games have had really catchy tunes that fit in perfectly with the gameplay, but here it just sounds generic, and you can barely hear it anyway amongst all the other noise. The sound effects sound good but also feel incomplete in parts. With certain actions, you would expect to hear sound, but there’s nothing at all. Playing the original version in a noisy arcade might’ve helped hide these imperfections, but playing the console version at home without all the background noise exposes these issues.

On top of no online multiplayer, there are also no other online features at all. There is a scoreboard for each stage based on how you play, but you can’t compare your scores with other players online. Even worse, you can’t even enter your name or initials on the scoreboard, and it’s only represented by the character you played as. Even if you were the only one playing this game, it would still be nice to keep track of your score, although there isn’t much incentive to play the game again anyway. It honestly feels more like a mobile app than an arcade game.

Overall, it’s a simple game to play, but a little too simple. Even with six stages to get through with two boss battles each, the entire game can be completed in about an hour. The ending after beating the final boss is kept short and sweet, but for a modern game, it feels unrewarding. You can unlock a Hard Mode after finishing the game once, but there is nothing else to unlock or collect outside of Trophies and Achievements.

Console ports of arcade games usually add more content and while the extra three stages are a nice addition, the price tag of $29.99 AUD makes it hard to justify the purchase and just feels like a quick cash grab, especially when there are so many better TMNT games out there, many of which have been brought to modern consoles by Konami. Shredder’s Revenge is still being played today and the upcoming games, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate and The Last Ronin based on the critically acclaimed comic, already have fans excited.

Since the 2012 series, there have already been various other TMNT media such as the more successful games, the Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon in 2018 and the 2023 hit film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, so porting an arcade game based on a no longer relevant series was a very odd decision. Other beat ’em up games from recent years offer a ton of variety, but there’s barely any of that here.

It might be best played casually at a party or something to keep the kids entertained. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants is an average game that fans might have fun with for an hour before moving on to something better.

Written by: Sammy Hanson