The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have delighted kids since, well, when I was a kid!  I was a little too old to get into them back then, but boy I sure did love the original arcade game!  Now the four heroes are just as popular as ever, with a computer animated series on Nickelodeon and a new summer movie.  Fans can relive the action of the recent film with a game based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, exclusively on Nintendo 3DS.

The game plays like a dungeon maze crawl hack and slash, with sewers, subway tunnels, and the dark streets of New York replacing the dungeons.  You can view an overhead map on the bottom screen where you can see enemies and other points of interest.  Switch between turtles in this single player game using the D-pad.  Each turtle has different abilities and skills.  Donatello can take out groups of enemies quickly with his Bo staff, strong Raph is great with one-on-one fights with big enemies, and Michelangelo can take out long distance threats with his ninja stars. Although in most cases, it really doesn’t matter who you pick.  I’m only sad that my favorite turtle, Raphael, is so slow moving in this game.

Between each level you can visit the hub in the sewers to do several things.  You can choose which mission to tackle next, try side missions, view your challenges (think achievements), and buy items in the shop.  You’ll want to stock up on pizza in the shop before you go on your next mission, especially since the levels get tough pretty quickly.  You buy items in the shop with money you earn by defeating enemies.  You can use consumable items bought in the shop by pressing the L button during missions.  If even one of your turtles loses his energy during a level, you’ll have to start over at the last checkpoint, so it’s important to keep them full of pizza bought at the shop.

The last thing you can do in the sewer hub is craft and equip new and stronger weapons for your turtles, which gives the game a light RPG element to it.  You can find items in the levels to use for crafting, or scrap older, weaker weapons to make newer ones.  As you defeat enemies, you’ll collect glowing objects that raise your experience level.  The higher your level, the better weapons you can craft and use.

The main problem I had with this game is it doesn’t come with an instruction booklet, and the in-game tutorials aren’t always clear and oftentimes are forgettable.  So it was harder for me to play and review this game because of that.  Plus I just wish it would’ve played more like the arcade game I loved as a kid.  But if you liked the new movie and enjoy slower-paced action games, then you may want to try this one anyway.

Kid Factor:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is rated E-10 with an ESRB descriptor of Fantasy Violence.  Even though you hit ninjas, sewer rats, and mutants with blades and other weapons, defeated characters just fall over and disappear.  If you’re OK with your kids watching the movie, they’ll be OK with the game, too.  Actually I saw the movie and thought it would be pretty good for kids.  Reading skill is needed for the text in the game, and younger fans might get frustrated at the difficulty.

Tags: Game Reviews, Movies with Children, Television