Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate review: Hades meets TMNT

Videogames based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been up and down over the years. For every Shredder’s Revenge, there’s been a Wrath of the Mutants. The latest, however, is one of the good ones. When it comes to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate, think Hades but with all of the heroes in a half shell as playable characters. Needless to say, it’s challenging, but there’s a lot of fun to be had.

Teenage Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate isn’t brand new – it was first released on iOS last year. Now available on Switch with a PC release to follow, however, there’s never been a better time to jump in. It’s much better playing it with a controller, for example, and the visuals have been improved to make it quite the treat on Switch. There’s even an option to limit the framerate to 30fps if you want to maximise the clarity.

Not that you will want to, though, because the fast-paced action here benefits too much from the extra responsiveness afforded by those extra frames. The setup is simple: during a bout of training, you find out that Splinter has gone missing. Then Shredder turns up, summoning a mysterious portal that returns you to your lair. Could the two events be connected? That’s for you to find out, and of course you’re going to do all you can to save Splinter, too.

With your home in the sewers serving as your hub, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate follows the typical roguelike template. After choosing which turtle you want to take control of, each with their own moveset range of unique starting perks, you head out to engage in battle. Always starting in the sewers, you’ll make your way through numerous zones, battling many henchmen along the way, as well as encountering the odd boss, both of the mini variety and otherwise.

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Of course, death is inevitable when you first start playing — there’s a clear step up in difficulty beyond the sewers, for sure. By collecting various currencies as you play, however, you can unlock a wide range of permanent upgrades before you set out on a new run, increasing your chances of success. Whether it’s increasing your health, your attack damage or the number of dashes you can perform, everything helps. There are other helpful systems, too, such as Artifacts that provide valuable benefits.

What makes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate such a joy to play, however, keeping you going back time and time again, is the sheer number of perks and upgrades that are available on any given run. Whenever you clear a room of enemies you’re given the choice of a small selection of upgrades, and over time they allow you to make a pretty unique build. You might choose to focus on skills based on one particular element, for example, bolstering your attacks with lightning bolts or deluges of water. Or you might focus on enhancing your standard moveset instead: a higher chance to perform a critical hit is always welcome, after all.

Even some of the standard abilities available to each turtle can be switched as you play. Take the tool skill, for example, which finds each turtle using a unique item to gain the advantage in the heat of battle. As useful as it is, given the option to switch it to a hook that you can use to deal damage to enemies while also pulling them to you, or you to them when it comes to bosses, you’d perhaps be mad not to.

On top of all this, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate has some pretty nifty features that make it even more attractive to both franchise fans and roguelike aficionados. For one, there’s both local and online multiplayer, which isn’t all that regular in the genre. And, for those who typically struggle with roguelikes, an easy mode is available, taking out some of the stress and repetition. In any case, it’s nice to have options.

It’s safe to say that we’ve been pleasantly surprised by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate. It’s a very well-made roguelike, combining excellent presentation, rewarding progression and, most importantly, thrilling action that keeps you hooked thanks largely to the number of upgrades on offer. Throw in the ability to play it with others, and the option to make it bit more lenient for younger or less skilled players, and you have one of the best games available for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans.