After being the lucky recipient of a PS5 on father’s day, the first game that I’ve spent significant time on isn’t a huge blockbuster with photo-realistic graphics, but rather, I’ve been playing the port of a successful mobile game. Sounds about right, actually.
What is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate?
Developed by Super Evil Megacorp, initially for iOS devices, TMNT: Splintered Fate is an action-RPG with roguelite elements based on the iconic green-skinned super heroes.
Since the initial launch of the game on iOS and Mac, the game has appeared on Windows PC, then Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PS5, and most recently on the ol’ Xbox Series last month.
Splintered Fate is an action-RPG first and foremost, but in terms of its mechanical structure, it borrows a lot of ideas from Hades. The big differentiator is probably the introduction of co-op, with a whole gang of four able to team up and battle through the sewers together.
Underworld dwellers and familiar faces
Much like Zagreus and co, our Turtles live beneath the surface, but in this instance, your first steps take you through sewers before you find yourself exploring city streets, junkyards, and more.
These locations are stuffed full of familiar faces from the TV series, so if you’ve watched the more recent Turtles stuff, you’ll recognise a lot of little things from the show. Most notably, of course, are the boss fights, which involve you taking on the likes of Leathhead, Bebop, and Rocksteady, in multi-stage battles.
You’re not just fighting, there are NPC characters to talk to, including occaisional chats with the spirit of Splinter, who has been whisked away to another dimension. Naturally, it’s up to you and your amphibious brethren to rescue him, but not before you’ve levelled up at base, spending the resources you’ve gathered during previous attempts, boosting things such as your health and damage output.
Renaissance Mutants
Death is part of the loop, as it is in nearly all games like this, but before every new run you have the chance to upgrade or change your character, and also change your artifact -which might help you steer a build in a particular direction. Then you and your co-op buds head into the sewers in search of your ratty old man.
There are five playable characters in the full game – the four brothers and their friend, Casey Jones – and each one has a particular playing style and colour scheme (which mostly helps with visibility). As you might expect, the weapon and personality of each character defines their playing style, so Donny is a bit slower and gets a health boost each round, while Mikey likes to get stuck in and hit as many enemies as possible.
Each room is quick to clear on its own, at which point you’re invited to pick a new skill, and this is where TMNT Splintered Fate really shines, because there is a really deep selection of skills to experiment with. You can combine fire attacks with bolts of electricity, or you can slow your enemies with ooze and hit them with water damage. These various abilities and the elemental damage they bring to comabt can work really nicely together and open up new battlefield tactics, and co-op players can even synergise together, to an extent.
Not all upgrades are created equal, and some of them can feel quite underwhelming, however, for the most part, I thought the progression loop was balanced quite well. There is a lot to unlock and dedicated fans will find much to discover, but you can also just focus on your health, damage, and things like that, if you prefer to keep it simple.
Family fun and a good entry point
I experienced a lot of the game with my son in two player co-op, and we had an absolute blast. The ability descriptions were just about clear enough for him to read and comprehend, and he enjoyed sculpting his build during each run, making decisions and adding to his loadout after each round.
Yet there is also enough depth to keep me fully engaged, too. Splintered Fate does follow the Hades playbook quite faithfully, but Super Evil Megacorp has done a good job of taking key aspects of that formula and making it feel bespoke to this game.
It’s not always easy to follow the action due to all the on-screen chaos, and much of the story stuff is very skippable. However, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate is a really decent co-op action-RPG that will not only snag the attention of little any little rogues who are old enough to read, but also their parents, too.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate is out now on iOS, PC (Mac, Win), PS4, PS5, Switch, and Xbox Series. I played the game on PS5 via code kindly supplied by the devs and their PR friends!
