GOTY 2009
As a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for well over 20 years, I've seen the series hit some ups and downs, even in video games. However, I had no reason to feel that I had anything to worry about when I found there was going to be a remake of the arcade classic Turtles in Time. And as it turns out, I had every reason to anticipate such a game.
Maybe I'm just a simple person who enjoys simple pleasures, but beat-'em-ups are one of my favorite genres and there are very few that I actually cannot stand. While Turtles in Time isn't my favorite of the genre (that billing goes to Streets of Rage 2), I have always held Turtles in Time in high regard. Popping it into my SNES or loading it up on MAME was always a fun way to kill half an hour. I have no problem walking in one direction and hitting things so long as it is enjoyable.
Nearly everything in TiT (hee!) Re-Shelled is either recreated flawlessly, or greatly improved upon. The graphics might not be for everyone, but I personally love the stylization of the characters, and the redesign they gave Leatherhead is my favorite incarnation of the character, ever. The voice actors were taken from the 2003 cartoon (which, at the time, was just winding down, so it wasn't even really like a promotional thing), so that was top-notch. The only voice I didn't care for was Wayne Grayson as Krang, but he was still better than whoever Konami got to monotone "Prepare to die" in the original.
I feel that the 8-way direction scheme, which for some reason burned others, actually improves combat a lot, and is very useful for getting Foot goons off of your shell.
The only thing that I didn't like about the game was the soundtrack. Likely due to copyright, they were unable to use Konami's soundtrack or even a remastered version. Thus, we get these generic-sounding tunes with audible loop breaks that actually make you really wish they'd just left the music OFF.
Suffice it to say, I got way more than my money's worth with the title, and I can't understand why anybody that claims to still love the original would hate it so much. This game has gotten so much flack in the press and for whatever reason scored much lower than much, much worse games in the genre. It's mind-boggling and honestly if I didn't have much more pressing things keeping me up at night, this would probably be one of them.
Sadly, because Ubisoft no longer has the license, the game is unavailable as of this writing. I am starting to wish I'd bought the PSN version as well so that I could play it online with my PS3-owning friends. Nickelodeon... get on a re-release, please?
