Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown Review – Radical Turn-Based Combat

When I first saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, my eyebrow rose, not because I was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan, but because the premise of a turn-based Turtles game is pretty peculiar. Clearly, Strange Scaffold saw something I didn’t because the game manages to be both a great TMNT game and a great tactical game. I even think the story will be one TMNT fans will enjoy, going from the rote “who rules after Shredder” storyline and taking it somewhere sublime.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown
Developer: Strange Scaffold
Price: $19.99
Platform: PC (reviewed)
MonsterVine was supplied with a Steam code for review

As you first start, you find yourself in the shoes of Michelangelo, who finds himself overwhelmed by the evil Foot Clan. What follows is a story that is as much about the Turtles reconnecting as much is about making sure The Foot Clan and Baxter Stockman don’t complete whatever mysterious objective they have under new leadership. While the story starts en media res, there’s enough fun dialogue and hints at the bigger picture that I was compelled to continue on. You’ll learn about The Foot’s mysterious new leader, why Leonardo is missing in action, and the fate of both The Shredder and Master Splinter.

While I initially was taken aback by the decision to only allow players to play as one turtle with no multiplayer of any sort involved, the team at Strange Scaffold makes the best of it with a traditional turn-based strategy format combined with Frogger. While tactical turn-based strategy players may be used to dangerous terrain or hazards on the battlefield, in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, it’s taken a step further by a constantly morphing battlefield. As you complete objectives like “Keep Moving,” “KO Targets,” and surviving an amount of turns, the game will flash a giant “GO!” across the screen, as if harkening back to the side-scrolling arcade days. This isn’t just flavor — the battlefield will fall, taking whoever is unlucky enough to still be on those tiles with them. As new areas form, you’ll run into citizens like Hot Dog Guys, Blaster Grannies, and plenty of ninja and robotic goons to deal with.

Each turtle plays differently, but all of them are a blast to play, though I did find Michelangelo a bit hard to play compared to the others. Michelangelo has great mobility and can toss around The Foot with ease, using a combination of his skateboard and nunchucks to keep his enemies off balance. Donatello has range with his bō staff and can torture his enemies with a scorched earth strategy because the battlefield shifts so often, using Stun Kunai, Shock Bombs, and the toxic sewers around him to his advantage. Raphael plays surprisingly similar to another recent release Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate, bringing enemies to him or crashing the party while buffing himself and debuffing his enemies all while regenerating Action Points (AP) for every butt he kicks. Leonardo is all about efficiency, juggling enemies up close for a finishing blow, which can strengthen his next attack or let him dodge attacks, with a ranged Wind Slash that lets him completely control the battlefield.

One aspect I really enjoy about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown is how your characters are given a powerful kit right out of the gate. While it may take some getting used to, and the game is not tutorialized as it should be, you’ll easily find yourself taking on dozens of Foot goons without taking any damage. For instance, the game does warn you about Roadkill Rodneys and their ability to push you off the stage, but does not tell you you can do the same to a majority of the enemies as well. There’s not much better feeling in a game than instead of having to fight a high HP, high damage brute, just Spartan kicking them off the edge as if this were Super Smash Bros. There are also numerous ways to use the environment to knock out or disable your enemies, including kicking enemies into hazards or each other. I find a good mark of a turn-based tactical game is allowing “do nothing” to be a strategy, which Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown does. With Foot Ninja outnumbering and outmuscling you, it’s important to remember the “Ninja” part of this title — strike swiftly and make a safe exit, since the stage will be falling as new parts of the battlefield appear anyway.

Graphics are serviceable, with characters appearing as almost stop-motion figurines, complete with bases they rest on. The music by award-winning RJ Lake is phenomenal, with each of the turtles having a set of themes as well as some more general stage music. This is not a terribly long game, which is fine by me. It does have some replayability, with the ability to choose a loadout and some purchases in the shop. Adjusting your loadout will not only let you complete these stages more efficiently but also achieve a “Radical” score if you like achievements.

The Final Word
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown is the second TMNT game I’ve played and reviewed in recent years, with great humor, music, and gameplay. I did find some occasional lag, which I think is because the game is unclear in communicating if an animation is “over” or not. It is also a shorter budget title, which seems to work very well for the property. If you’re even a casual TMNT fan, I think you’ll find something to love here, with a great story that hints at more to come in the future.