Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate incorporates traditional roguelike gameplay in way that should familiar for most roguelike players. It just does so in a convoluted fashion. While I appreciate its attempts to fully immerse players in the world of TMNT, the story beats needed to be more frequent and fully realized to hit the emotional highs and lows associated with the series’ deep universe. Its couch co-op should be praised, however, as this is best played with friends.
In Ryan K. Rigney’s 16th edition of Push to Talk, he began with the following statement:
“Approximately 8 million games released on Steam last week. Tragically, 7.9 million of them were roguelikes. (The remaining 0.1 milli were roguelites.) That’s PC gaming for you, folks.”
While that intro gave me a good chuckle (as someone who has reviewed quite a few roguelikes in the past two years), I couldn’t help but feel as though that statement was made with a slight degree of sarcasm and/or jest. I’ll admit that roguelikes have become the flavor of the month for the past, oh I don’t know, 48 months, but roguelikes are fun. I can see why players gravitate toward roguelikes because of how these games implement variance – it’s the closest thing to an arcade experience without standing in line in a hardly-air-conditioned arcade while the quarters in your small fist became slippery with sweat as you waited your turn for the cabinet. Every new roguelike run is (mostly) exactly that – new. You start from scratch and quickly build yourself up as enemies outpace you in strength and numbers.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate is the newest roguelike to be added to the pile, except it’s not new. It came out well over a year ago on Apple Arcade to very little fanfare, at least from the gaming side of things. Pushing Splintered Fate onto iOS’ then-fledgling gaming subscription service is bold and would have paid off if it was better positioned and championed as an exclusive for the service. But alas, despite its Apple Arcade exclusivity, I have seen little mention of the title when I read about players’ favorite mobile games. Instead, I see mention of Pokémon Go!, Bloons TD6, Stardew Valley, Vampire Survivors, and most recently, emulators for classic games (that are probably illegal but so far in the deep grey area that most don’t care).
Now, TMNT: Splintered Fate has made its way to consoles. The question remains: How does it hold up for a $30 roguelike on the Nintendo Switch (and PS5, and XBOX, and PC…)?
The short answer: It’s a solid attempt at a roguelike. It looks like a TMNT game, it features roguelike elements, and there’s some light replayability. It’s not the most fun, nor does it hit the sweet spot that celebrates the best bits of the TMNT universe, but it’s an attempt nonetheless.
When I think of playing a TMNT game, I think of something upbeat, punchy, and nostalgic. The ‘Turtles are effervescently 90s’, promoting pizza time, breaking news coverage with April O’Neil, and skateboarding rather than attempting to embrace technology of the 21st century. Many of TMNT’s best games have leaned into the lighthearted and bombastic aesthetic of 90s-inspired beat-em-ups. As a result, it lets the game designers and artists run wild with zaniness like time travel and huge underground lairs in the shape of an eye.
TMNT: Splintered Fate adopts a darker tone, perhaps more human, despite the four turtle protagonists leading the way in saving Master Splinter from being sucked into a mysterious portal by assumedly Shredder himself. This serious nature emerges several times in Splintered Fate, most notably when the Turtles fall short in defeating a staple TMNT boss like Karai, Leatherhead, Bebop, and Rocksteady. It is during these post-loss moments where the Turtles reach out to Master Splinter’s essence in their lair and ask for his advice in how to cope with failing a mission.
I lost many times in Splintered Fate. I expected to, since I was playing a roguelike. It plays just like any other roguelike in that you begin with nothing but the turtle of your choosing, you select a single upgrade, you attempt to clear rooms of enemies and receive rewards, and then face minibosses and bosses at the end of the current level. If you die at any point, you’re whisked through a portal back to the Turtles’ lair where you begin anew. Standard stuff.
The main difference of Splintered Fate from others is that of its co-op (up to four players) and character select. Each turtle has their own starting tool and unique Special ability, along with some slight adjustments to their playstyle. Leonardo comes equipped with shurikens (as his tool) alongside his standard ninja swords and passive abilities in the form of an additional Special ability charge and additional damage when completing an attack combo. Michaelangelo uses his nunchaku and has a wider spread of attacks, all the while being able to taunt enemies as his starting tool. Raphael specializes in critical hits with his sai and using his Turtle Line tool that pulls enemies toward himself like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. Donatello comes equipped with his standard Bo, is tankier than his brothers at the expense of a slower attack, and can use his shield as a starting tool if he’s in a pinch.
On the character uniqueness front, most of them feel the same barring their default weapons, with the exception of Donatello and his Bo. I was able to rush down and speedily slay enemies with the rest of the cast given their relative agility, but Don…felt clunky. He also didn’t feel lore accurate, either. Don’s attacks were slow and pushed enemies away from him, forcing me to focus on using his special ability and not use his basic attacks. His tool was a missed opportunity to cement himself as the tech-savvy member of the Turtles given his familiarity with computer systems and interest in tech.
I wouldn’t have a problem with the game’s character uniqueness and lore accuracy if each of the turtles felt distinct, and they really don’t. It doesn’t help that their starting tools can be swapped out during a run (assuming you come across a different tool). If I was to play with three of my friends, I can almost guarantee that all of us would be clamoring for everyone except Donatello given that he feels the clunkiest to use, too. In roguelikes, class distinctions offer ways to ensure variety of a run before it even starts and can assist in planning out a proper build path of temporary upgrades. Given that everyone is melee, it’s pretty much a wash when it comes to who (of the three more-powerful Turtles) to use.
During runs, I could occasionally upgrade my attacks, tool, and special ability when I was given the opportunity to do so when completing a room of enemies. These upgrades infused my attacks, special, and tool with an element (think of Hades’ boons), letting me mix up my build path. Ooze functioned like poison and dealt damage over time, Ninja functioned as a way to add shurikens to my attacks and granting me additional dodge chance/dashes, while Ultron functions like electricity and features the potential for chain lightning.
I don’t see a problem with these types of elemental upgrades, as they are pretty standard in the roguelike space and also ensure variance across runs. What I do find issue with is that these upgrades lack satisfaction and a meaningful power spike. The chain lighting from Ultrom occurs when attacking, yes, but I didn’t see, hear, or experience a crackling effect that one might associate with lightning. Ooze, too, opts into painting enemies pink while subtly whittling away at their health. When paired with the Turtles, I would hope to see some elements synergizing with some characters over others. For instance, in the Flame upgrade path I could upgrade my critical hits (perfect for Raphael!), but the rest of the upgrades simply relied on flames rather than being dependent on crits.
When I think of meaningful power upgrades, I think of things like Blazblue Entropy Effect’s upgrade paths that can go so far as to summon units, enhance elemental attacks, and change up a character’s moveset to solidify their uniqueness. Even more, its implementation makes your chosen character feel like they’re growing in power thanks to their new moveset. Splintered Fate doesn’t do enough to boost the Turtles’ power fantasies as they acquire new powers.
Splintered Fate also includes multiple permanent upgrades that can make subsequent runs easier and give you an upper hand. Unfortunately, this system has been implemented alongside a convoluted currency system. There are nine currencies to be acquired in Splintered Fate. Yes, nine. The first, scrap, are acquired during runs and can only be spent during a run. Then, you have Dragon and Dreamer coins. Dragon coins upgrade combat abilities (like health or movement speed) while Dreamer coins increase your fortune (like additional starting Scrap at the start of a run or a reroll dice that can be used to obtain different upgrades). The rest of the currency (Karai’s Pauldrons, Shredder’s Blades, Astral Wraps, Astral Hearts, and Gauntlet Medallions) are obtained from successfully defeating specific bosses and completing runs in their entirety. These currencies are used to unlock the opportunity to invest Dreamer and Dragon coins into upgrades.
We good? Did you get all that?
I don’t have a problem with needing currency to unlock upgrades. Heck, the assumption of one picking up a roguelike is that the player should be expecting a high degree of replayability in the long term. Instituting so many different types of currencies as is only serves to artificially inflate game time and force the player into swapping between characters for no other benefit than to gain currency. If the player is to be encouraged into swapping characters and loadouts, they should be given a concrete set of goals like secondary missions (e.g., slay X number of enemies using Y element) rather than simply collecting currency and defeating a boss. Here, it feels like there’s an unnecessary grind that doesn’t pay off.
Convoluted upgrade systems aside, TMNT: Splintered Fate had a decent story that propelled me forward into trying again and again. It just wasn’t implemented in the most powerful way. I kept expecting to see story beats emerge in-between runs. Instead, I would often return to base only to see the NPCs have little to say, if at all. The sole exceptions to this is when I lose to a boss and my chosen Turtle has a thoughtful conversation with Splinter. But even then, those don’t come frequently enough to build relationships amongst the Turtles and illustrate their pain in not having their Father around.
This is TMNT: Splintered Fate’s biggest miss. The in-run banter that emerges when the Turtles encounter bosses doesn’t do much to propel the game’s overarching story forward, nor does it give newer players the opportunity to learn more about these several-decade-old characters. The TMNT franchise is quite deep, making it so that there is so much reference material that could be incorporated into a roguelike that is brimming with Turtle Power. I wish that these characters were given more to say to each other to give the game the life it deserves.
Before I conclude this review, I want to emphasize that I don’t take issue with Splintered Fate’s more-serious tone than the likes of Shredder’s Revenge, Turtles in Time, or even Wrath of the Mutants. Some of TMNT’s oldest comics were darker in tone, so it’s not as though the TMNT needs to be fun and games all the time. It’s more of an issue of implementing that seriousness. The Last Ronin is an excellent implementation of that seriousness that, while not canon for the overall series, highlights a universe where only one Turtle remains in the wake of a fallout between The Foot Clan and the Turtles.
On that note, let’s wrap this up.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate incorporates traditional roguelike gameplay in way that should familiar for most roguelike players. It just does so in a convoluted fashion. While I appreciate its attempts to fully immerse players in the world of TMNT, the story beats needed to be more frequent and fully realized to hit the emotional highs and lows associated with the series’ deep universe. Its couch co-op should be praised, however, as this is best played with friends.
A copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
