The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are in the midst of, pardon the pun, a video game renaissance. In the last few years alone we’ve received the excellent retro compilation Cowabunga Collection, the retro-style brawler Shredder’s Revenge, and the Hades-inspired roguelike Splintered Fate. Not since their breakout success on Saturday morning cartoons have the turtles been so ubiquitous in games, but this time around, developers are more emboldened to experiment with different game styles. Enter TMNT: Tactical Takedown, a grid-based tactics game that feels both authentically nostalgic and like creative new ground for the heroes. While it suffers slightly from a limited scope, the short adventure is a great time while it lasts.
Tactical Takedown is presented with a clean, bright visual style reminiscent of the old Saturday morning cartoon. The turtles’ beaks are rounded just like you drew on your Trapper Keeper during geometry class. But this story takes place well after the original series–Splinter and Shredder are both dead, and the boys’ relationship has grown contentious as they’ve all gone in different directions and coped with the loss. The combination of Saturday morning aesthetics with this new story premise make this feel like a progression of that continuity and an opportunity to show us something new.
It’s also the conceit for the game’s core mechanic, which limits you to one turtle at a time as you fight your way through legions of Foot Clan goons. Objectives are usually to survive a certain number of turns or to defeat certain starred enemies. The stages are isometric grids like you’ve seen in lots of tactics games, but limiting you to one character at a time means a lot of focus on prioritization and crowd control. You’re always outnumbered, but they’re always outmatched. The stages are designed with a particular turtle in mind, which is explained by the story: Donatello is investigating happenings underground, so each of his stages take place in the sewer, while Raphael’s take place across the rooftops, and so on. These differences are mostly cosmetic, but some are more substantial. Hopping along rooftops of a Raphael stage requires you to reach the edge of one roof to clear another, for example, and Donatello’s sewer stages are rife with toxic waste which is, thankfully, purple.
