TMNT | DJcube

Over-The-Top Ninja Action!

NA release: 20th March 2007
EU release: 22th March 2007
JP release: N/A
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publisher: Ubisoft
NGC Magazine Score: 59%
Mods Used: Widescreen Code

TMNT is based on an animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film – although initially I thought it was the Michael Bay film, but that came out a few years later. In terms of film adaptations, it’s done extremely well – it has its own style of cutscenes instead of using clips form the film, with its own version of events and dialogue. It helps it feels like its own thing rather than an adaptation – just picking it off the shelf and playing it would give you zero indication that its linked to a film.

A large chunk of a game is a 3D platformer that feels a lot like simpler and speedier version of Prince of Persia – it’s from the same division of Ubisoft, after all, with wall running, zooming along ledges and swinging on poles. It feels very satisfying to play and makes it better than Konami’s efforts for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle games on GameCube. Each turtle also has their own traversal mechanic, which gives a good twice to their movements.

The combat, however, is really bland. It would be fine if they kept battles short and sweet, but after a few levels the encounters just end up with you having to spawn with waves and waves of the same enemies and you just mashing X for most of it. The game would actually be much improved if you just cut them out entirely, that’s how vast the difference is between the combat and platforming.