Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan Reviews
Ultimately, all that's wrong with Mutants in Manhattan was that it couldn't meet Platinum's own stratospheric standards.
Another misstep with the TMNT franchise leaves me wondering if anyone will ever make a good Turtles game again. As is, Mutants in Manhattan works, but it’s just terribly boring.
Mutants in Manhattan looks flashy and captures the spirit of the Turtles, but the campaign is over in a flash and the combat is boring and uninteresting.
The developers veer beyond the cartoonish nature of the TMNT television series and straight into the absurd.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan's greatest sin isn't that it's a bad game that feels like the result of minimum effort. It's that it takes a great concept, and makes it unrelentingly boring in every way possible.
Mutants in Manhattan is so aggressively dull and sub-par there’s little to no joy to be taken from playing it. Like a coloring book, it’s nothing more than a shallow collection of non-stimulating activities and disconnected clichéd references created with the purpose of alleviating mild boredom.
Those looking for a game that will recapture the glory days of the arcade TMNT, Turtles in Time, or Hyperstone Heist will be sorely disappointed. Those looking for a for a beat 'em up and are willing to settle for some middling gameplay with great trademarked characters might be interested in Mutants in Manhattan—ideally at a discount.
One of Platinum Games’ more disappointing offerings – too short and too simplistic.
This could have been the TMNT title for which all of the fans have been waiting, but sadly it is another missed opportunity and a dip in form for the usually brilliant Platinum Games. The level design and watered down combat leaving the game feeling more like a button mashing grind than the deep combat intensive hack and slash that it could have been. What remains is a distinctively mediocre title that might appeal to some hardcore turtle fans, but from a gamer's perspective, there's very little to recommend other than some easy achievements. There are certainly better hack and slash titles out there. For a full priced title, that's not much of a return on investment despite the short campaign.
In the end, it’s a good game for being licensed but at the same time feels like it was in a bit of a rush. Activision trying to make it out in time for Michael Bay’s next adaptation, when more cooking time in the “pizza oven” would have helped.
As mentioned above the game is only about 3 hours long and unless you want to get an S rank on all 9 stages on all difficulties there’s really no reason to replay it at all.
TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan is a huge missed opportunity, that should have and could have been so much more. Turtle Power this is not!
Overall, Mutants in Manhattan just feels a little lazy, one of the very last levels recycles all the previous bosses you have fought and you have to beat each one again before moving on. They are exactly the same, but much easier now that you have upgraded. Whilst the combat is fun at first it quickly grows old, there are a lot of small missed opportunities which could have made this game really fun. Sadly what we are left with is the bare bones of a hack and slash game with the Turtles branding.
The boss battles help to alleviate the repetition and there are some secret ones that can be unlocked if you meet particular criteria that serve as the primary reason to replay levels. Admittedly, some of these were pretty cool and gave me a nice sense of satisfaction when they occurred, but at the end of the day Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan is little more than a visually stylized button masher with little of the heart that has made the Turtles so enduring over the years. I love most of the titles that PlatinumGames produces, but TMNT is a rare miss for the developer.