A few months ago I got wind that Turtles in Time was being remade with updated graphics, due to be released on Xbox Live. An irrational excitement came over me. I got flashbacks of sitting in front of my SNES, playing through the game, and then popping in my VHS copy of some episodes to get pumped up enough to go for another round. Ok, I know I’m not alone on this. Hopefully.
Skip forward to August 5th, 2009. After the game has downloaded, and I’ve made a few phone calls to make sure my friends have downloaded it as well, I start the time machine up and jumped into this revamped classic. The game starts out great with a stylized 2D animatic explaining the story. Sadly, from here on in the disappointment begins.
At the main menu, instead of being greeted by the cheesy (but great) Turtles theme, we get a watered down rock soundtrack. Forgivable, but sad nonetheless. After you’ve picked your turtle, you jump into the game. It looks fantastic, retaining the classic cartoon look with the updated 3d renderings and visuals. The animations never looked better, and the controls are solid. You really can’t fail a simple “beat ‘em up” control system.
The game is fluid, easy to play, and fun to beat. Now, you’re probably wondering about that disappointment I was talking about. All the things that make this remake a great remake are also its downfalls. If I’m not mistaken, this was a combination of both the arcade and SNES versions. At least it seems that way, but the game is extremely short. Many levels from the SNES version have been removed, in addition to enemies and bosses. The game time runs about 35 to 45 minutes on single player and less on multi. Now, this may not have been such a big problem if it weren’t for the high price point.
For the price of the game I would expect a couple of things. Yeah, its great that they held true to the original, but they could have put an effort into implementing a combo system with counters to add more depth to the game play. With so many “beat ‘em up” games that have come and gone you would think that adding an option for a bit more flair would come to mind. Possibly something similar to Street Fighter with optional style types. Updated or original? The game modes are broken into three types. Story, survival and the unnecessary quick play. Why make a short game shorter? Survival mode is fun, especially with a group, but nonetheless has very little replay value. The second thing I would have loved to have seen is inclusion of the original arcade version. That would have added the much needed replay value to justify the price.
Looking back on the game, they did a great job for what it is and I’m happy that Ubisoft was able to take the time to bring this to the fans. My lasting impression of the game though, is that it’s just not worth the price of the download, unless you’re a hard core fan of the series, but even then prepare for some disappointment.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
