The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise has a protracted, wealthy historical past with video video games. Through the years, we have seen the 4 brothers take to the streets and sewers of New York in platformers, combating video games, pinball experiences, and roguelites, however the style most intently related to the model is beat-’em-up motion. Unusual Scaffold, the studio behind video games like Clickolding and El Paso, Elsewhere, had a novel concept for tackling a Turtles title whereas retaining the guts and soul of the IP’s historical past in video games. The result’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, a recreation that seamlessly blends the beat-’em-up spirit with the distinct gameplay conventions and mechanics of a turn-based technique recreation. I had the chance to play a number of hours of Tactical Takedown and communicate with the staff behind this distinctive, but by some means acquainted tackle the TMNT model.
The thought of engaged on a licensed property first entered Unusual Scaffold studio head Xalavier Nelson’s mind in 2020 when he was almost tapped to develop into the artistic director of a Robocop recreation. Although that chance fell by, Nelson continued desirous about what it will be wish to create a recreation based mostly on a significant mental property. Within the time since then, Unusual Scaffold has put out video games like El Paso, Elsewhere, Clickolding, An Airport for Aliens Presently Run by Canine, Life Eater, and Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3, which simply hit Steam final month.
Regardless of staying busy with a number of video games seemingly in improvement at any given time, Nelson continued desirous about engaged on a longtime franchise. “The thought of ultimately taking a Unusual Scaffold-like strategy to the world of a license with the suitable accomplice has been on my thoughts for some time, but it surely was primarily in search of the suitable alternative, the suitable companions, and the suitable universe for that to actually be its finest,” Nelson says.
That proper match arrived when Nelson related with Paramount senior vice chairman, normal supervisor, and head of world video games and rising media Doug Rosen. Nelson felt as if Rosen understood the suitable method to collaborate with recreation builders, and it made Nelson wish to work with Paramount. After extended discussions of, “We must always do one thing collectively,” Nelson scrolled by Paramount’s IP checklist in quest of the suitable match. He in the end landed on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with which he felt the staff may leverage some mechanics it developed in the course of the conceptualization section of its upcoming turn-based character motion recreation, Teenage Demon Slayer Society. The staff retained the turn-based technique mechanics, however Nelson needed to maintain the guts of the video games that TMNT is most well-known for intact.
“It is the Unusual Scaffold approach; that is our model,” government producer and author Manda Farough says. “We take genres and we create actually weird twists on them. This isn’t the form of turn-based technique recreation that I even thought may very well be made. However as a result of we had this unimaginable camaraderie and teamwork between all people on our staff and our recreation design being as tight and centered because it has been, the mash-up of genres by some means has coalesced into this turn-based tactical, side-scrolling beat ’em up.”
I used to be skeptical going into my hands-on session with Tactical Takedown. In spite of everything, how do you mix such distinct genres as turn-based technique and side-scrolling beat ’em ups? After spending hours with the sport, I am nonetheless stunned by how effectively all of it works. All of it begins with giving your character a number of motion factors per flip, somewhat than only one or two. This lets you defeat one enemy earlier than beating up the following and strategically place your self for both the enemies’ turns or your subsequent flip. On high of that, the degrees change as you’re taking turns, with older elements falling away and newer sections popping up, forcing you to take care of ahead momentum as you sprint by the phases.
After attempting to duplicate methods I utilized in extra conventional technique franchises like XCOM and Mario + Rabbids, I failed fairly spectacularly within the first mission, inflicting me to fret that this recreation can be tougher to play than I anticipated. I fell off the stage because it mutated, and in the end bought overwhelmed by a Foot Clan ambush, leading to Mikey falling in battle. Nevertheless, after attending to know every character and the way they play, I hardly ever failed a mission.
I loved studying every Turtle’s play type by their particular phases within the first two chapters. Michelangelo’s party-dude persona shines by in his skateboard-based assaults that allow him bounce over enemies, whereas Donatello’s bo employees provides him added vary, like within the NES recreation, and his tech brilliance lets him deploy varied devices. In the meantime, Raphael’s brawler mentality makes him really feel able to tackle the world with assaults that grant additional strikes and might even pull enemies to new spots. Leonardo’s management skills and strategic considering let him develop into extra highly effective after defeating an enemy. Should you do not like a sure transfer in a Turtle’s moveset, you should utilize foreign money you earn in-game to buy new strikes and customise their loadouts.
One of the vital hanging issues about TMNT: Tactical Takedown is that you just solely play as one Turtle at a time, a stark distinction from the co-op beat-’em-up classics to which this recreation so lovingly pays homage. Every Tactical Takedown stage robotically provides you a Turtle to manage, permitting the encounters to really feel ultra-tailored to that particular Turtle’s moveset. Whereas there are clearly gameplay mechanics that went into that call, the narrative decisions fueled that core concept. Earlier than the sport’s occasions, the Turtles’ world is upside-down, with each Splinter and Shredder dying. The Turtles are considerably disconnected as they search to seek out themselves.
“As a author, what [having one Turtle at a time] pressured me to do is rely much less on specific relationship constructing and actually lean into… There are going to be moments in between the moments we’re exhibiting you, and there are going to be conversations which can be taking place exterior of the sport, and that helped information the methods by which we drill all the way down to the essence of these conversations,” Farough says. “Writing an ensemble solid is already so difficult, so having plenty of views in the way in which that we dealt with character improvement, each implicitly and explicitly, was actually releasing.”
The distinctive narrative themes have been one of many driving forces behind Unusual Scaffold’s coming into this venture. “I feel one of the vital under-discussed items of the artistic world that we now reside in is, particularly in a time of mega-mash-ups of even totally different universes coming collectively, when you may have Fortnite placing in each IP, inside the subsequent three months or so, it could find yourself being actually under-discussed how each single character has an actual weight to them, a gravity if you wish to deal with them appropriately,” Nelson says. “While you’re telling a TMNT story, if you are going to herald Splinter, you need him to have a highlight that actually traces up with who he’s and the position that he has on these brothers on this wider world. Should you’re gonna have Bebop and Rocksteady, in the event you’re gonna have Shredder, these are characters which may’t be put in as throwaway cameos. They should be central focuses, if solely due to the affect they’ve had on all individuals who have beloved these worlds. However each single character you place in like that finally ends up altering what you are able to do in different factors within the recreation.”
After enjoying by the primary two chapters of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, Might 22 can not come quickly sufficient. The technique style will be fairly hit-or-miss for me, and let’s face it, not each TMNT recreation seems nice, however I emerged from my hours enjoying Tactical Takedown excited to not solely additional have interaction with the cleverly designed gameplay programs but additionally see the place this distinctive story goes. Sadly, regardless of how surprisingly good the sport performs with a controller, Unusual Scaffold couldn’t affirm if the sport will ever come to consoles. Nonetheless, Nelson did tease that the studio is continually investigating methods to convey its video games to a broader viewers. For now, nonetheless, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown is ready to reach on Steam on Might 22.