25-05-2025
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate (PS5) Review
Much like the inevitability of certain movie franchises getting reboot regularly, it seemed a matter of time until Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate would eventually continue its journey from Apple Arcade to Nintendo Switch to Sony and Microsoft's shores. Unlike some of those movie revivals, however, this game is undoubtedly worth checking out.
If you haven't already checked it out on the other platforms, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate is a roguelike take on the ultimate 90s franchise. With 1-4 players, the Turtles must navigate four stages, building skills and modifiers while mopping the floor with Foot Clan ninjas, mouse robots, and other familiar groups of foes in order to rescue their father and sensei, Splinter, from an ethereal captor.
In typical fashion, each of the brothers has their own distinctive playstyle based on their weapons of choice—starting with a basic combo, a special attack, and a 'tool' suited to their personality/skills, like Leonardo's shurikens or Michelangelo's taunting ability. Then, during each 'run' through the levels, tools can be swapped, and powers and modifiers picked up to customize their loadouts. It's Hades in a halfshell.
For the wider PlayStation and Xbox release, Splintered Fate includes the Casey Jones & The Junkyard Jam DLC, which adds the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' most ornery ally to the playable roster. This also offers an alternate route through the game, replacing the third level (the streets of NYC) with a detour through a junkyard.
Splintered Fate was already a great package on its own, so arriving on the remaining platforms with this extra content included is a big win for fans who still haven't checked it out—especially as the newly-announced physical Deluxe Edition and Pipin' Hot Collector's Edition both include a future, as-of-yet-unnamed DLC pack.
However, there isn't much more here to take advantage of hardier hardware, despite the longer wait. The game looks, plays, and loads smoother away from the Switch, but Splintered Fate hasn't made the most of the potential next-gen benefits. Not that it needed to do much, but even embracing the sophisticated rumble options would've been a nice touch. Aside from a slightly quicker experience moving between areas, there was virtually no difference between this and the Switch version; if I'd squinted a little, I might even lose track of which system I was playing on.
(Trophies are one welcome touch, granted, since Nintendo still refuses to embrace this 20-year old concept.)
That being said, I had a great time starting this roguelike over from an absolute square one. I said in my initial Switch review that Splintered Fate 'might just be my favourite interpretation of the TMNT since my childhood;' revisiting Super Evil Megacorp's classically-inspired take on the mythos firmly established that as fact. Its writing offers us perhaps the most grounded yet authentic versions of the characters, expressed in an impressive number of incidental dialogues and cutscenes over at least 8 successful runs, and the pitch-perfect cast brings it to life.
And even going in with full knowledge and a strong knowledge of an ideal loadout for my playstyle—Flame Dash + Inferno = cowabunga, baby—Splintered Fate remained a tightly-honed challenge. I had fresh perspective on and appreciation of its difficulty curve and the impact of improving certain skills, which was helpful when diving into the late-game's systems of Shimmering Portals and Gauntlet Challenges, the true challenge.
I thought I would've had any itch for TMNT scratched by Shredder's Revenge and Mutant Mayhem, but I could keep coming back for another slice of Splintered Fate anytime. If you also grew up in the height of the early-90s popularity, and maybe got your arm stuck in that sewer playset at least once too, you should do your inner child a solid and check this out. It's a shell of a lot of game for the price of admission, especially with another DLC and some radical physical editions on the way.
