PAX: TMNT Shredder’s Revenge is the retro brawler I hoped it would be

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The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have had some spectacular beat ’em ups over the years. Games like Turtles in Time have become nostalgic classics of the genre. But the turtles haven’t had such luck in recent years when it comes to games. TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge feels like a callback to those golden oldies, capturing rosy nostalgia in a pixelated cartoon brawler.

Shredder’s Revenge comes from the one-two punch of Tribute Games and Dotemu. The former has developed some rad retro-inspired action games like Flinthook and Panzer Paladin, while Dotemu has collaborated on projects like Streets of Rage 4 and Windjammers 2. It’s a good match. And that becomes readily apparent when the action gets underway.

In my demo at PAX East 2022, a quick TV newscast introduction informed me the Foot Clan was up to its usual hijinks. My co-op pal and I locked in our fighters—I went for Raphael, they chose Splinter—and we burst onto the scene.

The action feels right at home for retro action game fans. Go right, beat up bad guys. There’s a basic attack button, as well as a special attack with a corresponding meter. Jumping and flipping (both forward and back) round out the face buttons, and we could also taunt to build meter and do a “cheer up” move (high-fiving each other) to help share health around.

It feels simple and straightforward in a good way. It’s not quite as complex as something like Streets of Rage 4, where you might be gambling with risky special attacks for longer combos. A focus of Shredder’s Revenge, one dev told me, is crowd control. Enemies can quickly gang up on you, and the Foot Clan brings no shortage of variety to the rumble.

As more varieties showed up, we had to start varying our tactics and balancing use of our