Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate review
What is it? A Hades-aping action roguelike starring your favourite sewer-dwellers.
Release date November 6, 2024
Expect to pay $30/£24
Developer Super Evil Megacorp
Publisher Super Evil Megacorp
Reviewed on Nvidia Geforce RTX 3080, AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, 32GB RAM
Steam Deck Verified
Link Official site
Where would your expectations usually lie for a licensed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle game? How about if I told you it's an obvious Hades clone? Right, here's the kicker—what if it was a port of a mobile game, from a developer that's never put a game on Steam before? Now your hopes are at rock bottom, here's the big reveal: Splintered Fate is actually really fun!
To call it a pleasant surprise would be an understatement. Splintered Fate has its rough edges, and certainly doesn't surpass its inspirations. But it's a clever take on the formula with lots of ideas and personality of its own, and despite its origins, it looks and feels great on PC.
For those for whom «it's basically Hades» isn't a meaningful description: Splintered Fate is a top-down action roguelike. Each run sees you progressing through four biomes one room at a time, each ending in a boss fight. Clearing a room earns you rewards to enhance your character—particularly powers drawn from one of a variety of elemental types, which add new passive effects to your arsenal of attacks and abilities.
The further you progress, the more elaborate the combinations and synergies you're able to build up, until you hit the final boss and get to test just how strong you've managed to get. At the end of each run, successful or not, you keep some resources you've earned, which you can then spend on permanent bonuses to carry with you into subsequent runs.
Immediately this familiar set-up is given a bit of new life just through the change in setting. After countless fantasy roguelikes, it's refreshing to battle through modern city streets and across New York rooftops, fighting Mousers and the Foot Clan and unlocking powers with
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