Heroes in the Same Shell
How siblings are one. In this game, you have the option to play as Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello or Raphael as you fight your way through hordes of enemies through various little stories. Each of the stories consists of a mixture of animated cutscenes and ones rendered from the game's engine (the latter uses text accompanied with voice acting), as well as each (except one, apparently) story being a loose adaptation of the show by the same name (and year first published). The main objective is simple: fight all of the enemies and make it to the end of the stage. Every time you start a story, you start with six lives, and have to make it to the end of each story without being able to earn anymore. Only one particular circumstance does it refill, but that will only happen with the boss with "special" armor. Otherwise you have to start over from the last time you saved. Aside from the usual gameplay, the player has the option to break boxes which will contain goodies (like health and shurikens) that will help you out. There's also Makimonos, to which there are ones specific to one of the Turtles and ones that anyone can collect. They're generally in the more hidden boxes, so keep an eye out. As for the game itself, it has some things going for it. It loads well, has a neat presentation for every story, decent graphics, free of bugs/glitches, and good boss fights. That alone is nice, but this game does something that isn't so nice. Like Sonic Heroes with its four teams, to have access to the "true" final boss, the player has to play through the game as each of the four Turtles to have access to it. Unlike Sonic Heroes, though, this game does absolutely nothing different for any of the four Turtles. At least Sonic Heroes features unique stories with altered (for the most part) layouts and missions for each of the teams. Plus the game actually has your score matter in the regard of getting an "A" on every mission. This game has each of the Turtles go through the same exact stories in the same exact order and does literally nothing aside from one special cutscene after fighting a particular boss. That's not even mentioning that the game doesn't reward you for playing well, nor does it seem to matter what difficulty you’re playing on (though I never played on easy). Ultimately, it's a game that while not ideal in the setup of the game to reach the "true" final boss, it's fine in the gameplay department. Bring a friend if you want. It will be a shell of a time.
Reviewed by: Ryan P from Edwardsburg, MI on 12/26/2018
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