I often battle with technique video games. They’re usually too arduous for me, and I typically get overwhelmed at managing a number of characters or squads. However I couldn’t put down Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, which blends concepts from technique video games and traditional TMNT arcade video games to maintain issues snappy, straightforward to play, and filled with motion.
A method Tactical Takedown — developed by I Am Your Beast maker Unusual Scaffold — retains issues easy is by having you play as only one character in every of the sport’s 20 ranges. The 4 turtles have completely different movesets; Leonardo, for instance, makes use of his swords to aggressively assault enemies, whereas Michelangelo can zip across the enjoying subject on his skateboard. You’re in a position to customise every turtle’s arsenal by shopping for new strikes, however I didn’t change the movesets in any respect and bought via the sport simply wonderful.
Picture: Unusual Scaffold
Battles happen in a grid overlaid on small chunks of very TMNT areas, like a road, sewer, or subway system. Each flip, you will have six “motion factors” to spend as you please, whether or not that’s transferring across the degree or attacking dangerous guys. You simply press a button to make use of certainly one of your strikes, no menu required, which speeds issues up significantly. You’ve got six hearts and three “lives” — lose a life and the sport will shortly flash a “Proceed” signal earlier than letting you select the place you’d prefer to drop within the degree to maintain the combat going. (You additionally lose a rating multiplier.)
The degrees really feel like tiny dioramas, and whereas characters will transfer right into a kick or a punch when attacking or a fall when taking injury, they aren’t actively animated second to second. All of it creates the sense that you just’re enjoying with motion figures.
Maybe Tactical Takedown’s greatest trick is that the degrees are consistently shifting round you. Each now and again, the sport will present you {that a} new piece of land goes to drop in on the subsequent flip, and after that spot is in place, you’ll get a warning that one other a part of the extent goes to fall away. It implies that you’re consistently coping with new terrain, layouts, and hazards like toxic sewage or vehicles driving by whereas additionally strategizing on how one can combat dangerous guys. Typically, after including a brand new chunk of a degree, the sport even flashes the phrase “Go,” encouraging you to maneuver ahead such as you would in an arcade sport.
Even higher, if there isn’t a wall, you possibly can ship enemies flying off the sting of a degree into the void, defeating them immediately. It took me a bit to know that the sport desires you to do this as a lot as doable; sometimes, there will probably be a number of dangerous guys in a degree, and the one solution to effectively take them out is by sending them to their doom.
Picture: Unusual Scaffold
For me, all of it got here collectively in a degree the place you play as Leonardo in a subway tunnel. The extent began on a subway platform, after which the sport signaled {that a} subway automotive would seem. I navigated my method onto the subway automotive, and the platform fell away. After a number of activates the subway automotive, it “arrived” on the subsequent subway cease, and I needed to hop off. It actually felt like I used to be “advancing” via a degree in a faster-paced sport, and all whereas managing a legion of enemies with Leonardo’s swords.
The style is often gradual, however while you get in a superb rhythm, Tactical Takedown nearly feels as crisp because the TMNT arcade video games — regardless of being a turn-based technique sport.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown is now obtainable on PC.