Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan

This game is a simple kind of fun, and if you play online with your friends you'll have a great time. Otherwise there's not much here for you unless you like to hunt for collectibles.

Platinum Games offers a great adaptation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles based on their new comics. However, it is too repetitive and lacks more game modes.

By licensed game standards Platinum has been able to use its "Bayonetta framework" to deliver a fine iteration of a classic franchise. What is unfortunate is that all it needed was some more time. Ultimately, all that's wrong with Mutants in Manhattan was that it couldn't meet Platinum's own stratospheric standards.

TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan is a game that had the potential to be as superb as last year's Transformers: Devastation. Instead, due to a movie releasing this week in theatres, it's clear that Activision rushed Platinum Games to push it out quickly.

Mutants in Manhattan is not the TMNT video game that we were hoping for, but despite the technical issues, the disappointingly bland and underused open world environments and the criminal lack of local co-op, Mutants in Manhattan remains a solid brawler, one that is undoubtedly at its best when played online.

Fighting, moving, and pulling off cooperative attacks as the Turtles is enjoyable, but it’s difficult to find fun in the world and routine in which they exist.

Mutants in Manhattan does just enough fan service to make TMNT fans almost forget how mediocre this game is.

The combat system doesn't feel like something developed by PlatinumGames and the levels and missions are extremely boring. TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan it's an average action game... If you consider yourself the biggest fan of the turtles out there.

It doesn’t commit any wrongdoings, but it’s also boring enough to become forgettable.

Almost every idea included here is a strong one - yet they've all been exectured terribly. A patch to slow the entire game down by 50% would immediately elevate that score. [Aug 2016, p.89]

Does a good job of showcasing the spirit of the turtles, but never reaches its potential and will let you down with repetitive combat, lack of local co-op and bland environments.

Completed in under 5 hours, with sloppy gameplay and no challenge whatsoever, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan looks more like a merchandising product for the movie than a real thought-out game.

Given how much I was hyped for the game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan is a bitter disappointment, meeting only some of the expectations I had and feeling like it was heavily rushed through development to meet a deadline.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan’s charming visual style doesn’t make up for repetitive level design and combat that would leave even Master Splinter frustrated.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has seen better days. Platinum Games had no money for this TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan. The combat fails completely and only the final bosses are good and charismatic. In addition, this game has a very high price.

Aesthetically faithful to the original, the new TMNT game is a beat'em up that unfortunately falls shorts in every other aspect. We honestly expected more from Platinum Games, but we cannot ignore the chaotic combat system, a ludicrous longevity, and a soporific level design.

Everything about TMNT reeks of a rushed product.

The Platinum spark exists in Mutants in Manhattan, which is why it's tragic the developers couldn't spend the same resources they would on original IP like Bayonetta. As licensed games go, you could do much worse, but this TMNT outing feels like a collection of good ideas in need of a second pass.

This is one of the biggest disappointments of the year. It's boring, dull and feels like a wasted opportunity to do something that lives up to the old beat 'em ups these turtles gave us.

Even with a super-short running time, the repetitiveness that pervades Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan makes this fight a slog.

Not a Megan Fox in sight... and it’s still terrible.

Superficial, highly repetitive and at times flatout boring... these turtles are best left in the darkest depths of the sewers, where they belong.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan is repetitive, has a boring level design, and is not a game I can recommend to anyone.

The first 15 minutes looked promising with an interesting combat system sealed by the Platinum Games experience, the rest of the game is half cooked with random, repetitive and boring elements that leaves this new Turtle’s adventure as a game that you will not have to play.

I unfortunately can’t really suggest anyone should pick up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan. As a pretty big fan of the franchise, and the old arcade hits, this game does little to capture the sense of fun in any way that actually matters. Instead you are left with a 3 hour game that feels longer for all the wrong reasons.

We would have missed nothing at all if Mutants in Manhattan had never peeked out of their shells. The game is mediocre in every aspect, boring and rather ugly. The only advantage I can think of is that it’s only 5 hours long. [08/2016, p.54]

As mentioned above the game is only about 3 hours long and unless you want to get an S rank on all 9 stages on all difficulties there’s really no reason to replay it at all.

Unsurprisingly, Mutants in Manhattan continues the time-honored tradition of licensed games being a sub-par, disappointing representation of a popular franchise.

Charismatic characters and a well-made combat system does not prevent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan from being a complete snoozefest. It is not a good sign when “Find the enemies!” is a common mission in an action game.

A disappointing experience. Confounds the simple things with the annoying mechanics. Far away from the great games of the turtles and the excellence of the Japanese developers. Platinum Games are human too.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan may very well be PlatinumGames' worst game to date. Looking and playing like a mediocre game from 15 years ago, this game isn't really worth your time (unless you must play/own everything related to the TMNT). The Turtles deserve so much better.

This is a very short and very weak rendition of the Turtles. With the exception of perhaps the youngest and most devoted fans of the pizza-loving reptilian brothers, it can be easily skipped.

It all feels like either very (bad) conscious design choices or pure laziness at work.

This slog of a game fails to innovate or entertain for long on any level. Truly, this is one of the biggest wastes of potential in gaming.

For the first time since the infamous dam level in the original NES Turtles game, God, it sucks being a turtle.

The end result is a cluttered mess that constantly tries to keep you active with something, anything at random, in order to distract you from the poor design.

One of Platinum’s worst games so far, with dull and repetitive action that doesn’t do the heroes in a half-shell any justice at all.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan is a very disappointing action game which isn't worth bothering with. Platinum didn't put its best foot forward with this one, and it's evident from the get go.

Another huge issue is that Mutants in Manhattan just generally lacks polish.

Getting back to me here, although I can see potential in controlling a team of four and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a perfect fit for such a concept, Mutants In Manhattan feels like a rushed contractual obligation rather than something created out of love or inspiration from the source material.

There is no way to justify TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan: the combats are noisy and puzzling, it looks like the system has been made to confuse the players, and it keeps reminding how shallow the game developing has been. The few good aspects just fade away in front of its low-level production.

This game is so boring and standard, that it just feels like a bad game even though it does necessarily do anything wrong. If you don't like the Turtles, stay away from this game. If you do love the Turtles: stay away from this game too.

Platinum needs to take a little more care when it comes to picking its battles. [Aug 2016, p.110]

It is as if someone sat down and made a list of 'what is popular with the kids these days in games' and tried to shoehorn pieces of them into this game...Aside from the graphics, everything here stinks, which makes sense because a lot of the game takes place in the sewers, and also because this game is crap.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan is one of those games that avoids being truly deplorable despite my having nothing nice to say about it. It didn’t infuriate me the same way Star Fox Zero did, and it’s not a broken pile of junk like Homefront: The Revolution. It is, however, lacking a single noteworthy highlight, and the only positive point I can make is that I didn’t completely hate it...I didn’t like it. I could barely stand to stick with its overwhelming mediocrity...But hey, I didn’t hate it...I didn’t hate this disappointing little waste of time...Well done, game!

Here is the story of every level of Mutants in Manhattan: I found some bad guys, I kept activating my special powers until all the bad guys were gone, then I moved on to the next herd. Didn't dodge. Didn't parry. Didn't have to. Just kept wading through. This was all the strategy I needed to carry me to the boss, at which point things, unfathomably, took a turn for the worse.

This game isn't just a little disappointing. It's by far the worst game to come out this year so far. It's too short and above all very inspirationless.