Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate review - 'Turtly Radical' Roguelike stays within its shell
Splintered Fate is a great Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles roguelike that possibly sticks a little too closely to the template set by one of the genre's finest. And yet, as I played through run after run with a co-op partner, I didn't care one bit.
Splintered Fate is a great Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles roguelike that possibly sticks a little too closely to the template set by one of the genre's finest.
And yet, as I played through run after run with a co-op partner, I didn't care one bit.
Images via Super Evil Megacorp
Man, Hades was great, right? In many ways, it formed my 'Holy Trinity' of roguelikes, responsible alongside Dead Cells and Slay the Spire for turning me into a bit of a fiend for the genre.
While console gamers may be disappointed they still have to wait for Hades' sequel, it is hard not to consider Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Splintered Fate an ideal stopgap that swaps Aphrodite for amphibians in what's become a 'shell' of a good time on Nintendo Switch.
GGRecon Verdict
Splintered Fate is a great Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles roguelike that possibly sticks a little too closely to the template set by one of the genre's finest.
And yet, as I played through run after run with a co-op partner, I didn't care one bit.
Sincerest form of battery
Shifting the Turtles to a brand-new universe free of narrative baggage means that developer Super Evil Megacorp can weave its own story without needing to catch players up on anything but the Cliff Notes version of our green heroes.
Splinter has been kidnapped, and it's up to the half-shelled quartet to get him back by battling through Shredder's minions. It's hardly high art, but it offers a fun and lightweight plot to keep you engaged as you butt heads with iconic TMNT baddies, and speak to the supporting cast, too.
Believe it or not, Splintered Fate has been out for a while, originally debuting on Apple Arcade, and while the snobs among you may be expecting a relatively tame experience by that nature, rest assured that the Switch version is a banger.
In many ways, it really is a Hades-inspired top-down roguelike. Players will battle their way through Foot Clan goons and more, earning boons, ahem, sorry, Turtle Powers throughout. It even uses a similar room-based structure to Supergiant's magnum opus.
So, yes, Splintered Fate feels a lot like Hades - but aside from following a similar template to one of the best games of the last few years, is it good?
Turtle Power!
Each of the Turtles has a unique moveset, but they all blend together outside of a few differences. They can attack, dodge, use abilities and a special move, but the real depth comes from the Turtle Powers you'll find as you work from room to room across sewer tunnels and rooftops.
Abilities are dubbed 'Tools', and they actually feel a little closer to a Diablo spell than anything from Hades since they essentially get grafted onto your moveset rather than embellishing what's already there. Whether it's fireballs, shuriken, or anything else your opponents can be hit by, it's fun to gain completely fresh abilities run to run.
There are still some move-emboldening type power-ups to collect, while others will buff damage or negate it, and others offer currency rewards, but that's all pretty standard fare. These random drops naturally grow in effectiveness, and I love moves like causing an explosion after kiting enemies around an arena or dishing out elemental damage to groups of enemies.
It's not the toughest roguelite in the world, which may disappoint some, but its secret weapon is that it offers local and online co-op so you can squad up with your friends to take on Shredder.
Doing so makes for some of the most fun in Splintered Fate, as you buff your Turtles together and tackle big bosses with screen-filling attack patterns and plenty of additional baddies.
In those more frantic moments, Switch performance does drop. I saw some significant frame rate drops, so I switched to the locked 30fps mode, which suggests better visual fidelity, but I saw little to no difference in handheld or docked.
The Verdict
Splintered Fate is a great Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles roguelike that possibly sticks a little too closely to the template set by one of the genre's finest.
And yet, as I played through run after run with a co-op partner, I didn't care one bit.
3.5/5
Reviewed on Nintendo Switch. Review code provided by the publisher.
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