Wise men say, “Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for a late pizza.”
One of the most beautiful games of 2022 was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. From the team at Tribute Games, it was a wonderful return to form for the heroes in a half shell, capturing the era of great arcade action of the early ’90s amid the current resurgence of the beat ’em up genre. The game released on all major platforms last year and finally made the jump to mobile via Netflix Games earlier this week. While I have already enjoyed Shredder’s revenge On my Switch, I wanted to see how it would play on my Pixel with and without the Bluetooth controller. Let me tell you all I’m not disappointed.
Shredder’s revenge mobile is the same beat ’em up experience you can have on console and PC, but now a lot more convenient for anyone who doesn’t like to travel with their Switch or Steam deck. You can team up with up to five other players online to complete the campaign (or sneak into someone else’s party if they’re just finishing the game to quickly unlock Casey Jones). Obviously, having a controller for your phone or tablet is the best way to experience a game that often requires some precise movement. If you get stuck with the touchscreen controls, they get the job done with ease. Unfortunately, the d-pad is the type that doesn’t follow thumb placement, but I found that maxing out its size gave me finer control over the turtles than the default size. Big thumbs and such.
The touchscreen controls are customizable to some extent, mostly limited to button size and spacing, but it’s worth taking the time to get the best possible layout when trying this game out on its harder difficulty settings want. The d-pad was the only change I had to make to make this game work well for me.
Last year Dotemu released– Shredder’s revenge on console and PC – ported it is highly celebrated Streets of Rage 4 to mobile platforms, and I found the game worked well enough given the issues I was having with my fingers on the screen. While that’s still a possible problem with Shredder’s revenge mobile, it’s less of a problem when it happens because of sprite sizes. Character models in this game are much smaller than what we see SoR4 and it’s easier to keep the action centered on the screen. Traps and pits that can be difficult to get past at times SoR4 Cell phones don’t really pose a problem here, again due to the sprite size and the overall high-flying nature of Shredder’s revenge. Because of this, I think this is the better option for your mobile beat ’em up needs.
Naturally, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is a rewarding game no matter what device you use. Thanks to Netflix, more people now have a chance to experience the game that our very own Chris Moyse called “totally worth watching.”
