Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Game Arts
Genre: Action
Release date: Available now

It’s amazing to think that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been around for 25 years. Throughout that time, the four now-iconic heroes have graced comics, television series, movies, a whole slew of merchandise (I think I had at least one lunchbox as a kid), and of course, games. After the enormous success of the Smash Bros. series from Nintendo, Game Arts and Ubisoft have seen an opportunity to pit these beloved characters against each other.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up is short on story and heavy on action. In the Arcade Mode, Master Splinter, the turtles’ mentor, decides that the best way to keep his students’ skills tuned would be for them to enter a karate tournament. But once the tournament begins, Shredder and his goons (known as the Foot Clan) show up and kidnap Splinter, and it’s up to the turtles to get him back.

When the game starts, you are limited in your character selection to the four turtles (Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo), Spinter and a few other TMNT regulars. Each stage or level has you fighting from one to three other characters. Each character has a series of moves specific to them, such as Donatello using his bo-staff to launch kicks at his foes. Also, the characters can pick up limited extra weaponry randomly thrown into the stage to use during the fighting, such as grenades or ninja stars. Each player has a life meter and lives, and whichever character survives the longest, wins.

Smash Up is definitely a lot of fun in concept. It’s really enjoyable to finally be able to pit the Turtles against each other in an all-out fighting game. Also, TMNT: Smash Up does have a lot of content to it. There are plenty of ways to play, such as timed stages, survival games, and other themed challenges as the game moves along. Beating these challenges unlocks new stages and characters to inhabit.

The problem with Smash Up is that it’s really just Super Smash Bros. Lite. It uses the same mechanics and the same basic gameplay, but none of it is executed quite as well as its benchmark. It’s a treat to be able to play as characters from the TMNT world, but it’s not enjoyable enough to make the game as classic as those in the Smash Bros. series. There are too many little hiccups; it takes a huge amount of time for your character to recover when he’s hit, and there are confusing stages that take the fun out of the game.

For Turtles fans, this is a must-try. As a child of the 1980s, I would’ve loved this game when I was a kid. But now I’m not sure how it will be received, since this style of fighting game has already been done very well, and the Turtles, while still going strong, aren’t nearly the cultural force that they were 20 years ago. I say try it, but realize what you’re playing is fun because of the characters. Everything else is good, just not great by comparison.

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