Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Danger of the Ooze (PS3)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Danger of the Ooze is an exploration-focused platformer released on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo 3DS, but not all of those systems were created equal. The PS3 and Xbox 360 are comparable enough in processing power and high definition visuals, but the 3DS, while not a weak piece of tech, couldn’t match those two home consoles in terms of power. Already a licensed game based on the 2012 animated reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, it wasn’t likely the game would be given time to make different versions to cater to the different consoles, and while the PS3 and Xbox 360 got their version of the game first, it still showed that it had to be made with the weakest system in mind first. It almost deflects some of the assumptions one might have with some fairly well-animated scenes of the turtle Michaelangelo near the start, but during future scenes the graphical fidelity and character movement does show how the game had to make some compromises to simplify the porting process to the 3DS.
The “ooze” in the title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Danger of the Ooze refers to a brand new mutagen similar to the one that created the Ninja Turtles and many of their humanoid animal adversaries in the past, but this particular batch of ooze supposedly presents an even graver danger than usual and so the four turtles head out into New York City to try and grab it before the leader of the Foot Clan, Shredder, can get his hands on it. As you explore the game world you’ll eventually come into contact with recognizable characters from the show, some helpful and others acting as bosses. While characters like Tiger Claw and the mutant fly Baxter Stockman stand in your path, you can sometimes find yourself running into a character like Leatherhead, a hulking humanoid gator who is actually on the turtles’ side and will just teach them a new technique to help with their adventure. At times the game does expect some familiarity with the show, their younger version of April O’Neil for example utilizing psychic powers to assist you at one point, but it’s not too hard to pick up on what the character is like in the few minutes spent talking with them, this important for characters like the adopted daughter of Shredder, Karai. While the story is very light on details, Karai at least seems torn between helping the turtles and her father, but one more interesting element of the short interactions you come across is that each one is tailored towards the turtle you’re playing as, although you don’t always know who you’ll encounter so you can’t always have the appropriate turtle at the ready for a more personal scene to play out.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Danger of the Ooze lets you play as all four turtles, the player able to swap between Leonardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo, and Raphael as they wish while fighting baddies and navigating around the sewers, New York, and even Dimension X. Beyond having a few altered cutscenes, the main difference between the four is how their basic attacks unfold. Each one has a unique attack combo that suits their weapon, Donatello’s a slow but strong set of staff swings compared to Michaelangelo’s quick nunchuck smacks. For the most part if you’re attacking a single enemy these differences don’t matter, but if the room is busier you might want someone swifter so you aren’t left vulnerable for too long. While the game does encourage turtle swapping if you get stuck, this is pretty much where the differences between the four end, their midair attacks identical and the new abilities you acquire to help with reaching new areas or opening up new paths shared across the four. Perhaps the more interesting aspect of these small differences is that each turtle serves essentially as an extra life, and should one turtle fall in battle, you’ll need to find them where the enemy is keeping them held captive. While the interconnected map of the game isn’t enormous, fast travel options are limited and traversing it does take time, retrieving a lost turtle sometimes a dangerous prospect. Save points will heal your remaining turtles up, but there is an interesting element in trying to balance how much damage each turtle sustains, swapping them out to avoid losses and perhaps making the choice of who you might be willing to lose if it does come down to it.
The turtles do have a few more battle options than just their basic weapon combo though, as once they complete it, they’ll twirl their weapons in preparation for a Shell Kicker technique. Shell Kickers involve you inputting a direction to pull off a special attack, so for example pressing up will cause your turtle to launch the enemy upward while forward will instead send the enemy flying back to perhaps crash into other enemies or a wall. Here again you might consider how quickly a turtle’s attacks finish if you think you need Shell Kickers available quickly, some foes like the androids with energy shields able to resist damage until you utilize a Shell Kicker to rid them of their shield or get around them. Shell Kickers give a quick bit of variety to the ground combat that the game does a decent job of designing around, but a few moments like having those same androids on a platform as wide as they are feel more like the game is trying to get you hurt as you try to stand next to them to actually get your hits in. Aerial enemies are perhaps the most dangerous baddies because your attacks are so limited while you’re jumping around but they do feel a vital part of the balance, not only being reasonable barriers to getting around but often they’re more likely to rack up decent damage on you that makes it feel like the game is properly opposing your progress. Sadly, the interesting element of having four turtles to fight with does weaken some of the boss battles, the game’s kindness in putting a save point right before them meaning you can often get rather sloppy in the fight and still win just as long as you tag in another turtle before they go down.
Wearing down the turtle team during area traversal is offset some by the experience points system though. Defeating enemies provides a very small amount of experience that goes towards upgrading your Shell Kickers. There is an appreciable difference in both how much damage the upgraded versions deal and how they’re executed as additional strikes are added to some, so there is an incentive to attack everything in your path and thus put yourself at a bit of risk. Later on the enemies do start to get more dangerous on their own as well where staying to fight puts you at more legitimate risk because foes are less likely to flinch and now pack things like sawblades they can launch at you even if you try to dodge, but you might also have already leveled up your powers enough that you don’t need to fight them. On the one hand it is worthwhile to have options, but these more difficult enemies are let down some by being obstacles you can often just leap over and ignore once the incentive for attacking them has worn away.
Exploration is still given a big focus though, the areas you explore packing in their own challenges to overcome with an expanding roster of weapons and abilities. Tools like shurikens enter your arsenal that are used to open specific doors, there later being shuriken variants like explosive and electric ones that each have different door types they are used for. You can use these in normal combat too but it doesn’t feel too necessary, and there are some limitations on them. You’ll need to grab more ninja stars out in the world to replenish your stock, but with hidden upgrades to your capacity and enemies able to drop ammo refills and health when defeated that’s not much of a concern. Instead, the more specialized shurikens require Chi to use, this energy far more limited even when fully upgraded. It can be used for a powerful attack as well, that perhaps the better investment in battle but at least it’s an extra consideration for a most simple combat system. Some new navigation tools aren’t the best though, a smoke bomb trick meant to help you teleport to the other side of laser barriers often taking a few tries to get it to work as it seems to hitch on level geometry often. There can be the rare issue with the environment as well like one time when I was hit by an attack and ended up stuck inside an outcropping down in the sewer unable to reenter the level, but mostly you’ll be able to get around easily enough even though most of your new navigation options tend to exist to open new paths rather than making your movement feel more robust and flexible.
There are a good deal of secrets or side routes to take to get upgrades to your health and item capacities, the world interesting enough to explore even if the locations blend together a bit. The sewer and New York City are both given a good deal of focus with later areas of the game even just taking place in different parts of them, and while you might get a more distinct area like the inside of a skyscraper or an area by the docks, the side-scrolling exploration saves a good deal of imagination for Dimension X. In this otherworldly place you have much more interesting ideas on offer than the game’s usual approach of laying out spikes or crowding spaces with enemies. Elements of the background might come out to hit you and the usually reliable area map can’t properly show the strange ways rooms connect to each other. Scouring for secrets or heading into new territory would certainly be more interesting if the game more consistently whipped out ideas like the ones toyed with in Dimension X, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Danger of the Ooze is a very short adventure and deliberately so it seems, the game even offering trophies for beating it in only a few hours that can be achieved by playing at a normal pace. A younger player will likely spend more time with it as the enemies can stand their ground well enough and such a player might not manage their turtles too well, but this short length might actually be a benefit because you so quickly enter new territory and can face a fairly varied set of foes in that time frame. It might make it harder to justify as a purchase, but it also keeps things moving along so well that it’s not even much of a bother to backtrack with new abilities to grab hidden goodies, the adventure brisk and remaining fresh for its short runtime because of it.
THE VERDICT: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Danger of the Ooze is a pretty short exploration-focused platformer, but this small adventure has enough to share that it remains serviceable throughout. While it cranks up the creativity in Dimension X, the Shell Kicker attack system still makes facing a decent set of enemies more engaging before then and managing the health of your squad of turtles to avoid losing them is an interesting incentive for swapping them around. It can sometimes feel like it’s not pushing hard enough against you even though the experience point system tries to urge you to stand and fight, but it’s never too easy and likely presents a strong challenge for a younger audience. There might not be too much going on in it, but it spaces things out well enough and provides enough opportunities for finding hidden extras that it might keep you just entertained enough to see it to its conclusion.
And so, I give Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Danger of the Ooze for PlayStation 3…
An OKAY rating. It’s hard to say how much the parity across all three releases of the game necessitated some cutbacks, and if the rare glitch and some diminished visuals was the price to pay, that’s not too bad. It is more likely the fact it is a licensed game that lead to WayForward Technologies producing something you can beat in an hour or two if you’re a regular gamer, but it likely caters to the expected younger players better and will last longer in their hands. There isn’t a lot going on in the game, many characters just pop up to gift you an ability and some like the shadow sneak power that Leatherhead gives you might as well be pointless, but the core of hopping around the interconnected locations and beating up the baddies in your path still has some substance thanks to them playing into the Shell Kicker system or flying around to serve as the kind of nuisance you can’t so easily trounce. Vulnerability is perhaps the point the game could have worked on more since having the full group of four turtles hale and hearty weakens boss fights by making it so you don’t even need to worry about their specific attack patterns too much. The final boss is at least a test of using the right skills compared to other fights, and moments like realizing how a certain Shell Kicker might make a common enemy easier to overcome are nice bits of personal progress to complement the quick exploration. If the same experimental approach seen in Dimension X was carried over to different parts of the game it could easily get a bump up in how enjoyable it is, the foundation offered already sound enough and mostly just in need of compelling iteration. It does introduce some new ideas along the way so it’s not too plain, but even with your expanding set of skills and items you still don’t feel like you need to approach the world too differently as you get deeper into it.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Danger of the Ooze might just exist where most licensed games are expected to land. It’s not really innovative or expansive, but fans of the series being adapted here will recognize their favorite characters and get to play as the titular turtles in a decent albeit short video game experience. It will draw in the people who like the franchise and give them something that has not got much too complain about unless they expected something more ambitious. There are a good deal of well-regarded Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games because they went a step further, but this decent offering, especially if acquired for cheap, at least might give people who enjoyed the 2012 T.V. series a chance to explore their specific twist to the turtles in video game form.