Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles(2007) Video Game Review

I heard of this movie tie in game based on TMNT 2007 to be like Prince of Persia and it was developed by Ubisoft so that got me interested in checking it out despite not watching TMNT 2007 in a long time despite me recalling myself loving it. I emulated the PS2 version of the game.

TMNT 2007 the game does make a pretty decent first impression, the environments do look kind of nice and the controls seem decent if a little worse than Ubisoft's PoP efforts especially wall running being contextual rather than being a button press, it has a follow camera instead of being controllable like in PoP where the camera will zoom out during platforming and I like the idea behind the game where it's basically a speedrunning version of the PoP games with you being timed on each level, the game seemingly wanting to beat the game levels super quickly, it has all 4 turtles playable in most levels with their own special ways of traversal and attacks of their own along with "team up attacks" does make the game seem like it would be a good Turtles game in 3D, but like many games of this type, if TMNT 2007 the game was not forced to be released alongside the movie and wasn't shackled to the film it's based on then the game would've been better off for it.

The platforming does feel like PoP but then there is just weird things about it like the unpolished nature of it, there will be many times where the game wants you to make precise jumps but if you are close to a wall while doing it, you could wall run and fall to your death, then there is wall jump where unless if it feels like I'm pressing the x button like mad, I won't be able to any consecutive jumps, or how during precise platforming moments, I will fall to my death many times. The lack of polish really holds back the fun I could get from moment to moment platforming. The game does checkpoint pretty well for 98% of the game, I used save states from time to time but the unpolish was why.

The aforementioned turtles do get their own unique ability, for example, Leo can phase through walls like Raziel in Soul Reaver, Raph can climb up walls, Donnie can lunge across platforms with tight spaces, and Mickey can glide across but for only a short period of time. This is all great on paper but the only ability that got active use from was Mickey's since it helps cover long distances between handholds, I only need to the other turtles' abilties when the game called for me to use them, like when a wall needs climbing, use Raph, when there is a wall that has bars, use Leo and Donnie's ability got use on maybe one or two occasions.

The combat is where the game however really drops the ball, this is where criticism of the game being "too easy" comes from, it almost feels like a weird predessesor to the Prince of Persia 2008 reboot that came out a year later, except in that game the better you are at platforming, the more random combat encounters you can skip, where in this game much of the game is combat it's too easy to the point of being brainless, you have a dodge command but it seems to be inconsistent where either you hold R1 and move the right stick to dodge or hold R1 and the turtles will dodge automatically, but none of this matters since unless there are death pits which are rare and are only in the final boss, it's impossible to fail these sequences since for one all you do is fight generic foot clan and purple dragon thugs for most of the game where you can beat them by mashing the attack singular attack button(you can't even chain attacks and kicks together making combat more basic), and if you do run out of health, all you have to do is press x super fast and a turtle can revive you and on top of this the turtle that is down has a super quick cooldown and can be brought back again.

The only useful characters that I found where Donnie and Mickey, the former has a long reach with his bow staff and the latter can keep a combo going for a while with his break dancing attacks. I never used Raph or Leo unless if I was forced to play as them.

Bosses are slightly more challenging but not by much, the final bosses will be the most confusing since in order to avoid some of their moves and to damage the final boss like Winters, you need to use the brotherhood team up attacks to do it and you can go through 98% of the game without ever using them so when the game forces you to use them without teaching you it's jarring, confusing and a game design sin in my book.

I also found that the turtles talked too much and said certain lines way too much that it can be irritating to listen to when doing moment to moment gameplay

The story while presented in an interesting way with narration and the turtles commenting while playing is hard to follow unless you watched the movie, which the game uses scenes from.

Overall, I wanted to like more TMNT game more but its a mediocre movie tie in game that could've been better, I kind of reccomend playing if you are are curious but expect little out of it, you might find more enjoyment than I did, but I really felt the game could've amounted to more.