By Jatin Gundara

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series has seen a handful of games meant to refresh the franchise. For instance, 2022’s Shredder’s Revenge breathed new life into the turtle’s primary crime-fighting saga, while the recently revealed The Last Ronin looks to be an action title for more mature audiences. Xalavier Nelson Jr.’s TMNT: Tactical Takedown serves as an enjoyable – albeit simple – addition to the growing Turtles catalog, and gives New York’s favorite group of bodacious brothers a welcome foray into the realm of strategy.

From the start, Tactical Takedown wastes no time in throwing the player right into the action. When I played the first level, I was immediately greeted with a tabletop-esque grid with figures of foot clan soldiers (the evil organization within the TMNT universe) scattered around a sewer landscape. Each stage sees you taking up the mantle of one of the four turtle brothers, and the opening stage has the player play as the orange headband-wearing, skateboarding, younger brother of the turtles, Michelangelo. Every turtle brother has their own move set which operates within the constraints of having 6 health and 6 action points. In the first stage, Mikey’s ability to move fast around the stage while damaging enemies with moves such as “gangway” and “kickflip” served to be incredibly useful. Each turtle has their own playstyle which keeps the game feeling fresh and challenging from stage to stage.

Raphael (the red turtle) uses a special jump attack to stun enemies, allowing future attacks to deal more damage and in some cases recover action points. That effectively extends the player’s turn so long as they can keep defeating foot clan goons. Leonardo (the blue turtle), prioritizes dodging attacks and chaining moves together, making it possible to go through entire stages without ever being hit.

However, my personal favorite was Donatello (the purple turtle). By using – or maybe abusing – his ability to set traps around the stage, I could inflict damage to enemies. Coupled with a super long range kunai attack, it became utterly satisfying watching hordes of foot clan ninjas mowed down before they could even reach me.

All of the turtle’s moves can be customized at the in-game shop, but I found that I could easily progress through the game without needing to change up the vanilla moves. While alternating map types (streets, sewers, rooftops, subways), and playing as a different turtle every to keep the game interesting for me, there is still certainly a lack of variance in certain aspects. After the first couple of levels, I was surprised to see that the same enemy types were reused repeatedly, and no new enemies were introduced even into the latest stages. It would’ve been nice to see some stronger form of foot clan ninja introduced halfway through, or maybe a threat from some never-before seen force not associated with the Foot (considering how this game takes place after the death of both Shredder and Master Splinter). 

I found that Tactical Takedown’s story was intriguing, forcing each turtle on their own path which the player got to experience for themselves. Usually, the turtle’s are always fighting crime together, so it was compelling to see how they navigated isolation and loneliness all while facing a new threat in the form of Karai, Shredder’s rebellious adopted daughter. While the progression of the plot was a little slow at times, the buildup was certainly worth the payoff in the end.

Visually, I felt that there was a lot to be desired. While the concept of every character being a figurine on a game board was certainly interesting, the zoomed out-isometric viewpoint of the game made it so that a lot of the lively expressions crafted into the figurines were hard to see. This, combined with a surprising lack of voice acting made Tactical Takedown feel somewhat lifeless at some points. The game could definitely have benefitted from character models which didn’t feel so stagnant. While the art style is fairly unique, it became tired after the first few stages due to the lack of variance in stage and enemy types. 

One of my favorite parts of Tactical Takedown was its absolutely killer soundtrack. The OST to this game is a blend of so many different genres and elements (industrial, hip-hop, synths) that that it not only complimented the experience but was one of the things that made it. Producer and songwriter RJ Lake did a commendable job scoring this game.

Overall, I have to say that I enjoyed my time with TMNT: Tactical Takedown. As a fan of the series, and having played through numerous iterations of the Turtle’s adventures over the years, this offering is valuable for what it is. Easy to pick up and fun to figure out, TMNT: Tactical Takedown is a fun way for players to get more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in a relatively concise package. And while it may lack the depth of other strategy games and the raw flair of other TMNT games, when taken out of the limitations of genre and IP, it still shows the player a good time.

California-based intern Jatin Gundara serves as the Circle’s West Coast correspondent.

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