I'd like to thank Outright Games Ltd. for the review key to this title.

To succeed, games based on movies must be good and not lose those who didn't see the film. Games based on movies that are, in turn, based on a larger franchise have to do all that and not embarrass the franchise. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed is a game I'd say meets those criteria minus some considerable annoyances.

First, some background. This game is based on the TMNT reboot "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem", which retells the original series' story with a new spin on the origin of the titular characters and updates the presentation for modern audiences. The story is set after the events of the movie, where the Turtles have recently won the respect of humanity for taking down the villain of the movie and have been accepted into wider society alongside a bunch of other mutants. This is immediately screwed up by a new threat turning many of the new mutants hostile, forcing the Turtles to have to figure out the result to avoid the world regressing back into fearing all mutants again. The movie's high points are covered enough to set the tone of the game well enough.

As for the main premise, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a franchise based on the original comics from 1984. The titular turtles are four mutants of regular turtles into anthropomorphized teenage humanoid turtles. Named after Renaissance-era art masters by their also former human-turned-rat mutant Master Splinter, who was trained in the ways of ninjitsu, they fight crime. When they aren't doing that, they live in the sewers of Manhattan, New York, and are huge fans of pizza. The original series was a tad on the adult side, but most of the wider world knows them from their kid-friendly animated series introduction circa 1987, from which most future adaptations would draw a lot of recurring elements.

TMNT Mutants Unleashed is an action-adventure game with some light RPG elements. Most levels are generally linear, though there is a world map with other optional areas you can visit to build up stats and unlock new abilities. There is a time limit of days on story objectives, so these should be handled before the limit expires (each place you visit will take up half a day of time). Otherwise, the player can visit game world areas at their leisure.

Most of the game levels will revolve around arcade-style combat action. You have four playable characters. Leonardo is the most balanced and wields twin katanas. Donatello wields a long staff and has the greatest reach if long windup to some of his moves. Raphael wields twin sais and has the quickest attack if shortest reach. And last is Michelangelo, whose twin nunchaku can be devastating if you manage to time his combo chaining well. All of your playable characters can upgrade their usable skills by finding collectible items like coins, VHS tapes, and other various items specific to some levels. There is an autosave feature and you can retry a level if you run out of health, so it's not overly hard by any means.

Graphically, this title has a cross between looking like a cel-shaded comic book and a stylized graffiti look. It's a fine compliment to the movie it was based on and lends a fun "teen rebel" aesthetic to this take on the Turtles. This does have a mild downside in that it makes some jumps a bit hard to judge due to a lack of well-defined shadows to gauge distance though.

The sounds and music are a cross between the series' time-honored New York-style beat aesthetic and a lot of hip-hop and other dance-style tunes. Sound effects sound rather silly, coming off like a vocalized version of comic book sound effect bubbles. The voice acting is pretty good and definitely made me laugh, especially because the main characters really sell the "teen" in "teenage". Most of the other characters have pretty amusing New Yorker-style accents to fit the fact it takes place on Manhattan Island and it all goes hand in glove with the graphics nicely.

This title can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse but has a warning when you start it's best played with a Steam-supported controller. I played using an Xbox One controller and found it worked fine aside from a few buttons not matching game prompts. Unfortunately, there is no key rebinding and the game tutorials are pretty anemic. There is a lack of animation frames during heavy combat, making blocking and countering a bit difficult to time as well. I found it can be a total hassle trying to navigate certain levels because some levels expect you to use the wall jump or other moves that most players would otherwise have little need for. Unfortunately, due to utter lack of hints, no real practice mode, or even the slightest bit of guidance some levels are just painful to get through. On a final note, there is a noticeable drift when moving, which can make precise movements hard, especially on small platforms.

There is a single-player and two-player co-op mode. Unlike some other Turtles titles, there is no four-player mode. Given the size of the game maps, the four-player mode would likely not work very well, but this will disappoint Turtle fans who have come to expect this. Co-op can be local or with another player remotely.

This is a pretty stable game. It's based on the Unity engine and runs fine in Windows. Game requirements are generally modest and should run fine for most unless they have really terrible integrated graphics. While not rated for the Steam Deck, I did get it to run albeit with long load times. Linux should run this as well, given it's a Unity based game, but I cannot guarantee good performance.

Morally, it's got some minor issues.

Violence is action-adventure style. While the turtles use various real-world weapons, attacks are rendered in a cartoonish way, foes disappear after being beaten, and there is no blood or gore. Even when you lose all health you can simply retry and get back up to try again. Violence takes place generally in self-defense, with the Turtles only attacking if their enemies refuse to stand down peacefully.

The language is fairly clean. There is a fair degree of slang, but it's generally clean. There are some mild references to dating and flirting, but nothing beyond a few remarks here and there and cracks about one of the characters getting "friend-zoned". "Hell's Kitchen" comes up, but it is a real place in Manhattan you can visit in-game.

The premise is strictly sci-fi. They don't reference any occult or supernatural content and it remains purely in the realm of comedic science fiction. Morally, the Turtles try to be upstanding citizens and work to ensure their fellow mutants also abide by the law as much as possible.

Technically, it's got some control issues but the rest isn't too horrible. Morally, it's pretty suitable for older children on up. If you need some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fun, this is provisionally recommended for that if you can stomach the poor controls.