The latest TMNT game aims to replicate the series’ history of brawling in a turn-based way
Splinter is dead, Shredder is dead. Starting off a traditionally children’s game’s plot like that would normally be a shock to the system, but the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise tends to transcend a single demographic and across generations.
Strange Scaffold’s latest game, Tactical Takedown, takes place late into the Turtles timeline, more akin to the computer animated 4th TMNT film, which was a sort of spiritual successor to he first three live action movies and held a decidedly more serious tone. The Turtles are drifting apart, they’re dealing with loss, and they’re forced to face their personal issues alongside the dangers of the Foot Clan and Karai, alongside Baxter Stockman and his robotic minions. That all being said, the story is still very TMNT, very Saturday Morning Cartoon (pre-Nickelodeon, one might say) and very true to the characters. Michaelangelo, whom the game kicks off with, is still the team’s goofy one, and Raph, Donnie and Leo all maintain their now well-known personalities.
There’s a lot of potential for a game that delves into the difficulties of a post-Splinter Turtle world, and it aims to deliver that in its gameplay structure.
Tactical Takedown knows that fans of the characters love the brawlers, love the arcade history of the series, and so it focuses on recreating that in an isometric iteration. Like those kinds of games, here we’re moving in specific direction and taking out as many enemies as we can until we make it to the exit (or boss, or obstacle). It looks like statuettes on a playmat, like playing with toys. The purposefully limited animations add to this idea by bumping into enemies when we’re attacking, even knocking them over like a chess piece falling down. We start by dropping into a room, with that room slowly expanding forward and enemies appearing every turn or two. While there’s no timer, that doesn’t mean that our traditional turn-based tactics gaming history holds true here. This is because the back end of the room we are in will start to drop off as the front expands, so it’s constantly pushing us forward. In fact it feels a tiny bit like a battle royale, because as the levels are changing we’re also juggling what can amount to increasing number of enemies that can get out of hand fairly quickly if we approach the situations wrong.
The game is fully turn-based and dependent on ability points. There’s no overworld, there are no breaks; much like the room design we’re constantly moving, constantly in battle. It’s standard stuff for anyone who’s played these kinds of games before, but not hard to understand for someone who hasn’t. We have a set amount of points and each action takes one or more. Want to do a weak melee? That’ll just be one. Want to do something more powerful that may even stun them? That’s two. Moving requires one ability point but because of the map size we don’t ever need to move too far to get to an enemy (or vice versa). If they’re near the edge of the current room layout we can even knock them off or unfortunately get knocked off ourselves.
The game gives three lives, and it’s important because we’ll definitely use them all.
I found myself getting squashed early on in my playthrough, A LOT. Rooms are small but bunches of enemies will drop in at once, while we only control one turtle at a time. That means that we’re always the center of attention, they’re always coming right at us. Because of the ability point limit we can only do one or two explosive attacks and can really only take out MAYBE two enemies. If we’re focused on that aspect then we can end up overcome with enemies dropping in so often, and it can feel a bit difficult to try and take them all on at once. After a few deaths and restarted runs, we start to learn that the game doesn’t want us to just attack, it wants us to use its playfield to our advantage. That dropaway section? If we can keep enemies on there then they’ll be eliminated. We need to knock them out instead of taking them on, to let the hazards get to them. The game then becomes less of that brawler and actually more about positional management and surviving. We don’t need to defeat every enemy. We don’t have to farm experience or clear out rooms, we just have to make it to the end. Realizing that actually speeds up the game quite a bit, but it takes a few tries to learn that spin.
It’s never easy, but it does get repetitive. The rooms are very consistent in design; sometimes there will be boxes or a bridge or a rooftop, but it’s still really just boards. I kind of wish there was more variety within the levels, or that the levels changed and adjusted more often rather than just trying to kick us forward.
My concern with the game isn’t that battle or movement system, though. The concept of the Turtles dealing with grief and some personal issues while still being a kid-based property is solid and digestible, but the Turtles are supposed to be a team. They consider each other to be brothers, to always work together, and while there’s some resolution for their individual stories we never really get the chance to put them together as a team. I want all four heroes. I want to see them play off of each other. Instead each level is one Turtle, one play style, whether we like the movesets or not. And that feels a little disappointing as to what the characters are. Perhaps an earlier point in the game, especially, would benefit from bringing all the Turtles together, as it could break up some of the repetitiveness of the experience.
But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying my time with the experience, though. The gameplay is great. Once we’re locked in to moving, the levels flow a lot better. And once we start unlocking some of the abilities and use those within small combos on the enemies the game manages to give some of that brawler feel that comes off novel to this genre. I think if anything the game feels like it doesn’t want to go all the way in one direction or another, because that may turn off fans of the Turtles or fans of the genre, or someone new to both.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown is a solid, albeit a little shallow adventure for the steadfast heroes. It’s good, it’s fine! I wish it was more at times, but what it delivers is still worth hopping into for fans because it shows us that we can still have that scrolling Ninja energy without needing to button mash to get there.
This review is based on a Steam code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. It originally appeared on The SideQuest for May 26, 2025. Images and video courtesy publisher. The game was mostly played on a Steam Deck with some time on a PC.
No Comments