Last week fellow Respawner Jav sent me a link to a new trailer for TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge. Having no idea what it was I was pleasantly greeted with a remixed version of the classic soundtrack before being treated to the reveal of a new nostalgic filled side scrolling retro game and I was hyped! But of course I was, I grew up on this stuff so a modern day follow up to games like Turtles in Time while remaining loyal to the arcade style that made those games famous was always going to tick boxes for yours truly. What really surprised me though was how many other people felt the exact same way as the gaming world collectively lost their shells with this announcement. Why is this though? Let’s jump in.
As always you can check out the video version of this article in the link below if you prefer.
Well firstly our beloved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have never lost their popularity, particularly with adults in their thirties like myself. They represent the ultimate nostalgia that brings us back to a more care free time and the best bit is that most of it still holds up! I could easily spend an hour or so watching old original episodes quite happily, getting that sweet sweet injection of nostalgia while having a laugh at the same time.
The main issue with the franchise is the amount of times movie makers, game developers and show runners have attempted to reimagine the whole thing to varying degrees of success, or for the most part, failure. Now don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the 2012 Nickelodeon remake.. okay, I really REALLY liked it! But aside from that, changing what we love has rarely worked. Yes Michael Bay, I’m looking at you! Serious question, how did that movie get a damn sequel?! Seriously leave your answers in the comments because I have no clue.
Video games have been more forgiving in fairness with no developer ever going out of their way to completely reinvent the turtles and often just giving us a video game adaptation of whichever TMNT TV show is currently on air. That was however until we got a really cool remake of Turtles in Time with Turtles in Time: Reshelled in 2009. This was a simple ground up remake (before remakes were cool) made by Unisoft and I was all aboard the nostalgia train much like I am for Shredder’s Revenge. But there’s no doubt there’s a lot more passengers on this train this time, but why?
Well the answer is simple, it’s new. Sure the gorgeous pixel visuals look like they’re straight out the 1980’s but the fact of the matter is this is a brand new title that nobody has ever played. Whereas Reshelled relied 100% on nostalgia, Shredder’s Revenge plays off that same feeling while giving us something we’ve never seen and there’s good reason to have faith. Publisher and developer Dotemu (good luck pronouncing that one) along with Tribute Games are the minds behind this project and they have a good track record with their most recent retro release Streets of Rage 4 being a real success story amongst fans so we have good reason to believe it’ll be the same with TMNT.
Dotemu haven’t tried to change what we love, they’re sticking to the version of the turtles we remember from our childhood while at the same time giving us a game we could have easily played in our childhood, yet we haven’t! Nostalgia is of course a huge part of this but the fact this isn’t a straight up remake or rerelease of the TMNT 1989 arcade game but instead a new title shows these guys care and that’s the reason I believe it’s had the reaction it has. Can Shredder’s Revenge live up to all this fanfare it’s managed to suddenly build? Only time will tell and fingers crossed we won’t have too much time to wait and find out!
Make sure to let me know in the comments what you think of the announcement and if you’re as excited as I am or feel free to hit us up on twitter @RespawningUK and I’ll get back to you.