Tribute Games and DotEmu’s upcoming retro side-scrolling beat ’em up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge has not shied away from declaring its love for the classic design of the infamous turtles. In a recent behind-the-scenes look at the game, fans were given a look at just how the teams behind the title came up with the design for the characters and how they are adapting a retro a genre for modern audiences.
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The latest behind-the-scenes look of the highly anticipated game takes fans down the rabbit hole of what went into designing the look and feel of the game. In what should come as no surprise, the developers looked to the classic 1980s art style for their upcoming game, with Tribute Games Co-Founder and Game Director Jonathan Lavigne saying that in going back to play some of the older games, the biggest thing that struck him was their pacing.
“What I took the most from the classic games is the pacing of the game,” Lavigne said. “Like, how fast everything is. The game plays almost like a shoot ’em up, where enemies enter the screen in patterns, and you have to kind of get into that rhythm to manage the crowds and beat the levels.”
Of course, the game itself is still a modern-day game, and Tribute Games and DotEmu is well aware. To balance the feel of a retro title with the amenities of a modern-day title, they’ve included multiple game modes, an Arcade Mode that plays like the classic games of old with limited lives and no continuation if you fail, and a Story Mode for players who would rather take their time through the game. Story Mode in Shredder’s Revenge also features its own world map, showcasing a pixelated New York City and allowing players to travel through to each level à la Super Mario World.
“In this mode you just unlock the stages one after the other,” said Tribute Games Game Designer Frederic Gemus. “But you can also backtrack and go and play those stages again, so you can complete some special requests or even challenges that are scattered into the game.”
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Shredder’s Revenge will also include a multiplayer mode, allowing a drop-in, drop-out style of cooperative play that works in either online settings or locally when the game launches later this year on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch. The multiplayer will also give users a chance to test out each character, who are all different this time around and not just crafty palette swaps. Each of them have unique stats and attacks and stick out because of it. According to Gemus, the team wanted players to feel like they are really inhabiting the character by having the move set reflect their personalities. This was part of why April and Splinter were added since they have their own fighting styles that are naturally going to differ from the four turtles.
