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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown proves that beyond being able to rock almost any tone and visual aesthetic, the turtles with attitude can lend themselves to almost any genre. TMNT: Shredder's Revenge is an all-timer beat 'em up. They're incredible as fighters in Injustice 2. They've even landed in Call of Duty more than once. But developer Strange Scaffold's strategic take on the turtles is already one of the best TMNT games as far as I'm concerned, after spending a couple of hours with the Steam Next Fest demo.
Strange Scaffold is an eclectic indie game dev titan known for punk, rough-and-ready, mechanically rich cult classics such as I Am Your Beast (one of the best shooters of 2024), El Paso, Elsewhere (Max Payne with Vampires), and Clickolding (the most cursed clicker game on the market). Working on a licensed game is unusual for the studio, but, then, when have they ever been usual?
Radical tactical
Likewise, while much in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown is what you'd expect from the genre: a grid of enemies, action points dictating moves you can make, and the chance you'll get crushed if you're not clever enough, it's also so much more. Thanks to its playful sense of momentum and dedication to encouraging the turtles to turn the tides when outnumbered, it's unlike anything else I've played in the genre.
Though core rules remain the same, each Turtle has their own mechanical quirks that make them feel distinct – the demo I play having me go shells-on with each in turn. The wisecracking Michelangelo is the speediest of the bunch, able to move around as he attacks and flips and spins past enemies with big jumps. The moody and brawny Raphael can dash into groups of enemies and push and pull them to apply debuffs, gaining more action points as he dispatches foes with his sai. Tech-wiz Donatello can use his staff to attack in horizontal or vertical lines while also using stun kunai and shock bombs to control enemy movement. Leonardo, the leader of the crew, specializes in one-on-one attacks, able to apply evasion and strengthening buffs depending on how he KOs enemies to stay ahead of the curve.
Each turn, more enemies jump out of the shadows, and, almost like a beat 'em up, parts of the stage fall away as more parts get added, meaning this scrap constantly stays on the move whether it's bopping heads between rivers of poisoned sewer water, or shunting foes into the path of traffic just above.
Only now and then will the action settle on a particular zone for longer, either as you mash away at waves or focus on knocking out special goons highlighted in red. No matter what, each area you'll end up battling through is bite-sized by design, which also means you're never far from the reaches of the enemy yourself.
While some of the evil Foot clan you face have hefty health bars, most of the ones I battle in the first chapter are weak enough to be able to be dispatched without too much trouble. Even so, before I get used to the mechanics, I come across points where I'm too slow and the momentum ends up against me, my turtle of choice getting their shell kicked in by a bully circle of enemy ninjas who arrive after each turn.
You really can't waste time, so finding the optimum way to thread your moves between multiple enemies in a turn is required – and it feels extremely satisfying to stay on the move. Almost like a turn-based Bloodborne, TMNT: Tactical Takedown really rewards staying on the offensive, rushing into and mastering danger before it can overwhelm you.
My favorite moments often have me staying ahead, pummelling enemies almost as soon as they appear on screen, using my moves to reposition and attack at the right moment, dealing just enough damage to mop them up. Crucially, knowledge of the environment isn't just vital for repositioning, but in efficiently mopping up goons. It doesn't matter how much health you have if you're eradicated by falling off the level, which is always an option, whether you're literally kicking them off the edge, or forcing them to stay in place as a slice of the level disappears from existence with them on it.
Slick, fast-paced, and radically fun, this is a cowabunga for the ages – an incredibly quick and whip smart tactical RPG that embraces all the fun of the show it's based on. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown releases on PC in 2025.
Prefer dice rolling to grids? This weird Steam Next Fest RPG might have more dice rolls than Baldur's Gate 3, and so far I've debated a talking fish, uncovered a clone plot, and gone head-to-head with bubble tea
