When Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time Re-Shelled for the Xbox Live Arcade was announced, most gamers in my general age range were pretty excited about it. For those of us who grew up in the 80s and early 90s, anything TMNT-related evokes instant nostalgia, and the original SNES game is a beloved classic. Though I loved the cartoon, toys, movies, and comics just as much as anyone else born in 1983, I only ever played Turtles in Time in arcades, because I didn’t have a Super Nintendo as a child, and vaguely remembered it. I assumed that it would be similar to the original arcade game later ported to the NES (and Xbox Live Arcade), which remains an old-school favorite of mine to this day. After playing through Turtles in Time Re-Shelled, however, I was left a little shell-shocked. Perhaps this game should have stayed in the past.

Like the original arcade game, Turtles in Time is a side-scrolling beat ’em up that allows up to four players to take control of the turtle of their choice. Though the turtles can technically perform some special moves, they appear to be completely random, which makes the game essentially just a button-masher. After starting out on their home turf in New York City, Shredder sends the foursome through a time warp (along with a good deal of Foot Soldiers too, apparently). As a result, each level takes place during a different historical time period, making the group deal with dinosaurs, pirates, and the futuristic robots that will apparently rule the planet in the year 2020 (but we’ll all be riding hoverboards by then, so it’s a fair trade). As I stated earlier, the XBLA version of the game has gotten a graphical upgrade, and the results are visually pleasing, which made my initial impressions pretty positive.



Unfortunately, it soon becomes apparent that there is far too little content to warrant a $10 price tag. In fact, if you remember, Ubisoft had originally listed Turtles in Time at fifteen bucks, and then brought it down at the last minute; I now know why they did, but still wouldn’t pay ten dollars for a game this short. Instead of remaking the SNES version of the game, which added some content, the XBLA iteration is actually taken from the arcade game, resulting in fewer levels. Playing solo on normal mode, Turtles in Time can easily be beaten in 45 minutes. Add more players into the mix, and you’re looking at a 25-30 minute campaign. There is no real punishment for dying, and even if all of your lives are used up, you’ll just start at the beginning of the current level. The option for co-op play is nice, but there’s no jumping in or out, which is just ridiculous.

After beating the game, there aren’t many options. You could play it again on hard to try and collect some extra achievements, or check out one of the two new gameplay modes that are unlocked upon completion: survival mode and quickplay. Survival mode, which sounds cool, is actually the exact same game with only one life, making it fairly redundant. Quickplay allows you to choose a level to play, but seeing as the game is so short to begin with, I doubt you’ll ever only have time to play one level. That’s all there is to it, and though the initial playthrough is fun (especially with friends), Turtles in Time has very little replay value.



If the Super Nintendo adaptation of the game had gotten the remake treatment instead of the arcade version, perhaps I would have felt that the ten-dollar price was justified. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, and you will probably be done with everything Turtles in Time Re-Shelled has to offer in about an hour. Considering you can get longer games with more replay value for the same price on XBLA, that makes this one feel like a rip-off. Five dollars would have been a more appropriate price, and though it pains me, I can’t really recommend that anyone buy this unless Ubisoft slashes the cost again. Turtles in Time Re-Shelled was fun while it lasted, but that time was far too short.