Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed

My first honest reaction to Mutants Unleashed was suspicion. Outright Games publishing a TMNT tie-in with no Shredder, no Foot Clan, and a fixed camera? That combination historically spells budget shovelware with the franchise logo slapped on top. The reality is more complicated, and in some ways more interesting, than that. What the game actually is: a 3D beat-em-up set in the Mutant Mayhem movie universe, picking up directly after the film. You play as Leo, Raph, Donnie, or Mikey, each with genuinely distinct move sets, combo strings, and individual skill trees unlocked by collecting Ooze flasks. The combat system draws more from Devil May Cry than from old-school brawlers. There is a style-grade meter that punishes repetition and rewards mixing up attacks, enemy intro scenes, and a slow-motion zoom on kill shots. Characters have specials, dodges, and parries on top of standard strings. That depth is real. Between missions, the game runs a Persona-style day-and-night cycle where the turtles roam in street clothes, build social-link bonds with NPCs like April and Splinter, and unlock new abilities through those relationships rather than through a flat XP wall. It is a genuinely weird design choice for a kids licensed game, and it mostly works as a pacing hook. Here is where things get honest. The camera is a problem. It is fixed, barely adjustable with the right stick, and in chaotic arena sections it will regularly put obstacles between you and the action. The dodge has no invincibility frames, which makes incoming hits feel arbitrary rather than punishing. Enemy variety runs thin well before the credits, and the level geometry gets recycled with frustrating frequency. Load times have been flagged across multiple platforms as genuinely long and numerous. On PC specifically, some players reported stuttering bad enough to make combat nauseating. No online co-op at all: the two-player mode is local only, which caps the social ceiling hard. The voice cast is the full movie cast, and the writing keeps the same teenage-energy humor that made Mutant Mayhem work. The hand-drawn, graffiti-textured art direction is sharp and holds up close. The story, following new mutants called Mewbies being weaponized by villain Cammy Leon, is light but coherent. Boss fights against Bebop, Rocksteady, Genghis Frog, and Leatherhead land with personality. Side content includes dojo training, pizza deliveries, collectible VHS tapes, and a phone-based AR mutant mini-game that reviewers almost universally described as pointless. A full run sits around 10-plus hours depending on how deep you go into social links. From a pure input-response standpoint, this is not a game that is going to satisfy anyone chasing tight mechanical feedback. The dodge issue alone kills the ceiling. For the audience it was built for, meaning younger players or Mutant Mayhem fans who want to spend more time in that world, it delivers a surprising amount of content with genuine charm. For everyone else, the combat gets stale, the camera gets infuriating, and there are better options on the shelf. Fred, Scout Team