Cowabunga, friends! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate is out on Nintendo Switch today and, as you can see in the video above, Jim Trinca and I took an early look at the first 90 minutes of the game in two player co-op for yesterday’s live stream.
Splintered Fate has actually been available on the Apple Arcade for over a year now, where it’s recieved a lot of positive reviews. Many of these reviews liken its roguelike gameplay to a multiplayer version of Hades, and that’s the exact vibe we got when we took it for a spin. Splintered Fate is absolutely a Hades clone, but it does it well and it is fun to play, despite the fact that its mobile roots are fairly easy to see.
The Switch version does bring a few new changes though, the visuals and the audio have been improved for the console release and couch co-op for up to 4 players has also been added. Which is pretty cool considering that would only be possible on a mobile phone if you had either, like, a massive phone or a bunch of friends with really tiny fingers.
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But the real question is, is it really worth shelling out £26.99 for the Switch version (or the Steam version which has a Q4 release date) when you can get basically the same game on mobile for the price of a month’s Apple Arcade subscription? Well, in my opinion, that price does feel rather steep considering the actual Hades is a couple of pounds cheaper than this on the Switch store.
The simplistic combat is undeniably fun (if rather basic as the power-ups you earn during runs don’t feel that impactful) and I really enjoyed dashing out of the way of the enemies nicely telegraphed moves at the last second. This meant that I could deliver a couple of quick smacks to the back of their heads with Donatello’s Bo staff before having to move on, and this made the combat flow nicely. And let’s not forget the online multiplayer option. This worked really well when Jim and I tested it out and, while the progession seems to be tied to the host player, it is rather refreshing to see this unique idea amongst all the copying of Hades’ homework. I could imagine a four-player session of this being a lot of fun and would help ease some of the more repetitive elements.
It’s also a good sign that I played the game in handheld mode for a couple of hours after the stream as I wanted to grind for a little bit more progression. During that time I got further than we had on stream, unlocking a new area with new enemy types but, at the same time, that feeling of repetition grew during each run. Sure there are randomised elements in terms of power-ups and boss variants but these don’t feel varied enough to keep my interest piqued for long and pushing through that first sewer level is already growing tiresome for me.
If you’re a Turtles fan I’d say this one is definitely worth a look, especially as there’s some great voice acting in there to compliment an original story from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book writer Tom Waltz. Hades fans however are only going to see this as a pale imitation of the BAFTA winning game, and even the addition of multiplayer won’t stop this one feeling stale after the completion of a couple of runs.
