UbiNintendo: TMNT Smashup!
posted:
7/14/2009 12:05:00 PM
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TMNT Smashup
We closed out the UbiNintendo event with a bang: TMNT Smashup. Prior to the event I was vaguely aware of a new Ninja Turtles game exclusive to the Wii, but I figured it was just another adventure game based on the new cartoon or something. Instead it was the biggest surprise of the event—an intense 4-player action brawler in the finest tradition of Smash Bros. The game’s striking similarity to Nintendo’s popular mascot fighter is no coincidence; Game Arts, a Japanese studio that assisted Sora Studio in making Smash Bros Brawl is doing full development on TMNT Smashup. Developer Matt Leunig was on hand to show us the game he’s been working on in relative secret, and while he had a lot of cool things to show us, I wish he could have shown us even more.
You see, Matt was eager to tell us all about his game but he had to save some of the juicy details for shows like Comic Con, which led to us pesky journalists pelting him with very specific questions and Matt doing his best to answer them without breaking 12 NDAs. We only got to play around with 7 characters—all 4 turtles, April, Splinter and Shredder—in 4 arenas, but Matt promised there is a treasure trove of content for diehard TMNT fans. As 2009 is the 25th anniversary of the first Turtles comic, Game Arts has dug deep into TMNT lore and included references from the comics, toys, movies, and both animated TV shows.
But how does it play? Well, kind of like Smash Bros…with some significant changes. Matt said he and his team wanted to emulate several successful fighting series, not just Nintendo’s, so they looked to Soul Calibur for inspiration, and an ex DOA developer is leading the TMNT Smashup team. This makes for an intriguing mix of gameplay styles. The arenas are big enough for 4 players but tighten in when there are only 2, allowing for a more personal Soul Calibur feel. You can ring out an opponent by tossing them over the side of an arena and likewise players can attempt to get back to solid ground, but you won’t be launching anyone into the stratosphere. There are occasional items like lighting, fire breath, throwing daggers and shuriken, but not in the volume or crazy variety Smash Bros has, which I found refreshing and focused.
The biggest departure from the Smash Bros formula is the addition of HP bars. They aren’t as easy to wear down as the ones in traditional fighters but they add a whole other dynamic to the Smash Bros style of gameplay. The arenas are also more active, with floors that collapse and dump you into a whole new area and one-hit-KO hazards like electrodes and hungry alligators. Of course there are smaller maps like a dojo and the Turtles’ sewer hideout, but it’s nice that they’ve still broken up the arenas for large and small battles.
The controls differ slightly as well, and the two schemes at the event were the NES-style sideways Wii remote and the remote-nunchuk combo. Strong and weak attack buttons replace the regular and special attacks in Smash Bros, with another button assigned to blocking. Stick or D-pad direction does dictate which attack you pull off, and by hitting both buttons at once you can attempt a grab. When stunned you can shake the Wii remote to regain coherence, but this was a little awkward in practice especially when holding the remote sideways. Matt wouldn’t say for sure if the Classic Controller or GameCube pad would be supported, but he was aware that longtime fans are interested in it and that it was being “strongly considered.”
When it launches on September 22nd, TMNT Smashup will have both a story-driven, comic style adventure mode and a fully featured multiplayer mode with full online support. There might be some arcade modes as well, but Matt couldn’t confirm at the time. Matt mentioned that Casey Jones and the Krang-like Utrominator would be unlockable characters, but he said that we’d have to wait for any secret arena reveals. From what I can tell Smashup is following Smash Bros’ tradition of excessive fanservice, so there’s bound to be an extensive volume of unlockables and TMNT references to satisfy longtime aficionados. The depth of TMNT mythos in the game is almost beside the point—Smashup is just damn fun and I’m already jonesing to play it again.
You see, Matt was eager to tell us all about his game but he had to save some of the juicy details for shows like Comic Con, which led to us pesky journalists pelting him with very specific questions and Matt doing his best to answer them without breaking 12 NDAs. We only got to play around with 7 characters—all 4 turtles, April, Splinter and Shredder—in 4 arenas, but Matt promised there is a treasure trove of content for diehard TMNT fans. As 2009 is the 25th anniversary of the first Turtles comic, Game Arts has dug deep into TMNT lore and included references from the comics, toys, movies, and both animated TV shows.
But how does it play? Well, kind of like Smash Bros…with some significant changes. Matt said he and his team wanted to emulate several successful fighting series, not just Nintendo’s, so they looked to Soul Calibur for inspiration, and an ex DOA developer is leading the TMNT Smashup team. This makes for an intriguing mix of gameplay styles. The arenas are big enough for 4 players but tighten in when there are only 2, allowing for a more personal Soul Calibur feel. You can ring out an opponent by tossing them over the side of an arena and likewise players can attempt to get back to solid ground, but you won’t be launching anyone into the stratosphere. There are occasional items like lighting, fire breath, throwing daggers and shuriken, but not in the volume or crazy variety Smash Bros has, which I found refreshing and focused.
The biggest departure from the Smash Bros formula is the addition of HP bars. They aren’t as easy to wear down as the ones in traditional fighters but they add a whole other dynamic to the Smash Bros style of gameplay. The arenas are also more active, with floors that collapse and dump you into a whole new area and one-hit-KO hazards like electrodes and hungry alligators. Of course there are smaller maps like a dojo and the Turtles’ sewer hideout, but it’s nice that they’ve still broken up the arenas for large and small battles.
The controls differ slightly as well, and the two schemes at the event were the NES-style sideways Wii remote and the remote-nunchuk combo. Strong and weak attack buttons replace the regular and special attacks in Smash Bros, with another button assigned to blocking. Stick or D-pad direction does dictate which attack you pull off, and by hitting both buttons at once you can attempt a grab. When stunned you can shake the Wii remote to regain coherence, but this was a little awkward in practice especially when holding the remote sideways. Matt wouldn’t say for sure if the Classic Controller or GameCube pad would be supported, but he was aware that longtime fans are interested in it and that it was being “strongly considered.”
When it launches on September 22nd, TMNT Smashup will have both a story-driven, comic style adventure mode and a fully featured multiplayer mode with full online support. There might be some arcade modes as well, but Matt couldn’t confirm at the time. Matt mentioned that Casey Jones and the Krang-like Utrominator would be unlockable characters, but he said that we’d have to wait for any secret arena reveals. From what I can tell Smashup is following Smash Bros’ tradition of excessive fanservice, so there’s bound to be an extensive volume of unlockables and TMNT references to satisfy longtime aficionados. The depth of TMNT mythos in the game is almost beside the point—Smashup is just damn fun and I’m already jonesing to play it again.
