Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge

Introduction

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge sends Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael — later joined by a growing roster of guest fighters — punching, throwing and combo-ing through a neon-lit New York City in a beat-'em-up built to feel exactly like it escaped a 1991 arcade cabinet. Developed by Tribute Games and published by Dotemu, the studio behind the acclaimed Streets of Rage 4, it released 16 June 2022 and sits at Overwhelmingly Positive, 95.9% across the 6,779 English-language reviews sampled for this review. The nostalgia execution here is close to unimpeachable in this corpus. What's worth examining is a specific, repeated cluster of complaints that keeps this from a near-perfect score, concerning length, a broken feature promise, and a persistent bug.

A love letter that lands

Start with what nearly every reviewer agrees on. Shredder's Revenge is repeatedly described, by reviewers who specifically grew up on the genre's 90s peak, as nailing the exact tone and feel of classics like Turtles in Time and Hyperstone Heist rather than offering a generic modern reinterpretation. One of the game's most-upvoted reviews put it as a direct instruction to fellow fans: "If you're a fan of Hyperstone Heist or Turtles in Time, scroll back up and buy Shredder's Revenge. Don't mull over it, don't read a cross section of reviews and don't leave it to the morning." Several reviewers explicitly credit the developer's pedigree — Dotemu's prior work on Streets of Rage 4 — with the game's combat feel and overall polish, treating the connection as a meaningful signal of quality rather than incidental trivia. Local co-op for up to six players draws its own specific, enthusiastic praise as the format the game is genuinely designed around, with reviewers describing raucous, joyful couch sessions as the clear highlight of the package. The soundtrack earns consistent, specific compliments too, credited with matching the game's energy beat for beat.

The complaint that shows up almost as often as the praise

Set against that near-unanimous nostalgia praise is an equally consistent length complaint. Most reviewers report finishing the main story in roughly two to three hours on a first playthrough — one 85-vote review, posted well after launch, warned newcomers directly: "The game has a very short story, you can easily complete it within/around 2 hours with medium difficulty. So if you just want to experience the story, I'd suggest you should wait till a BIG discount." Another reviewer changed their initial five-star impression after finishing the campaign, noting "It's only 2 and a bit hours. This is not worth [full price] unfortunately." This isn't a complaint confined to the harshest critics — it recurs across reviewers who otherwise clearly enjoyed the game, framed less as "this game is bad" and more as "know what you're paying for before you buy it."

A crossplay promise several reviewers say doesn't hold up

The single most-upvoted negative review this game has received, at 161 votes, makes a specific, checkable claim: that cross-platform multiplayer between Steam and Xbox, advertised on the store page, simply doesn't work. The reviewer describes following the developer's own instructions — creating and linking Epic Games accounts on both platforms, confirming the friendship there — and still being unable to see each other in the game's lobby. A second, independent 56-vote review makes the identical claim in stronger terms, calling the feature "fake crossplay" that "doesn't support all platforms equally," and arguing directly that a developer shouldn't claim crossplay support between ecosystems that don't actually connect. This review can't independently verify the current state of that connection years after these reports, but the specificity and independence of the complaints — both describing the same failed linking process — make it worth passing on rather than assuming resolved.

A related, more technical bug is worth flagging separately because of how long it's persisted: a review posted as recently as 2026 describes a save-corruption issue specific to online multiplayer, where a joining player's own save file gets overwritten by the host's progress. That reviewer noted, with evident frustration, that the bug "can be there since release and not be fixed yet" — a specific, dated claim about a persistent technical failure rather than a one-off launch hiccup.

Combat variety, and the fine print on paid characters

A smaller, more moderate complaint concerns move variety between the game's growing character roster. Several reviewers note that beyond surface-level differences, most fighters share largely similar movesets, which one detailed review called a missed opportunity: "the developer just changed the color, didn't work on their fighting." Related to this, the game's two paid expansions add both story content and new playable characters, and at least one reviewer specifically flagged disappointment on discovering some cast additions were "pay-walled" behind separate purchases rather than included in the base roster — a fair thing to know going in, checked directly against the storefront's own DLC listing.

Steam's achievement data shows a healthy, broad engagement curve regardless of these complaints: the top achievement sits at 86.7%, tapering gradually down through a genuine midgame before the hardest completionist unlocks — full-roster and hidden-collectible achievements — drop to around 2%. That's consistent with a short but well-loved game that a large majority of buyers actually finish, even if a meaningful number stop short of full completion.

Final Verdict

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge succeeds at exactly what it set out to do — recreate a specific, beloved era of arcade beat-'em-up design with real craft and evident affection, and its review base rewards that faithfulness with some of the warmest, most personal testimonials this library has documented. What keeps it from a stronger score is a specific, repeated set of complaints that go beyond ordinary launch grumbling: a short campaign that several reviewers feel undersells its price, a crossplay feature multiple independent reports say doesn't function as advertised, and a multiplayer save bug still being reported years after release. Play this with friends in the same room, on sale if the length concerns you, and you'll likely land exactly where this game's overwhelming majority already has.