There must be something in the water for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles devs right now. After yesterday’s bodacious TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection update – which added online multiplayer to the SNES version of TMNT IV: Turtles in Time – developer Tribute Games has followed up with a fantastic update for its own critically acclaimed beat-‘em-up, TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge.
The headline here is the new Arcade Mode, which sounds utterly superb. Effectively, you can setup custom game modes and rules by flipping virtual dip switches – just like on a real arcade cabinet! There are all sorts of neat settings you can faff around with here, like Old School Supers which consume health rather than Ninja Power, just like in old-school brawlers such as Final Fight. You can mix and match the settings you want to create the kind of game you want to play.
Other new features include an array of retro filters, including CRT overlays and even an old-school VHS option. You can fiddle about with these to taste! Elsewhere, online multiplayer hosts can now determine the maximum number of players for a lobby, which is useful.
There a bunch of gameplay tweaks, too, including some fan requested features like a small window of invulnerability following a throw. We’ve included the full list of patch notes below:
New Features
- Gameplay – A new Arcade mode is here: Custom Game! Just like an actual arcade machine: customize your game experience using DIP switches: free play, old-school Super Attacks, faster enemies, no more taunts, and many more! You can see the customization in the lobbies of Custom Games. Achievements’ progression and unlocking is disabled in Custom Games.
- Online – In the Character Select menu, the host can now set a maximum number of players for the lobby.
- Graphics – Added come awesome filters: CRT (normal or curved) and VCR! Check them out in the Options menu.
Fixes
- Gameplay
- Fixed rare crash in Arcade mode when changing difficulty.
- Cars can no longer deal massive damage when the player is considered Armored (for example: charging a Heavy Swing).
- Fixed bosses sometimes unable to reach a player positioned at the very top or bottom of the stage.
- Fixed bosses sometimes frozen after being hit by Raphael’s Super Flying Attack.
- Fixed Score not kept for player when switching character after a continue.
- Fixed April’s Super Flying Attack sometimes seemingly reviving KO’ed enemies.
- Fixed reviving a KO player near the transition point (for example: escalators in the Crystal Palace Mall) that would sometimes prevent progression.
- Fixed updating the timer for special statuses (for example: Infinite Ninja Power) when KO or in a cutscene.
- Online
- Guest players can now rejoin the same hosted game.
- Input
- Fixed input not correctly assessed when selecting between Backflip or Roundoff when turning around.
- Menus
- Fixed rare soft lock occurring in the World Map if the user completed Stage 8 after finishing Stage 10.
Improvements
- Gameplay
- Taunt now only fills up the first Ninja Power bar.
- We no longer clear fully accumulated Ninja Power bars when KO on Chill difficulty.
- Doing a throw now grants the player invulnerability.
- Added more feedback in the HUD when trying to do a Super Attack without enough Ninja Power.
- Many small animation tweaks were made to all bosses, often to make attacks easier to read.
- Fixed Dirtbag’s dig holes collision detection that was too wide and deep.
- Reduced the number of enemies spawned in Zorax’s stampede and the frequency of stampedes. Zorax also has a bit less health when facing multiple players.
- Rat King now does Pied Piper less frequently.
- Improved the Super Shredder fight in many small ways for a smoother pacing and tweaked some damage values. His grab is now used more frequently and is more efficient, though. Bummer dude!
- Improved Statue of Tyranny pacing and tweaked some damage values.
- Mother Mouser has a new bite animation to differentiate the charge bite from the idle bite, to give players time to react.
- Mouser Model 3 and Mother Mouser are now acting a bit faster.
- Radical Mode damage multiplier is now applied to all throws, Super Dive Attack, and charged Heavy Swing.
- Fixed players sometimes falling outside of the screen repeatedly when respawning, at specific locations.
- Online
- Added a Refresh button to the lobby search list.
- We improved the way the Arcade score is calculated: we now record each player individually, even if they leave the game.
- Localization
- Corrected or improved a few strings in Spanish, French and German.
- Menus
- The game will remember if How To Play was seen before, separately in Story and Arcade modes as they differ.
- Improved the prompt to reset your story and character progress.
- Pause menu in Arcade mode now shows the total play time.
- Steam
- Steam Input: improved support for PlayStation 5 controllers.