When talking about quality, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise is filled with anomalies. It’s a veritable roller coaster of highs and lows, of amazing stories and embarrassing character designs. It’s kind of a love-hate relationship. Kids of the 80s have fond memories of the original comic, cartoon, and movie. Opinion on the early 2000s cartoon was kind of split, as it is for the current iteration on Nickelodeon. The ongoing IDW comic, which recently released its 50th issue, has been incredible. The 2014 live-action movie resulted in a collective eye roll from the dedicated TMNT fan community, while this Summer’s sequel had many diehards enamored with its representations of favorites Bebop and Rocksteady. And let’s not even talk about The Next Mutation or the Out of Their Shells concert tour.

Yes, the Ninja Turtles actually went on tour back in the day.

Much like the other facets of the franchise, the TMNT video games range in quality from amazing to downright boring. The original arcade game and Turtles in Time are arguably two of the best beat ’em ups ever made. The game based on the 2007 computer-animated feature is also a decent title. On the flipside, the first game based on the 2013 cartoon series was pretty much universally panned, and the first NES game was downright awful. Electric seaweed? Really? Even with the Game Genie, I couldn’t beat that damn game.

Which brings us to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan, the latest game in the ever-popular Turtles universe. Knowing the reputation of the franchise, I started this one up with a bit of understandable trepidation, as history shows that these games have potential to fall anywhere on the TMNT quality bell curve. After giving it my full attention, I can safely say that this one falls right there in the middle. Not quite a Cowabunga, but not a Shell Shock, either.

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