It’s no secret that I absolutely adored Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge when it was finally released last year. It’s truly one of the best beat ‘em up in ages; Tribute Games did their homework in delivering one hell of a game, full of reasons to keep coming back to it through numerous collectibles and the leaderboard.
Now, a year and change since release, we’re getting a new batch of content for the game in the form of the Dimension Shellshock DLC. For starters, it brings two new characters into the game. The first is Usagi Yojimbo, a creation of comic book artist and creator Stan Sakai, who’s already a part of TMNT canon for decades, having even starred in the 1980s cartoon.
Karai is the other one, and lore-wise, she’s supposed to be a high ranking Foot clan member, and in the Malibu comics, she’s Shredder’s adopted daughter. The two play wildly different from the rest of the already very varied cast and serve as excellent additions to the crew. And they’ll certainly see plenty of action through the DLC’s new survival mode.
Unlike most modes of this nature, it’s not simply a horde-based attempt at a roguelite. In it, you play through various screens racking up as many crystals as possible. Once you hit a certain threshold, a full gem is put together and you move on to the next, with harder enemies to face off against.
The survival mode includes screen-to-screen powerups that you pick up including the usual array of bonuses such as timed infinite special attacks as well as health boosts, but the best inclusion is the transformation to some of the non-playable characters such as Shredder, Rocksteady and Beebop, who are all unique in the way they play.
For every one that you put together, your character grows stronger and gains new skills and skins for when you start a new game. Oh, and once you get five of these gems, you square off against a powerful boss before your run ends. It’s the sort of challenge that will keep you continuously coming back, especially if you do so with other players.
Same as the base content, Dimension Shellshock is especially excellent with up to six players simultaneously, and it’s where a whole bunch of its fun will derive from. For the purposes of this review, I played through numerous matches by myself, but I surely had a much more enjoyable time with online players, and thanks to a well populated online community already present for the main game, it’s a cinch to find others to play with.
Aside from the aforementioned characters and game mode in the paid portion of the DLC, it’s worth mentioning that there are some extra skins based on the comics that are part of a free update to the base game. So even if you opt not to get Shellshock, you’ll still get some new things to play with anyway.
But I really urge you to go out and get this DLC. The new survival mode is quite excellent and adds even more replayability to what was already a game with surprisingly long legs, even more so considering its repetitive nature as a brawler. Truly, it’s one of the few of its kind not to overstay its welcome, which is something to behold.
For fans of the cartoons in particular, getting to play as Usagi is a bonus, too, as he’s been one of the most requested characters to be added not only to Shredder’s Revenge, but to just about every product that the Turtles are in. It’s amazing to see him finally get his chance with an extremely good game such as this.
The Dimension Shellshock DLC is well worth the extra bucks since it adds a lot to an already packed game. If you have friends to play it with and even if you don’t and have to rely on rados online, it’s an incredible addition to Shredder’s Revenge that no player who’s enjoyed the base game should go without.
