Check out the Video Review.

After 25 years of success, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise has seen better days. The television series has fallen out of relevancy, the 2007 CG movie didn’t do much in terms of critical acclaim, and the past few video games have been anything but impressive. However, none of those missteps have gotten in the way of gamers’ love for Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, and Donatello. Fond memories of the 80s cartoon seem to override any failures, meaning that there was a fair bit of excitement over Game Arts and Ubisoft’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up, a Super Smash Bros.-inspired beat-em-up featuring the characters from the television show, films, and comics. Does the fighter live up to the Turtles name? Or should Smash-Up best be lumped together with the past few years of turtles history?

As proven earlier in the year with Arkham Asylum, licensed video games are best when not attached to any specific product. When a game is launched alongside a movie, odds are the limitations will cripple it, which is why Smash-Up showed so much promise. Instead of focusing on one element in TMNT history, it covers the entire franchise, from its comic book roots up to the recent film. This means a mixture of styles that spans the Turtles’ entire career, and should provide enough Easter Eggs and nods to impress any fan. Anyone who grew up in the 90s will likely be grinning ear to ear while collecting action figure parts to assemble, putting a new spin on the idea of viewing 3D models of the characters.