Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 - Battle Nexus

Somewhere in the unlockables of this thing sits the arcade version of Turtles in Time, the 1991 cabinet that remains one of the finest side-scrolling brawlers ever built. Konami put it there as a bonus. What it actually functions as is a control experiment, and the results are not flattering to the game wrapped around it.

Battle Nexus follows the 2003 animated series and Konami's own 2003 tie-in, keeping the four turtles distinct through speed, reach and a light-heavy combo string, and adding a shared pool of upgrades bought between missions. Up to four players can crowd the screen at once, which is where the design still shows its old instincts. Enemies come in waves, crowd control matters, and the sound of four sets of weapons connecting on a Foot soldier is exactly what the license is for. Alone, though, the whole thing sags. Levels stretch far past the point where the combat has anything new to say.

The real problem is the geometry. Somebody decided a beat 'em up needed platforming, so the stages are threaded with narrow ledges, moving platforms and pits that kill outright, all viewed at an angle that makes depth a guessing game. Miss and you lose a life. Lose your lives and you restart the level, not the section. That structure was already dated in 2004 and it turns a breezy Saturday-morning brawler into a grind of repeated ground you have already cleared. It is the single decision that defines how the game feels to play.

The Battle Nexus tournament itself, the arena strand borrowed from the show's storyline, is the better idea and gets less room than it deserves. Fighting through ranked opponents in enclosed spaces suits the combat far more than the trek across rooftops does, because nothing there can be fallen off. Multiplayer versus modes round it out without much conviction.

As licensed product it is honest work: the voice cast from the series, art that matches the cartoon's angular look, plenty of content for the price a kid's parent would have paid. As a Konami brawler it is a strange act of self-sabotage, a studio with the genre in its bones building something clumsier than the fifteen-year-old game it ships as a reward. Play the reward first and you may never come back to the main course.