{"id":8783,"date":"2026-04-30T19:24:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T16:24:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/?p=8783"},"modified":"2026-04-30T20:28:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T16:58:13","slug":"teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-empire-city-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/2026\/04\/30\/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-empire-city-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City Review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Running around a big city as you and your buds fight off ninjas, annihilate slices of pizza, and leap from rooftop to rooftop sounds like a perfect premise for a VR game, so it\u2019s a pretty big bummer to see such a radical idea miss the mark in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Empire City. This flawed adventure isn\u2019t without charm \u2013 hanging out with friends as anthropomorphic turtles is consistently funny, and the parkour elements that have you dashing across skyscrapers are pretty strong. But, like a pie that\u2019s too light on toppings, Empire City just doesn\u2019t hit the spot in the ways it needs to. With weak combat, thin quests that quickly outstay their welcome, and an impressive amount of bugs, this flimsy six-hour adventure left me disappointingly shell-shocked. <\/p>\n

Before we dive into the ways Empire City is often underwhelming, it\u2019s at least worth celebrating one area where it rarely let me down: the writing. True to the shockingly consistent track record of the series, the dialogue in Empire City is quite good, with some very amusing one-liners and loads of punchy banter from our cold-blooded adolescents. That said, you\u2019ll be hearing many of those funny lines a whole lot, and the repetition weighing down so much of this shelled romp applies to its jokes as well. Even the best joke is far less funny the 12th time you hear it. <\/p>\n

The story itself is less interesting than the dialogue, too, with a grab bag of TMNT characters doing exactly what you\u2019d expect them to do with zero deviations. Bebop and Rocksteady are altogether unthreatening and goofy partners in crime, Karai serves as a morally gray companion with a murky history, and April O\u2019Neil is just doing her best as she lives out her life as a sewer dweller. Your familiar group of allies conspires to thwart<\/em> the telegraphed machinations of some tired foes in a forgettable story that is already quickly fading from my memory (and I rolled credits mere minutes before writing this).<\/p>\n

When it comes to the fantasy of playing as the Ninja Turtles, the part Empire City gets closest to nailing is the parkour. Though its three open-world areas are quite limited, leaping across rooftops and climbing pipe drains as you hunt down the Foot Clan is definitely a highlight. Jumping, dashing in midair, and grapple hooking are all pretty stellar movement options early on, and you start to feel like even more of a badass once you unlock upgrades like a double jump, making yourself impossible to hit as you pull off daring stunts to get around town. Climbing and leaping through the air are two of the things that VR adventure games are best known for, and while Empire City doesn\u2019t come close to some of the greats like Stride or Blade & Sorcery, it\u2019s still more than serviceable and is certainly one of the best parts of this particular VR package.<\/p>\n

The parkour is definitely a highlight, but it’s wasted on uninteresting levels.\u201c<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Those parkour chops are wasted on the levels, though, which are the least interesting (and often most downright annoying) parts of Empire City. The three miniature hubs (East Side, Chinatown, and the Docks) are barren and charmless cityscapes you\u2019ll revisit over the course of your adventure as you\u2019re encouraged to participate in the same handful of extremely simple activities that pop up over and over again every few minutes. The idea here is that there\u2019s always some minor crime to stop, similar to Insomniac\u2019s Spider-Man games, and that you\u2019ve also got regions to free from the Foot Clan\u2019s control, similar to something like a Far Cry game. But Empire City\u2019s versions of those ideas are incredibly underdeveloped and poorly executed, as you\u2019re repeatedly sent the same small number of side quests ad nauseum with almost no payoff for completing them \u2013 and your reward for liberating each part of the city is for absolutely all of them to return to Foot Clan control the second you turn your back for longer than a few minutes. That means you\u2019ll spend a pretty big chunk of the main story doing consistently boring and occasionally irritating chores.<\/p>\n

There are a few things that make these open-world hubs slightly more bearable, such as time trials that ask you to do things like sink basketball shots into a hoop, throw ninja stars at moving targets, or collect floating letters Tony Hawk\u2019s Pro Skater-style (minus the skateboard, despite how fitting that would have been). While completely unnecessary and devoid of any rewards that I could see, these serve as welcome distractions that inject just the tiniest bit of variety into otherwise incredibly tedious areas. There are also a couple collectibles hidden around to hunt for, some of which are just fun to track down for vanity reasons, like the chess pieces that you\u2019ll need to complete your chess board back at your base, or the items and blueprints that actually have an impact on gameplay. These things go a small way toward making each region less annoying to spend time in, but only just <\/em>so.<\/p>\n

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It certainly doesn\u2019t help that you\u2019ll have to do a whole lot of extremely sloppy fights along the way. No matter which of the four turtles you\u2019re playing as, combat is an absurdly one-dimensional process of slashing, dashing out of the way, and repeating. There\u2019s the smallest amount of variety beyond that, like the use of gadgets every now and again or a \u201cFocus Mode\u201d that lets you do a bit more damage, and the latter does help you get through the slog of combat a bit faster. But attacks often sail right through enemies without doing a lick of damage, blocking and parrying is pretty inconsistent, and sometimes a fight will just lock up altogether so you can\u2019t hit anything with your weapons no matter how long you sit there and swing them. It doesn\u2019t really matter all that much when death simply respawns you nearby with no progress lost, but it\u2019s still such a letdown to not be stoked about the fighting in a dang Ninja Turtles game.<\/p>\n

You can also sneak around and attack enemies from the cover of darkness like a true ninja, which at least saves you the trouble of having to contend with the combat\u2019s shortcomings, but this method comes with plenty of caveats of its own. It\u2019s much less obnoxious to just bop most enemies on the head from behind and keep on trucking, but you\u2019re allowed to get away with quite a bit \u2013 you can almost walk right out in front of people without being detected, and enemies scarcely seem to notice when you incapacitate their friends with ninja stars right in front of them, allowing you to pick them all off in short order. It\u2019s pretty rough, especially when both melee combat and stealth in VR have been done so well in plenty of other games, including fellow hero simulator Batman Arkham VR.<\/p>\n

No matter which turtle you play as, combat is absurdly one-dimensional.\u201c<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

Throughout your adventure, you\u2019ll collect the one thing that makes all Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles more powerful \u2013 trash, of course \u2013 and use it to level up your character, unlock upgrades, and craft consumables like smoke bombs and healing items. Although the actual means of acquiring this trash involves a whole lot of smashing crates, as well as the repetitive side quests with the lame combat that dominate Empire City, unlocking all the goodies that make your turtle a better warrior is actually pretty gratifying. Giving yourself a double jump, the ability to detect nearby collectibles, or even just more health are all worthy things to invest in. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s especially neat that each turtle levels up in different ways according to their personality, like how Raphael gains more health and does more damage by default, while Donatello gains more slots for tech upgrades as the resident \u201cdoes machines\u201d guy. It\u2019s a bit of a letdown, though, that any resources spent investing in one character don\u2019t carry over to a different turtle if you want to switch. After playing the first hour as Donatello, I wanted to try out some of the others only to find I\u2019d have to start their progression over from scratch, which meant I spent the vast majority of my playtime locked into a single character when I would have preferred to mix it up as I went.<\/p>\n

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