Downloaded the game this morning, and made short work of it by beating it on Normal. Tried a little bit on single player, and then moved on to multiplayer. Started an initial four party setup over Public Live, which eventually dropped to two by the end of the game -- myself, where I was forced to play Raphael, and a Leonardo. It was a fun session.... while the game lasted.
The graphic style is a mixed bag. The shaded rendering is serviceable in most places, while in others (particularly on some of the enemy and boss models) look dreadfully dull. The charm of the 2D animation is very much missed here. There's also a slight tearing throughout most of the game; it's not game-breaking in the least, but it is obnoxious to look at. I was under the impression that this badboy would be locked at 60fps, but it looks like it's just about struggling at sub 50.
The music (and this is for Ashley Winchester) really freakin' sucks. It's all newly composed with perhaps a slight (and I mean "slight" in the 'blink and you'll miss it' sense) hint of the original on a few stages. It's all soullessly generic, not even good on its own terms, and never have I pined to use the 360's custom soundtrack feature as I have here.
The gameplay holds up about as well as to be expected, and at least during the online match I played, latency was minimal to none. The pacing is a lot more chaotic, though, since they throw a shit-ton more enemies onscreen at once. It gets so that it can be confusing to see exactly where you are when there's so much cluttered action going on. The new up and down attacking feature is rendered moot, since you're pretty much winging it on the mashing of the buttons, regardless of which direction you're facing. Also, because of the cluttered nature, the environmental hazards can be quite a bit trickier to maneuver around; the crashing sewer gates in Sewer Surfin' and the ice and electric beams in the Starbase in particular led to some cheap deaths. It's also a VERY short game -- which I suppose is to be expected, seeing as how it's based on the arcade game. But constant flashbacks to the SNES version were always coming back to me, and I missed bosses like Rat King, Slash, Battle Tank Shredder, and Super Shredder.
The turtles each play quite a bit differently now, too, their proposed stats far more accurate than the arcade and SNES originals. Don for example, moves much, much slower compared to Raph - but he does take down enemies quicker and appears to take a few more hits before going down. It's also neat that each of them has a different voice. Hilarity ensues in Sewer Surfin', when everyone stepped on the water mines, and all four are going off in unison, "My toes! My toes!" :P
All told, it's a decent remake. The online co-op is by far the best thing about the game, and I was fortunate to be in a party who understood the sensibilities of cooperative gameplay. Like, saving the pizza for whoever needs it most, or waiting until there's a cluster of enemies before grabbing that super spinning power-up to wipe 'em out. It truly felt like the arcade version in that respect.
