So you’d think with the success of Super Smash Bros, a developer would have made a licensed knockoff by now. The series is a decade old now, and it’s taken the same developer, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to finally give me that ho-hum letdown I’ve been craving all this time?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up is pretty much just Super Smash Bros Brawl with the Turtles. Not to say that it’s an exact clone, but it’s similar enough to make the comparison fair. It’s a four player fighting game that focuses on powerups and items, and features large, multi-tiered levels. You can either beat the shit out of your opponent, or throw them off the level and have them fall to their death. You play as any of the Turtles, Splinter, April, Casey Jones, Shredder, or a few other characters. It’s not a big cast, especially compared to the games it’s based on, but it has the main characters from the recent film.

In fact, TMNT: Smash Up has less of everything. As far as characters, levels, and items go, it’s more on par with the N64 Smash Bros. It definitely would have been nice to throw in some more characters, even if they were just clones. I wouldn’t care if Usagi Yojimbo played exactly like Leonardo, I’d still pick him.

The game isn’t bad, and honestly if you were unfamiliar with Smash Bros you’d probably love it. But at the same time the only reason you’d grab this game is because you were familiar with Smash Bros.

I love the Turtles, and I love Splinter even more (yeah yeah, old rats get me going), and the developers tried to give love to all fans. The cutscenes are based on the original comics, the design is reminiscent of the CGI film, and the levels have a very over the top original animated series feel.

Speaking of the levels, those are by far the best part. There are multi level arenas like the sewers that will blast you deeper down the drains where hungry alligators wait to eat you. There are moving levels like a cruise ship that hits an iceberg and sinks, forcing you to hop along ice rafts and avoid hungry sharks that want to eat you. Hell, if you like seeing the TMNT cast get eaten, you’d better just buy the game now because it happens a lot.

There’s no way TMNT: Smash Up can replace Brawl as far as character-driven multiplayer fighting mayhem party explosion games go, but it’s nice to have another game in the genre.