TMNT: Tactical Takedown is a radical twist on turn-based strategy

I usually struggle with strategy games. They’re typically too hard for me, and I often get overwhelmed at managing multiple characters or squads. But I couldn’t put down Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, which blends ideas from strategy games and classic TMNT arcade games to keep things snappy, easy to play, and full of action.

One way Tactical Takedown — developed by I Am Your Beast maker Strange Scaffold — keeps things simple is by having you play as just one character in each of the game’s 20 levels. The four turtles have different movesets; Leonardo, for example, uses his swords to aggressively attack enemies, while Michelangelo can zip around the playing field on his skateboard. You’re able to customize each turtle’s arsenal by buying new moves, but I didn’t change the movesets at all and got through the game just fine.

Battles take place in a grid overlaid on small chunks of very TMNT locations, like a street, sewer, or subway system. Every turn, you have six “action points” to spend as you please, whether that’s moving around the level or attacking bad guys. You just press a button to use one of your moves, no menu required, which speeds things up considerably. You have six hearts and three “lives” — lose a life and the game will quickly flash a “Continue” sign before letting you choose where you’d like to drop in the level to keep the fight going. (You also lose a score multiplier.)

The levels feel like tiny dioramas, and while characters will move into a kick or a punch when attacking or a fall when taking damage, they aren’t actively animated moment to moment. It all creates the sense that you’re playing with action figures.

Perhaps Tactical Takedown’s best trick is that the levels are constantly shifting around you. Every once in a while, the game will show you that a new piece of land is going to drop in on the next turn, and after that spot is in place, you’ll get a warning that another part of the level is going to fall away. It means that you’re constantly dealing with new terrain, layouts, and hazards like poisonous sewage or cars driving by while also strategizing on how to fight bad guys. Sometimes, after adding a new chunk of a level, the game even flashes the word “Go,” encouraging you to move forward like you would in an arcade game.

Even better, if there isn’t a wall, you can send enemies flying off the edge of a level into the void, defeating them instantly. It took me a bit to understand that the game wants you to do that as much as possible; occasionally, there will be a lot of bad guys in a level, and the only way to efficiently take them out is by sending them to their doom.

For me, it all came together in a level where you play as Leonardo in a subway tunnel. The level started on a subway platform, and then the game signaled that a subway car would appear. I navigated my way onto the subway car, and the platform fell away. After a few turns on the subway car, it “arrived” at the next subway stop, and I had to hop off. It really felt like I was “advancing” through a level in a faster-paced game, and all while managing a legion of enemies with Leonardo’s swords.

The genre is usually slow, but when you get in a good rhythm, Tactical Takedown almost feels as crisp as the TMNT arcade games — despite being a turn-based strategy game.

_{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown is now available on PC.}