You want a new endless runner that changes up the formula. I think I found one. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rooftop Run is one of tonight’s bigger ticket releases because of the branding, but it’s also one heck of a runner that nimbly mixes combat with scaling and jumping, as well impressive QTEs.
At the top-level, this is just like any other runner. You pick your favorite turtle at the beginning and just jump across roof to roof, all turtle-like. Soon, though, you’ll be acquainted to the combat system, which has you tapping on foot soldiers and various other TMNT villains and taking them out. Play a little longer and you’ll see some more of the game’s base mechanics, including wall-running and double-jumps. When you finally get to put all this together, you’ll kinda discover that this is a game about juggling your turtle, chaining him into enemies and double-jumping into the next or maybe wall-running into another combat instance before springing up higher into the rooftops. At the end of the day, what you get is a runner with a heck of a sense of locomotion and verticality, which is definitely rare in this fairly stale genre.
There’s a couple of other mechanics outside of this. Most notably, you’ll need to pick up lots of green orbs. These are used as basically energy, which allow you to keep runs going. If your energy bar gets into the red, the run ends. Another notable: at certain points in a run, you’ll have to fight in a QTE against several members of the Foot. The one we’ve seen so far, just required specific taps on points on the screen to progress.
As you kill bad guys (or knock out or break or whatever happens in the TMNT universe to the dudes the turtles hit with their fairly dangerous weapons) you’ll earn coins. With these, you can buy upgrades that modify damage or jumping and stuff like that. Also, you can buy these through IAP, if you’re feeling up to it.
But even without breaking the bank, this is a pretty rad game — and surprising for it, no less. The last thing I expected to do today was dig a modern TMNT game. If you’re up for another runner, give this a shot when it hits later tonight.
Forum Thread: [NZ] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rooftop Run By Nickelodeon
International App Store Link: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rooftop Run, $1.99 (Universal)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rooftop Run should be available on the US App Store at 11:00 PM Eastern, or potentially much earlier if you’re in a region east of the USA. To be alerted when the game is available, open this story in the TouchArcade App (Free) and add it to your watch list. A little after 11:00 PM tonight you’ll get a push alert with the download link.
