The TNMT license has had more than its fair share of sub-par games since the early ‘90s, but it’s also seen some excellent games as well - like the arcade games that turned into great console games. Most TMNT games have been side-scrolling beat-em-ups, but some have taken the form of more traditional fighting games - like Tournament Fighters, TMNT: Melee, like a TNMT take on Power Stone, and this - a Smash Bros.-esque entry from the makers of Smash Bros. Brawl. With a pedigree like that, Ubisoft certainly picked the right crew to work with here. Instead of encompassing all things Nintendo (and some third-party stuff), this entry, as one would expect, focuses on all things TMNT.

The core gameplay is almost exactly like that of the Smash Bros. games, only with a health bar instead of a percentage meter and the addition of a wall jump. Up to four fighters do battle, items fall from the sky that can be used by anyone, and it’s a family-friendly free-for-all until one fighter is left standing. The environmental interaction is more varied here than in the Smash Bros games. Beyond just having hazards, there are also poles that you can spin around and kick off of - the kick does a lot of damage, but the spin leaves you open to attack, so you have to use it wisely. The hazards here are also pretty awesome - I especially love gradually slicing a platform down onto an opponent, or sending him into the flames covering a building. I prefer both the awesome environmental hazards and the environments themselves to the ones featured in the Smash Bros series.

The mode variety is also about what a Smash Bros. vet would expect - you’ve got a story mode to plow through, survival, battle royal, a mission-based mode, and in 3+-player exclusives, tournament and tag team modes to enjoy. While most of the modes are lifted right out of the Smash Bros. playbook, the tag team one isn’t and is one thing that helps set this apart from that game. Online play gives you access to the swap out, tournament, survival, and battle royal modes. Online play is rock-solid, and lag-free - certainly better than I was expecting from a third-party licensed game.

The controls are also better than expected in most cases. Attacking, jumping, and even wall jumping are a breeze - everything responds exactly as it should, and anyone used to the Smash Bros. games will take to this like a fish to water, while newcomers will adapt quickly - especially if they use the training mode. However, all isn’t perfect with the controls - it’s incredibly easy to get turned in the wrong direction, and it’s harder than it should be to turn back around and either avoid being attack or mount an offense of your own. In one-on-one fights, these issues aren’t too bad, but in four-player ones, they can easily cause defeat. On the upside, they do increase the amount of rematches - because everyone will likely be doomed by the problems at one point or another, and demand vengeance.

While most aspects of Smash Up hold up well when compared to Smash Bros., it falls really short when one compares the rosters. Part of that is due to the TMNT universe being far less expansive than the Nintendo one, but more could’ve been done to help prevent this from being a huge problem. They could’ve padded it out with older versions of the characters (IE - putting the ‘80s cartoon versions of the characters in, or doing an 8-bit styled set of them as an homage to the older TMNT games). It would’ve at least been something, as opposed to the very limited roster here compared to the massive ones featured in the Smash Bros. series.

Visually, Smash Up is quite pleasing to the eye. The character models all look sharp, their animation is smooth, and the environments look fantastic - including the special effects for their hazards. However, the optional white outline, which makes it much easier to see the turtles against some backgrounds, can become distracting, and also makes it a little harder to judge where your foe is in relation to you. This isn’t the best-looking game out there, but there’s also nothing really wrong with how it looks during play. The comic book-style cinematics for the story mode are awesome to look at …until they fall apart when their animation begins. Then they go from being nice-looking black and white still images to horrible-looking, barely-animated black and white drawings. It looks really cheap and undermines the whole point of going with the comic book look for them anyway.

Smash Up’s audio is mostly good - the music is a nice mix of techno and rock that not only fit’s the license and the game’s environments well, but is pretty addictive and good in its own right. The sound effects are also good and offer the right mix of realism and cartoonishness that adds to the lighthearted feel. The voice work is great in small doses - like in the pre-fight sound bytes, but the acting sounds awful in the story mode’s cinematics, where everyone overacts in such a way that it takes away from any drama, but isn’t so over the top that it winds up being funny. Still, that’s the only major flaw in the sound, which is a pretty big accomplishment.

TNMT: Smash Up is a tough game to score because it’s fairly well-made game that isn’t riddled with glitches, the gameplay is mostly solid, and it is usually fun to play. The biggest problem with it is that it’s entirely too “inspired by” the Smash Bros. games and falls short of them in nearly every major way. So it winds up looking second-rate by comparison. The Wii version is really hurt by being on the same platform as Smash Bros. Brawl - easily the high mark in that series, and the genre as a whole, which has seen many imitators over the years.

However, this is the best Smash Bros clone out there. If you’ve got a Wii, you’re fine just sticking with Smash Bros. unless you’re really craving some more of that kind of action - this’ll satisfy that desire easily. For PS2-only players, the real appeal comes from those who have heard about the Smash Bros. series, but haven’t played them - this is a very high-end clone and will show someone who’s never played one of those just why the gameplay is so addictive. At the very least, this is worth a rental just to see how well the TMNT franchise translates to the Smash Bros. gameplay style, but it’ll probably take more than a rental if you want to unlock everything. In which case, a purchase would be in order. Since the PS2 version is $30, I’d say either snatch that one up or wait a little while for the Wii version to drop - it is a good game overall, and worth having in your collection if you like fighters.