I love being a Turtles fan. Last year, we got the awesome Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. Not only was it a really fun beat-‘em-up, but it was one of the best games of 2022. The gameplay was a nice throwback to old school arcade brawlers, and there was plenty of fan service crammed throughout the entire adventure.
If you’ve been looking for a reason to revisit Shredder’s Revenge, the Dimension Shellshock DLC has you covered. This paid content, which is priced at a reasonable $8, includes a brand-new wave-based survival mode and two new characters. On top of that, you also get some new color palette options for every character, which is a nice little extra.
So what exactly is Dimension Shellshock? If you played the Mr. X Nightmare DLC that was released for Streets of Rage 4 back in 2021, this is very similar to that. It’s essentially an endless mode, dubbed Survival in the main menu.
Straight-up, Dimension Shellshock is a great deal of beat-‘em-up fun, and if you loved the base Story and Arcade modes, you’ll likely enjoy Survival mode a whole lot. It would’ve been easy for developer Tribute Games to just release a basic endless mode, but the studio did a great job of adding perks and rewards to keep you coming back over and over again.
Each stage, or wave, takes place on a single screen. All kinds of randomized enemies will appear — from foot soldiers to mousers and even bosses like Bebop and Rocksteady. You know what to do: Use your ninja skills to pummel all of those fools. Of course, it’s easier said than done, as Survival mode can be pretty unforgiving. When you defeat enemies, you move on to the next wave by entering a portal, but any damage received is carried over.
Once your health meter is fully drained, you’ll have to start over. Thankfully, Survival isn’t entirely brutal. When you finish a wave, you get a choice between two random power-ups. These include pizzas that refill your health, invincibility while taunting (which, as you probably know if you played the base game, fills your special move meter), or increased damage output (at the cost of increased damage taken, so be careful).
The coolest power-ups are the ones that transform you into boss characters. You’ll mutate into Bebop, Rocksteady, and even Shredder, and you can use their movesets, which is really cool. On top of that, you’ll remain in that boss form until your health meter is depleted by taking damage, which then turns you back into your main character. This essentially turns this transformation power-up into an extra life of sorts as being defeated as Shredder, for example, won’t send you back to the start of Survival mode but rather turn you back into the character you were originally playing as.
Speaking of Shredder, he’s not just a mutation option — he’s also the big bad of Dimension Shellshock. Though Survival mode is technically endless, it’s your goal to once again stop Shredder. You’ll collect crystal shards as you defeat enemies, and you can even grab pick-ups that reward you with bunches of shards at the end of a wave. Once you collect a set number of shards, you’ll complete a crystal, which sends you to a new dimension. Shredder will be waiting for you at the end of the fifth dimension, so that’s what you want to shoot for.
Collecting crystals isn’t solely useful for progressing to different dimensions — it also allows you to permanently upgrade your character. When you finish a run or are defeated, you can increase certain stats depending on if you’ve collected crystals. This includes being able to take more damage and gaining extra lives. It’ll likely take a few runs, but once you’ve started snagging stat upgrades, you’ll be able to push further into Dimension Shellshock.
The best beat-‘em-ups are fun alone but arguably better when you’re playing with others. Dimension Shellshock is fully playable in local and online co-op, and it doesn’t sacrifice challenge if you go into it with others by your side. On the Nintendo Switch version, I didn’t have much trouble dropping into games with random players, though there were a few instances where I couldn’t find in-progress games, which sent me back to the menu, so that’s something to keep in mind.
The two new playable characters included in Dimension Shellshock are Karai and Usagi Yojimbo. Fans of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lore will likely remember these classic characters, and the cool thing about them is that they’re actually really fun to play as. They both bring a lot of speed, fast-paced attacks, and cool special moves, and they’re playable across all modes in the game.
You can get a lot of mileage out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, and Dimension Shellshock adds even more to love about the game. It’s a solid expansion that gives you two great characters to play as, and Survival mode is super entertaining and addictive. It’s a nice change of pace from the Story and Arcade modes, too. So if you need more TMNT goodness in your life, Dimension Shellshock is a fine reason to jump back into Shredder’s Revenge.
Disclaimer: I was given a review code for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge – Dimension Shellshock on Nintendo Switch, but the opinions expressed in this article are my own.
