not quite my tempo. firstly, you'll have to forgive the uncharitable level of cynicism i walked into this with - the combination of 'scott pilgrim developers' and 'love letter to konami beat 'em ups' had me a little on edge despite the obvious appreciation of the source material shredder's revenge is anchored upon. still, what i quickly found instead was rather unexpected: turtles in time by way of denjin makai. tribute's real sleight of hand here is they've really only sought to give a slight facelift to the konami beat 'em up formula. the enemy count is still ludicrously high, bosses still come fully stocked with super armor, attacks are still stubby...and while these were failings or caveats of the arcade lineage shredder's revenge descends from, here they've been recontextualized as part and parcel of the experience, trials made to be overcome through strength rather than coin. a clear effort's been made to integrate every prerequisite tool for success, which unfortunately included a dodge, but hey, what are you gonna do. fans of constant offence as a means of defence will have plenty to chew on here - the simplistic kits of these characters lend themselves nicely to extended combo strings and artfully dodging barrages of attacks/obstacles - but if you're looking for something a bit more intimate than a button pressing bonanza, i felt it was a bit lacking. it's hard for me to state it's anything more than a competently directed take on castle crashers.