Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge / YMMV

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesShreddersRevenge

Anti-Climax Boss: For a boss that's the fruition of Krang and Shredder's plan, the Statue of Tyranny is surprisingly easy, thanks to all its very hard-hitting attacks having very predictable tells and giving ample time for the player(s) to jump or get out of the way, not to mention its rather slow attack rate allowing the player(s) to get several good hits off unhindered. It also doesn't attack at all when its flunkies are on screen, allowing you to focus on the mooks without dodging extra stuff being thrown at you. This could be intentional on the developers' part, for the Final Boss that immediately follows is a lot trickier.
Awesome Art: The opening for the game faithfully recreates the 1987 cartoon. The sprite work also goes above and beyond to be on par with, if not exceed, the animation of the arcade game. Then again what do you expect from the folks who helped make Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game?
Awesome Music: Has its own page.
Awesomeness Withdrawal: Depending on the player's skill, a straight run through Arcade Mode (which takes out the map and side objectives from Story Mode) lasts at least two and a half hours over 16 levels; this is pretty lengthy for an arcade-style beat-'em-up, but it still made some reviewers wish there was more content. Survival Mode in the Dimensional Shellshock DLC is designed to alleviate this problem.
Breather Boss:
- Slash is fought as the boss of the third-to-last level, and he's not as tough as the missile- and minion- spamming Chrome Dome before him or the back-to-back fights against Krang and Shredder after him. His attacks aren't too hard to avoid if you stay far from his melee moves and avoid the crosshairs when the rocks fall, and he often uses a spinning move with a noticeable start-up time that doesn't go very far and leaves him dizzy, open to a free beating. Finally, unlike most of the other bosses before him, Slash doesn't even come with any minions to distract or attack you. He does have one nasty attack in the form of his grab (where he spins the grabbed player around like Rat King, but rebounds across the room while doing it with little room to dodge), but this is only an issue in multiplayer.
- The Statue of Tyranny is the penultimate boss that follows right after one of the toughest fights in Shredder, but for all of its buildup, is surprisingly easy, with heavily telegraphed attacks and very few minions to deal with. The fight that follows against Super Shredder, on the other hand, is a major step up in terms of challenge.
Breather Level: Episode 14, "The Lost Archenemies" is generally considered a step down in difficulty compared to Episode 13. The first quarter of the level is an obstacle course without any enemy distractions, there are no A6 Annhilators, White Foot Soldiers or Black Foot Soldiers, and while Rock Soldiers do appear, you face off far fewer compared to the previous level that was chock-full of them. The Pizza Monsters can be annoying but are generally less of a threat compared to the aforementioned enemies. Finally, Slash is a step down in difficulty compared to the brutal Chrome Dome fight thanks to leaving himself open more often and having no minions at all. The following level is the final regular level with enemies from every other level, as well as two back-to-back boss fights.
Captain Obvious Reveal:
- Splinter appeared in the animated trailer alongside April when the game was announced, and the latter was confirmed as a playable character around five months later, so this led to fans assuming he'd be playable as well. Little to no news happened for nearly the same amount of time afterwards, so by the time this was finally confirmed, it wasn't much of a surprise.
- Similarly, Casey Jones's announcement as a playable character in the SGF trailer. Given the amount of care and love that went into all the game's homages to the animated series, many fans suspected that Jones not being included — either in the main game or as DLC — would've been a major blind spot, especially in a side-scrolling brawler. The devs' very carefully worded white lie on the matter (that there were no more characters planned for the initial release, but to not rule him out) did little to quash the speculation.
Catharsis Factor: Series fans have enjoyed the prospect of playing as April so that she can take down the villains who gave her so much grief prior to this point, particularly the Shredder.
Epileptic Trees: Is the Super Shredder that’s fought in The Void in Survival Mode the same one that the Turtles faced in Story/Arcade Mode, or is he actually a different Shredder from an alternate dimension?
Fanon: Due to Usagi's significant shift in personality to be closer to his comics counterpart, along with Dimension Shellshock dealing with the multiverse, it's commonly accepted that it's an alternate Usagi distinct from the one that appeared in the 1987 cartoon. The fact that his ending cutscene calls him his comic name of Miyamoto Usagi, rather than calling him Usagi Yojimbo like in the cartoon, may or may not also contribute to this.
Fridge Brilliance:
- The most basic and iconic Purple Foot Soldiers have the ability to use flying kicks as their color-coded ability. After all, they aren't called the Foot Clan for nothing.
- It seems odd that Tokka and Rahzar only appear as illusions by Tempestra, but in their only appearance in the '87 cartoon, the two had no affiliation with the Foot and were more of a neutral duo, only attacking out of self defense (and vengeance, in Rahzar’s case).
- This game retroactively justifies Metalhead's odd inclusion as a boss fight in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, most likely reprogrammed by the Foot Clan to fight against the Turtles just like in this instance.
- In the Dual Boss against Bebop and Rocksteady, Bebop gains a new attack where he fires his gun in multiple directions. Why doesn't he do it when he's fought as the first boss? Because Krang's robot head, the thing he's here for, is there. Bebop, despite being a moron, has some sense to avoid accidentally shooting Krang's head and compromising the mission right there and then.
- The villains that finally manage to claim Krang's robot body parts are not Bebop and Rocksteady, but simple Tubular Transports that fly away with Krang's head+torso at the end of Episode 9, and his legs at the end of Episode 10. Considering the mishaps and delays that Bebop and Rocksteady went through just to keep the head of Krang's robot suit, Shredder/Krang must have had enough of their nonsense and sent something more reliable and mobile to do their job.
- While it is disappointing that Super Shredder’s retro mutagen instant KO attack is missing from the game, it makes sense why it was cut. It would only really affect the Turtles in any dangerous way; April, Casey, Usagi, and Karai would be immune, and Splinter would only turn back into his human form.
- The icon for the No Need For Mutagen achievement (gained by raising every playable character to level 10) is Casey Jones. Who's, of course, a Badass Normal human, AKA someone who hasn't used mutagen to achieve their abilities.
- Why is Karai appearing in the Dimensional Shellshock DLC instead of the main game? Simple, she never appeared in the 87 series proper so dimensional travel is the only way she could appear.
Friendly Fandoms: Yet again, the fanbases of TMNT and Usagi Yojimbo have bonded with each other. This time, it was over the possibility of Miyamoto Usagi being added as a playable DLC character, to the point of him being the top character request. The fact that the staff at Tribute Games is also part of Usagi's fandom would ultimately be beneficial for his eventual inclusion via the Dimension Shellshock DLC.
Game-Breaker: Taunting immediately fills up an entire stock of super meter for your Invulnerable Attack Limit Breaks, which normally require you to hit enemies a good few times to fill up. It's meant to be balanced out by leaving the player wide open for a few seconds, but there are several moments where it's possible to do so multiple times without being attacked (such as when the "GO" arrow appears), or when the enemies don't use direct attacks. Cue the following sets of enemies being utterly trashed by multiple super attacks, followed by recharging them up during the brief safe periods after. Some bosses even have phases or attacks with long startup, attack animation, or cooldown that can give you enough time to pull off one, most notably Super Shredder when he does the green forcefield before becoming vulnerable. The only downside to taunting multiple times is that your combo streak may be broken in the time it takes to pull them off if there are no enemies around. The December 2022 update changed this so that taunts only fill up your first bar.
- The Teletaunt perk in Survival mode makes taunting just as broken, if not more broken, than it was before the December 2022 patch. If it comes up and you take it, you'll be invincible while taunting, eliminating any and all risk of taunting. You'll then teleport somewhere random with a super attack ready to go. Taunt, super, taunt, super, rinse and repeat, and you're basically invincible for 3 waves.
- Also in Survival Mode, the Parasite perk, at least in singleplayer. Your health drains over time, which sounds terrible, but you regain 2 HP for every enemy you defeat, which, since this is a beat 'em up, you'll be doing a "lot". The health you recover from defeating enemies far outweighs the gradual drain, so, again, you're basically invincible for 3 waves.^note Having more players in your group does make this perk more risky since you're all competing for KOs to keep your health up.
Genius Bonus: "Mutants over Broadway!" has the lyric "We play 'em faster than bebop, Gillespie with the technique". Aside from being a play on the genre Bebop was named after, "Gillespie" is a reference to Dizzy Gillespie, a trumpet virtuoso and one of the fathers of bebop. For bonus points, the song plays a trumpet riff during this lyric.
Goddamned Bats:
- Large Mousers have a great amount of health, are Immune to Flinching and can very quickly catch a character in front of them in a grab, making combos difficult on them. Plus, they can cough up Mousers, which are already irritating enemies. The only time Large Mousers don't quickly retaliate with their grab is when they're in the process of coughing up a Mouser.
- The white-colored Foot Soldiers with swords can block your attacks easily and counterattack if they're not Left Stuck After Attack from their leaping attack, forcing you to either bait them into using their leaping sword move, or finding a rare opening. They can also quickly counter any throws should you manage to grab them. Even worse, they tend to appear in several trap-filled areas such as Episode 12 and Episode 13. Fortunately, they have low HP.
- The black-colored Foot Soldiers who wield sai. They always keep themselves away from the player until they're ready to attack, and when they get hit even once, they jump away and counter by throwing three sai at a time. Like the above, their health is thankfully relatively low.
- Triceratons will stab you with their horns if you try to jump at them, which can make it hard to approach them. Furthermore, Green Triceratons will put up a Beehive Barrier that blocks attacks from their front, and they can still use a projectile-shooting attack without deactivating the shield. They have very low health compared to the Orange Triceratons, however, which means that a charged attack or special attack can break the shield instantly and hit them, if not outright defeat them.
- The A6 Annihilator drones automatically block non-knockdown attacks and can't be grabbed, requiring a knockdown move in order to be flipped over and made vulnerable. Doing so is easier said than done when they can easily dig around (essentially a Teleport Spam) as well as having a projectile attack that won't be interrupted by blocked attacks, meaning that trying to use a combo-ender to knock them down will only get you shot and the little bugger teleporting away. Fortunately, other easier and faster knockdown moves can immediately flip them, and once flipped over, they stay in that state for a very long while before righting themselves.
- Rock Soldiers can take a lot of damage and often perform a shoulder tackle that crosses the screen and makes them Immune to Flinching during the full duration. The orange ones spam this often, but the grey ones aren't as bad as they use it only if they're too far and throw easily-avoided grenades at mid-range instead. What makes both of them really irritating is that they often enter the screen using this shoulder tackle move, immediately slamming into you if you're fighting something at the edges, and unlike hazards/Foot Clan bikers there's no warning as to when these guys enter the screen. If you haven't mastered how to dodge or super jump, you're going to get bowled all over by them.
- The Pizza Monsters can only be attacked after they pop up from the ground and leap at you. This gives you a very small attack window before they either hit you or disappear again. Strong attacks will nullify their attacks, but may not always be strong enough to kill them.
Goddamned Boss:
- Tempestra differs from the other early bosses by not being easily able to be torn apart with reckless abandon, since she summons digital versions of Tokka and Rahzar (first individually, and then both at once in the final phase) and turns into wire mesh until they're defeated. Also, her window of vulnerability is small, which is made worse by her using a lightning shield to catch you off guard. Furthermore, Rahzar's bad breath clouds can leave you stunned for him and/or Tokka to attack.
- Super Shredder's green flames are rather weak and most of his attacks aren't too difficult to avoid if you simply keep away from him, but he has one that spams Reverse Shrapnel waves of green flames thrice in succession that linger at the edges of the battlefield forcing you to play jump rope or very carefully squeeze in between without staying at the edges. The main annoying gimmick is that you can't damage him until he follows a triple flame waves attack with a green spherical forcefield attack that temporarily tires himself out and makes him vulnerable after. He can also put up said forcefield along with four fire-shooting shadow clones that must be hit to remove it, fortunately tiring him out after. The December 2022 update adjusted the flow of this fight so that he can be attacked more often, though in return he uses his grab move more aggressively.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rescue Palooza was a fan game based on the Konami beat-'em-ups with numerous concepts made official in this game:
  - It featured April, Splinter, Casey Jones, Usagi and Karai as unlockable characters, none of whom were playable in the Konami beat-'em-ups. Now, all five of them are playable in an official TMNT beat-'em-up.
  - Several boss battle concepts that were in Rescue-Palooza also wound up being featured here, including Groundchuck and Dirtbag being fought as a Dual Boss, a battle with Tempestra, Rat King being encountered on-foot and summoning rats, as well as four consecutive encounters with Krang and Shredder in the finale, Super Shredder included.
  - It featured voice acting based on the 1987 cartoon — although in that case, being a fan game, the developers used recorded excerpts from the show itself. Shredder's Revenge features entirely new dialogue recorded by the original voices and soundalikes.
  - Cudley the Cowlick had a cameo appearance. While Cudley was in the intro for that game's bonus stages, he is limited to the Dimension Shellshock DLC here.
  - Speaking of Dimension Shellshock, many cameo characters from this expansion had the distinction of being playable in Rescue-Palooza.
  - It featured Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady as playable characters after defeating them in boss fights. Dimension Shellshock, on the other hand, has separate perks which temporarily morph the player characters into the trio of villains.
- The respective announcements of April becoming playable in this game and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl happened within a day apart from each other.
- The game being delayed to 2022, causing it to be a Milestone Celebration of the cartoon's 35th anniversary, became funnier with the announcement of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection coming that very same year. Similarly, Shredder's Revenge and Rescue-Palooza are both anniversary celebrations (the latter being released during the cartoon's 30th anniversary).
- One of the boss battles features Tempestra summoning digital clones of Tokka and Rahzar. In the first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Saturday Morning Adventures, not only are all three encountered as replicas within a virtual reality game, they're also accompanied by almost every other villain from Shredder's Revenge (as well as several others that aren't present in that game)!
I Knew It!:
- With the reveal trailer including segments dedicated to both April O'Neil and Splinter, it was hotly speculated that they would be playable. They were respectively confirmed in a GamesCom trailer and a PlayStation Blog article.
- Prior to the extended gameplay trailer posted by IGN on April 20, 2022, some fans assumed that the game would have voice acting. Sure enough, the trailer featured this.
- Since Limited Run Games retweeted the initial announcement and collaborated with Tribute Games in the past, especially since Josh Fairhurst was the one who suggested that Dotemu should team up with them on a new TMNT game, their eventual confirmation of a physical release for this game (in North America) was seen by certain fans as a question of when rather than if.
- After the reveals of April and Splinter, it was only natural many guessed Casey Jones was incoming. Sure enough, the reveal date trailer saw him join the fray as the seventh and final playable character of the game.
- There was some speculation in regards to having at least one Boss-Only Level, due to the sheer amount of bosses that the game has, which was pretty spot-on.
- One user on the Tribute Games Discord correctly deduced that the Statue of Liberty was being remodeled into a weapon, and would therefore be a boss character.
- Fans expected that Miyamoto Usagi would be considered as a DLC character, due to his historical crossovers with the TMNT franchise, especially with him getting particular treatment during the Year of the Rabbit. Come the announcement of the Dimension Shellshock DLC pack, this was indeed the case, as Usagi was confirmed to arrive with his "Usagi Yojimbo" moniker like in the '87 series.
- Since the Dimension Shellshock reveal stated that there would be other playable characters besides Usagi, plenty of fans guessed that Karai would also be playable due to several factors — her prominence in every iteration of the franchise after the '87 cartoon, her appearances in the '87 continuity through later installments like Mutant Madness, and Shredder's boss fight in this game taking inspiration from her boss fight in Tournament Fighters — which ended up coming true when she was revealed as the DLC's other new character.
- Just about every fan called that the new mode in Dimension Shellshock would be a survival mode, since Dotemu's previous published beat'em up, Streets of Rage 4, featured one for its DLC expansion.
Magnificent Bastard: The Shredder, once again the nefarious leader of the Foot Clan, comes up with a plan to finally destroy the Turtles and conquer New York. Launching yet another invasion, he has his minions recover scattered pieces of Krang's suit, forcing the Turtles to give chase after him. Interfering himself multiple times, he fights them himself before revealing that the whole chase was a diversion for his real plan, which was to convert the Statue of Liberty into a giant mech to crush the Turtles. Even when they triumph over it, Shredder pulls out a vial of Mutagen and transforms himself into Super Shredder, fighting them in one last brutal fight.
Memetic Badass: Thanks to being Promoted to Playable and more powerful than before, fans like to interpret this game's version of April as battle-hardened and able to take on the Foot Clan with total ease.
Moe: The anime-styled, quasi super-deformed aesthetic that's used for gameplay is generally seen as making the '87 cartoon cast look adorable. Even the uglier or serious-looking villains can be seen as cute (up to and including Baxter Stockman, whose fly form already had an Ugly Cute status within the fandom).
Narm: Krang's new voice makes him sound more like an old woman who is scolding her naughty grandkids than an alien overlord.
Narm Charm:
- Any of the game's tracks with vocals, which purposefully capture the feeling of listening to a wonderfully cheesy song like "Pizza Power" come out of an arcade cabinet, and loving it. IGN's review positively compared "Panic in the Sky!" to something you'd hear in Sonic Adventure.
- The Statue of Tyranny is a ridiculous concept for an original boss that, appropriately, wouldn't feel out of place in the '87 show itself, but the framing and music behind the fight manage to flip it back to being cool, accomplishing the herculean task of making Krang imposing.
Nintendo Hard:
- Good luck trying to clear a stage that challenges you to not get hit even once.
- Gnarly difficulty is exactly what the average players can expect from previous TMNT installments. Certain enemies hit much harder than they would have on Chill and Okay levels, and the bosses take a lot of punishment. Arcade Mode only offers 3 continues, as well as only one Ninja Power bar to use - both factors only add up to the difficulty. If even that is considered too easy for certain players, the Custom Game menu added in the December 2022 update allows them to make the experience even harder.
- The Survival Mode itself in a nutshell. If the players manage to defeat Super Shredder but choose to continue, they'll be in for a hard time indeed. From the second loop onwards, enemies become much stronger.
No Problem with Licensed Games: Much like arcade game, Turtles in Time, and The Manhattan Project, this game has been widely praised.
Older Than They Think: The simple idea of Splinter riding a Cheapskate may sound completely absurd, but it's not the first time he rode a skateboard. He once showed his skating prowess by dueling Leonardo in the episode "Leonardo Lightens Up".
One-Scene Wonder: The Punk Frogs' frequent and random appearances have been enjoyed by some fans, to the point that they've hoped that they would become playable DLC characters somewhere down the line.
Pandering to the Base:
- Shredder, Bebop, and Rocksteady's inclusions as playable characters in Survival Mode (albeit through perks) was Tribute Games' way of listening to demand to fans wanting to play as them.
- The same mode has a rather amusing case of this with Kerma's background appearance, as a few fans from the Discord community of Tribute Games half-jokingly wanted him in the game in some form, which the staff granted.
- Part of the reason for Karai's inclusion was to thank fans who grew up on the franchise's post-2000 outings who might have wanted more content from later incarnations rather than strictly the 1987 cartoon. That said, her moveset also takes a lot of inspiration from Tournament Fighters, which also pleased fans who remembered her from that game.
Periphery Demographic: While the game is aimed at general audiences, but heavily leaning toward people who grew up on the 1987 cartoon and Konami beat 'em ups, a number of fans of later incarnations who didn't grow up on the 1987 cartoon bought it due to their fondness for the franchise. Karai's inclusion was partly spurred by wanting to thank newer fans by giving them a playable character they would likely be familiar with (as Karai has been a major character in almost every franchise entry since the 2003 cartoon), though features her moveset from the Tournament Fighters game to still appeal to those already familiar with her.
Questionable Casting: Some of the game's music guests came out of total left-field. Mike Patton sings the opening theme, Ghostface Killah and Raekwon from the Wu-Tang Clan rap on Shredder's boss theme, and Mega Ran raps on the ending theme. None of them would be expected to guest spot in a family-friendly TMNT game, yet it makes total sense because they're all fans of the show and complement the soundtrack perfectly.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: While not hated per se, Slash's incarnation in the '87 cartoon was generally seen as something of a joke in the fandom due to being rather dopey in personality and looks, especially compared to his design in the original toyline and games. Here, he has a redesign that not only takes cues from those incarnations, but doesn't leave out his cartoon bandana, and his lack of intelligence is actually depicted in a way that makes him unpredictable and dangerous. The result has been treated favorably even among those who didn't mind the original design.
Scrappy Mechanic: The lack of invincibility frames during throws will get you hit at least once, especially against Chrome Dome. This was fixed in the December 2022 update.
That One Achievement:
- Cowabunga It Is, earned by stringing together a 250-hit combo. This achievement either requires dedicating lots of time to the game and knowing how best to keep your combo going... or very carefully, very tediously smacking the last enemy in a room without letting them touch the ground until you hit the 250 mark. Either way, it's an arduous, annoying process.
- Who Needs A Dock?, earned by beating Super Shredder without getting hit. As detailed above under Goddamned Boss, Super Shredder spams lots of annoying flame projectiles that can be hard to dodge at times, and is only vulnerable for very limited periods of time, making earning this achievement - especially if you're playing multiplayer and/or on Gnarly difficulty - a pain to earn. Special mention also goes to the no-hit challenge for this Episode in Story Mode, which adds a no-hit run of the Statue of Tyranny on top of this (especially if you also add in the level's no Super Move challenge on top of that). Oh, and the December 2022 update goes as far as to increase Super Shredder's overall speed - which makes the achievement pretty much impossible to get.
That One Attack: Captain Zorax is a moderately difficult boss with a multidirectional projectile move and a Beehive Barrier ability, but his most dangerous attack consists of pointing and commanding a battalion of Orange Triceratons to run across the screen. While the Triceratons only arrive one at a time, the attack lasts for a very long time, and at least one of the Triceratons will remain on-screen as a high-HP, projectile-shooting enemy. If that's not enough, Zorax can pull it off again as soon as the stampede ends, continuing the rush of minions. Many players often try to bait him into using his melee or shooting attack, or rush him down with Super attacks so that he doesn't get the chance to pull it off. The December 2022 patch made it so that Zorax uses this attack less frequently, and the attack itself was made shorter.
That One Boss:
- Chrome Dome is normally completely immune to damage from attacks, dropping lots of missiles from the sky while having 2-5 flunkies on the screen at any time making it hard to simultaneously evade the boss, the missiles' splash damage, and beat up the mooks who are immune to all his attacks. After a while he'll jump into the foreground and throw punches with deceptively large hitboxes, with mooks constantly entering. To end this, you must either grab and throw a mook into the foreground which is easier said than done thanks to Chrome Dome's fists, or kill enough mooks until an exploding barrel appears that you must blow up. This makes him return to the arena in a very temporary short-circuited vulnerable state, before getting back up and starting the process anew. Unless you know what you're doing (and/or have played Turtles in Time before), you'll likely be spending a lot of time and/or taking a lot of damage on this one.
- Shredder himself in the first fight against him. He moves quickly, has lightning-quick reflexes in melee and can 3-hit combo you if you don't roll out of his attacks in time, making it difficult to pull of your own combos on him. Even if you do manage to, he pulls out his lightning Counter-Attack/Combo Breaker quickly. His most dangerous ability produces two clones of himself that can take a few hits and shares the original's capabilities, reflexes, and both clones and the real Shredder can gang up on you to pile on the damage — hope you have a Super ready to dispose of them! Even though you do get a Pizza at the start of the fight, he can still wear down the team's health and lives fast.
That One Level:
- Episode 12, "It Won't Fly", the last full level set in New York. The level is crawling with Baxter Stockman's Mecha-Mooks, including the debut of the A6 Annihilator drones, with most fights consisting of two or three big ones accompanied by swarms of smaller ones, making it surprisingly easy to get drained of health from prolonged chip damage. It's also full of stage traps between and during encounters. The sole consolation is that Stockman himself isn't too hard for a late-game boss.
- Episode 13, "Technodrome Redux", the first of the three Dimension X levels. When the background music's lyrics said "Meet your doom at the Technodrome", they weren't kidding. It introduces the dangerous Rock Soldiers which the level is chock-full of, and nearly every fight with them involves two at once with a couple more joining in whenever one falls, with white and black Foot Soldiers and A6 Annihilators also showing up throughout the level. It's the longest level in the game, exacerbated by the tanky enemies, leaving plenty of time to run low on lives. It also has two bosses, and while General Traag is easy enough, Chrome Dome is That One Boss and poses a big danger to a drained party.
Unexpected Character:
- As shown in the animated intro, the 80s cartoon's incarnation of Chrome Dome has made a shocking comeback with a second appearance in a mainline console video game^note, his first one being all the way back in the SNES version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters.
- The 80s April finally getting a chance to kick some Foot alongside the other turtles was something very few saw coming. Humorously enough, this announcement coincided with her reveal in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, where she was also an unexpected character.
- Among the regular enemies is the Knucklehead, which only appeared sporadically in the cartoon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comic, never any of the older games.
- Groundchuck and Dirtbag are the bosses of Episode 4. This is Dirtbag's third console video game appearance and, like Chrome Dome, only Groundchuck's second after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Manhattan Project three decades ago, and they were never the most major supporting villains in the three '87 cartoon episodes they appeared in, such that they never returned in any other media until 2022. As a result, their appearance in this game, coming off the heels of their radical reinterpretations in the IDW comics earlier in the year, was a pleasant surprise for fans.
- The boss of Episode 6 is Tempestra, a minor recurring villain for two episodes who has never appeared in any mainline console TMNT games^note. The bigger surprise is that she summons digital projections of fan favorites Tokka and Rahzar as Elite Mooks for her boss fight, given that the duo had no prior association with her.
- Wingnut is the boss of Episode 8. Not only did he appear in exactly one episode of the cartoon, but he (as well as Screwloose) is a hero in most portrayals, whereas the aforementioned cartoon had him strictly be a villain instead. This especially sticks out since he never interacted with the Foot Clan in-series. Most odd of all, he appears without Screwloose (who only gets referenced in Episode 10's title), when they're normally a duo. Although Screwloose himself would go on to make a cameo appearance in the Dimension Shellshock DLC.
- Slash is the boss of Episode 14. While the character had previously appeared in the Super Nintendo version of Turtles in Time and was an obvious pick for a returning boss character, very few expected he'd appear in his original design from the 1987 show as opposed to his more iconic design seen in early toy-lines and games.
- Super Shredder being the final boss of the game wasn't entirely unexpected, seeing as some of the Konami games had this version of him before, but it was still a welcome turn of events since the game appeared to mostly use material from the cartoon.
- The Dimension Shellshock DLC pack features some background appearances from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures characters, but these stick out in particular:
  - Ninjara, Chien Khan, and Al'Falqa can be seen in the Edo area. While the former are respectively an Ensemble Dark Horse and related to her story arc, the latter is very obscure, as he hails from a story arc that was considered too controversial to reprint.
  - The 8-Bit Dimension has the Uncanny Trio, incredibly minor characters who had appeared in a single issue of Adventures.
- On a note more relevant to the '87 cartoon itself, another background appearance in Dimension Shellshock is from Hamato Koji, who appears for the first time in any TMNT media ever since his sole appearance in the episode "The Legend of Koji", via the variant of Edo that isn't populated by anthropomorphic animals.
- Similarly, Kerma, who was expected by very few fans to return, can occasionally be seen in the background for Omnichannel 6, as he hasn't made a reappearance since the final part of the "Planet of the Turtleoids" story arc, and was not acknowledged in the screenshots in Cowabunga Collection's gallery for the episode in question. This is especially relevant, since the staff removed an initially-planned background element in Episode 4 that would have referenced Groundchuck and Dirtbag's return from Shell-Ri-La, his homeworld.
- Dimension Shellshock's second playable character is Karai, a character who did not appear in the 1987 cartoon, and is noticeably based off of her 2003 cartoon design. In fact, her only appearances in anything to do with the 1987 cartoon prior to the DLC was the SNES and Genesis/Mega Drive versions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters, Turtles Forever, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Madness mobile game.
What Could Have Been: Super Shredder's depiction in this game visualizes how he would look like in the 1987 animated series, if he had the chance to be implemented into the cartoon.

YMMV / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge

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