Smash Bros. Creators Behind New TMNT Game

The Opposable Thumbs blog reports that work is underway on a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for the Wii. They note that "Game Arts, the developer for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, will be creating the four-player action title for Ubisoft." According to the press release, the game is set to launch in late 2009 to celebrate 25 years of the TMNT franchise. The game won't be tied to any particular movie or TV series.

Comments

Unfortunately that does not mean quality

[Opportunist]

Time and again it's been shown that good devs don't automatically mean good game. A lot of the quality lies on the shoulders of the beancounters. Namely, how much time (and thus money) are they willing to throw at the game? Nintendo really didn't want its Mario franchise get polluted with a crappy game (not that it never happened before, but they at least TRY to avoid it). The train of reason is plain simple: Good franchise, good games, people buy without hesitation. Don't ruin it by releasing crap, or people will not buy without first trying to find out whether it's worth it.

TMNT is no game franchise, no name to be wasted. So it comes down to whether the beancounters want the game to be a quick buck or a foundation for further games.

Re:Unfortunately that does not mean quality

[Sterrance]

Well many people in their 20s to early 30s have great memories playing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade games. So the franchise definitely has an audience in younger kids and the MTV Generation.

Re:Unfortunately that does not mean quality

[dangitman]

Namely, how much time (and thus money) are they willing to throw at the game?

Doesn't matter, they just have to supply enough pizza.

Re:Unfortunately that does not mean quality

[BarneyL]

To be fair Ubisoft are one of the few 3rd party publishers who seem to "get" the Wii. Games like No More Heroes and the Raving Rabbids games (one of the few mini games collections where creative use of waggle adds rather than detracts from the quality of the game) suggest TMNT is in with a chance of being pretty good. From what I read they are not simply taking from the children's cartoons but using comic books and the films as a resource as well which is a positive sign in itself.
I still have hope it will turn out to be Brawl 1.2 - largely the same with a few balance tweaks and a decent online system.

Re:Unfortunately that does not mean quality

[GoochOwnsYou]

Ubisoft didn't make No More Heroes, Suda51/Grasshopper did, its a Japanese title. Ubisoft just published it for North America

But I do agree Ubisoft do get the Wii more than others but they too had a slow start, they just started earlier. At launch they had Red Steel (which sucked) plus bad ports of Farcry, Monster 4X4 and GT Pro Series with 2 winners, Splinter Cell DA (the Wii version is different but still pretty darn good) and Rayman Raving Rabbids. After gaining experience with what works they even managed to beat Nintendo to be the first ones to have a good Balance Board game with Shawn White.

So far Capcom have delivered us Zack & Wiki plus some really good ports like Okami and RE4.

I agree with grandparent post, sure these guys gave us Brawl but there is no guarantee that will spill out into a game on Brawl's level, we can only hope.

Personally the real winners for the Wii in 2009 seem to be all published by Sega: House of the Dead: Overkill, The Conduit and of course MadWorld, a game who's anticipation doesn't touch the likes of upcoming sequels to Bioshock and F.E.A.R but still very keen on getting my hands on.

Whew

[Veggiesama]

I tried to click this link, but I accidentally clicked the "Global Warming Irreversible" link by mistake.

Phew, for a second I almost read something worthy of front-page news.

Half and half

[SuperBry]

If this game is half as fun as TMNT: Turtles in Time and half as easy to pick up and play as Brawl it will be one of the best games on the Wii and probably be one of my all time favorites.

Sora developed Smash Bros Brawl, not Game Arts

[TheBlackSwordsman]

Sora, headed up by Masahiro Sakurai, was responsible for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, not Game Arts. Game Arts was simply one of many developers who contributed to the game because the project was so massive. In fact, much of the game's music was composed by people who work for companies other than Nintendo.

From the game's Wikipedia page:

Nintendo enlisted outside help from various developer studios, including Game Arts, who spent excessive amounts of time playing Super Smash Bros. Melee.

Calling Game Arts "the developer for Super Smash Bros. Brawl" is pretty disingenuous. But it certainly is a good way to make people think that your game probably won't suck, attaching the Smash Bros. name to it like that.

Unlockables

[Applekid]

Does this mean the game will ship with only Leonardo being playable, and the other turtles being unlocked after meeting certain requirements such as "time spent playing" or "number of times system turned on"?