TMNT: Splintered Fate - The Perfect Run (All Portals + War Staff / Michelangelo)

TMNT: Splintered Fate was originally released exclusively on the Switch earlier this year, but a few days ago it was finally released on PC, and I've been playing it ever since. Splintered Fate is a roguelike, but there are a ton of permanent progression skills that you can unlock with the currency you earn in each run. That almost makes it start to feel more like an action RPG, at some point. But otherwise it has the typical roguelike structure, being a 30~ minute long game with random power ups you can pick up in between each room. This genre is pretty similar to arcade games, so I always end up enjoying these. And Splintered Fate is no different, I've had a lot of fun playing this since it came out.

Each time you complete this game, you get a new piece of the story, and at least the first few times, you unlock new mechanics, too. This run was done after I fully completed the story (which takes eight successful clears), and I made use of all the optional things that make the game harder (and provide better rewards). For starters, there's the War Staff, an accessory you can equip before starting the run (and swap out any time you reach the merchant). The staff makes enemies do twice as much damage, but it also gives you twice as many rewards from boss fights. I also took every portal that appears in between each room, which do things like make elite enemies spawn more frequently, double the price of items in the shop, make healing half as effective, and other things like that. Finally, there are the 'hard mode' portals for every mini-boss and boss, which gives them a lot more health and makes a bunch of minions spawn throughout the fight. All of that stuff together raises the difficulty quite a bit, and it makes it a decent challenge to clear. The "Perfect Run" is the name of the achievement for clearing the game with the War Staff equipped and taking all of the portals, which just means you cleared the game at maximum difficulty.
Being a roguelike, though, there's a certain amount of luck involved with the powerups that you get, and how smartly you put together your 'build'. Not all skills are created equal. I think the Ooze and Fire lines are especially good, and a heavy shuriken build can shred enemies once you get deep enough into it. I haven't been able to do much with Water or Utrom yet, but maybe that's because I tend to focus on my favorites more and always go with them whenever I can.

PS. A nice tip that I didn't think of until just before recording this is to build up your scrap early on, and make use of the dice rerolls to get a lot of abilities quickly. That way you'll not only be powered up in the early stages, but you won't get hurt as badly by the portal the jacks up the shop prices. Wish I thought of that sooner, lol.

Splintered Fate is available on Steam for $29.99, but right now it has a 10% launch discount that brings it down to $26.99. I've enjoyed this game a lot, and I'll complete a few more "perfect runs" with the other turtles, so I'd say it's well worth the money. That may depend on how much you like this genre though, I can totally see people thinking the price is a bit too high and waiting until it hits $20 or so. Keep it on your wishlist at least, it's one of the better turtle games any way you slice it.

Hopefully this comes to other consoles next! It'd be great if more people could play it. Switch & PC only is kinda unusual these days.

Thanks to Super Evil Megacorp for sending me a key!

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I reused the description I wrote for my first video with Donny, but regarding this run, I ended up with a really strong Fire + Ooze + a little bit of Dark build. I want to try Water and Utrom a bit more, but I'll be really surprised if they can compete with the other skills. Mikey might also be the best character in the game. I think Donny might be a little better for survivability at first, but I like Mikey's attack string a lot more. Neither of them have a particularly good tool though, I try to swap them out if something really good pops up, like the Meteor. Combine that with the Fire abilities and it's just insanely strong.

0:00 Intro
1:02 Stage 1
7:32 Stage 2
16:05 Stage 3
24:57 Stage 4
32:24 Ending
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