Unmatched Adventures: TNMT Review

When I reviewed Tales to Amaze, Unmatched's first "Adventures" co-op set, I declared it the best series entry point. Reviewing TMNT, I feel like it needs to live up to that standard, and I'm not sure it does. The co-op has been refined, but I'm just not as enchanted with the turtles in competitive as I am with Tales' fighters. Sure, none of them hit the Annie Christmas floor, but none of them reach the Jill Trent or Tesla ceiling, either.

Leonard and Michaelangelo have a noticeable "designed for co-op" tint to them that keeps them from translating to competitive too well. Mikey's cards are generally underwhelming but give extra actions or cash in on the amount of cards played that turn, and his passive draws a card after he Attacks or Schemes, but a real person is going to exploit his 3-card hand limit so much harder than any of the AI villains do. Leo's the "leader that enables everyone" archetype, and while he isn't as useless outside of co-op/teams as Cyclops is in Dice Throne, he ultimately lacks anything interesting that makes me want to play him in a regular 1v1. Donnie is certainly more powerful, as his inventions are powerful late-game, they give him permanent boosts that make them viable plays early, and his ability to draw 2 when he Maneuvers ensures you're gonna see them. But I don't find "dig for your inventions, then play them" to be all that compelling. Raphael is the star of the box, and that's definitely more of an indictment of the set than a ringing endorsement of the character. He refunds the action for his first failed attack every round, and combining that with his conditional Beast Form makes him feel like a slightly less brain-dead Chupacabra.

If you pony up the extra $20, you can nab the fighter deck expansion for Shredder and Krang, and I've gotta admit that I love Shredder. His whole shtick is filling the board with Foot soldiers that he can attack from or reap benefits from being adjacent to. Creating no-go zones that you want to fight in and your opponent wants to steer clear of is a neat idea, but clearing out Foot soldiers with a Boosted Maneuver scares me that he might turn into a match-up check centered around how well a fighter utilizes Boosting. Around half of Krang's deck has bonuses based on a die roll, with a handful of tokens to cash in for rerolls. I get that rolling a die is a cleaner version of Pandora's mini-deck, but every second I spent playing Krang, I wished I was playing her instead. But I'll never be angry about the existence of an expansion, especially one like this that was designed alongside the base game to give people options on how far they want to buy into a game.

Now that the meh is done, it's time for the good stuff. As I said, the co-op gameplay of TNMT is a tier above Tales', with just about every facet getting a face-lift. I immediately noticed the strides taken in Shredder and Krang's designs, who both pose interesting challenges compared to the Martians' straightforward play and Mothman's initial decision of who needs to be on which bridge. Granted, their shared theme of inhibiting access to certain parts of the map makes them feel a smidge samey, but I'm plenty happy to have bosses that pose real turn-to-turn tactical questions to the players. The Sidekicks are similarly tuned: I could waste both our time going into detail how each one has been elevated from its predecessor, but Jersey Devil's evolution into Baxter Sockman is plenty to prove the point. The Devil's deck revolved around forcing players to run through their deck faster and then removing their discard piles to stop recursion, to the point that he obviously had to die ASAP. Baxter's mill is tied to map traps that he can teleport the players into if they're poorly positioned, providing a decision point between being moderately annoyed or diverting enough energy to kill him. I know it seems minor, but toning down the Sidekicks—reducing their power from must-answer threats to something that'll just make winning much harder if ignored—allows players that aforementioned choice that didn't exist in Tales.

Enough of the power loss has been compensated by the Bosses' increased strength that the game is nicely balanced for people new to the system, but you'll definitely be fine doing some personal tweaking with the revamped Amazing Events, Allies and Henchmen. A brief refresher for those of you that don't remember Tales' most forgettable mechanic: Events were extra cards you could add to the initiative deck to give yourself an extra challenge. TNMT's version is pretty much the same thing, but are tied to player plastic positioned in starting spots. Like everything else, not a huge change, but a small tweak that adds player input without a bunch of extra complexity.

Last, and undoubtedly least, we've got the Extra Toppings upgrade set. All the minis get alternate sculpts, and characters previously relegated to acrylic tokens get minis. Nice! I'm happy to have it! I never would've bought it if I hadn't been given a review copy. At least it's an optional add-on instead of potentially unnecessary plastic that they added into the box?