It will come as no surprise to anyone that I love TMNT: Shedder’s Revenge. As a big Ninja Turtles fan going way back, and a continual evangelist/apologist for the Beat’em Up genre, this game was always destined to be my personal Game of the Year. What is surprising though, is just how flawlessly this title resurrects the old TMNT formula, resulting in a game with near universal appeal. Move over Sonic Mania, this is the most impressive retro revival game ever made.

Developed by Tribute Games (Scott Pilgrim) and published by Dotemu (Streets of Rage 4), with music by Tee Lopes (Sonic Mania), Shredder’s Revenge is had some real indie game powerhouses behind it.

The masterful pixel art on display here is pitch perfect. The visuals sport appropriately bright colors and incredible animations from start to finish. There are just so many little touches that demonstrate the developers’ love of TMNT and meticulous effort in bringing the original cartoon back to life.

Similar to the visuals, the soundtrack perfectly captures the vibe of the original Konami arcade games, whilst adding modern florists. For example, there are number of songs with full vocals, which is honestly rad as hell. I enjoyed the music so much in fact, that I went right out and bought the soundtrack on bandcamp. And hey, they brought back a bunch of the voice actors from the old school cartoon?! That’s amazing.

The stages in Shredder’s Revenge are all great choices, many of them harkening back to levels in previous TMNT games, or scenes from the movie or original cartoon. There’s a level in a shopping mall—my personal favorite—which feels like a nostalgic throwback to the 90’s. I’m realizing now that I love mall levels in beat’em up games and feel that every brawler should have one.

Shredder’s Revenge greatly expands the moveset each player can execute, but it still retains the basic controls of the arcade brawlers. Which is great in case you just want to keep things simple. You have your standard attack and jump buttons, just like the good old days, and the turtles can perform a surprisingly large array of techniques using basically just those two inputs. You can still dash and charge (or slide) directly into enemies. You can get up close to grab a foe and then either throw them to the side, or chuck them straight into the screen (a la Turtles in Time). You can launch enemies into the air with a Dragon Punch-style attack by pressing the Attack and Jump buttons at the same time. And there are now buttons for performing super moves and dodges as well.

The new dodge is where things get really good, as you now have a defense maneuver you can use to avoid taking damage. When a boss comes charging at you and there’s no time to avoid them, a dodge is just what the doctor ordered. There’s also a combo counter this time around, so some good tactical use of dodges—and the follow-up counter attacks—can keep your combo totals ticking up and up and up.

The super moves are a fun addition, big flashy combos to clear the screen of enemies, or to land hits on a boss with invincibility. It’s also cool that the game allows you to taunt (or “meditate” for certain characters) in order to build your super meter quickly. The issue with supers, however, is that they’re a little too flashy when playing with 3 or more players; they add so much visual noise that it becomes almost impossible to keep track of your character on-screen. Even with the chaos though, super moves provide a good shot of variety to spice things up.

Expanding the roster beyond our four turtles and having six playable characters is pretty awesome. April in particular is especially badass. You can recognize plenty of her moves are borrowing animations from Street Fighter legends like Chun Li and Karin, and that’s rad—I’m all for it! Also, April just plain dominates in the air. As a diehard Raphael fan, he’s usually my first choice, but I’m very happy to have a second character option who feels this good to play. Splinter and Casey Jones are also great additions, each with their own distinct vibe.

Speaking of multiplayer, this game is just begging for a pizza party to get your whole crew together to play it. As mentioned above, things can get pretty hectic with 4 players, so I wonder if 6-player might be a tad bit much. (Also, can the Switch really render so much gnarly ninja action at once? Maybe it’s a little too much for old hybrid system to handle.) While 4 players for TMNT is of course super fun, I suspect that 3 players might actually be the sweet spot.

Personally I’ve spent the majority of my time playing 2-player Shredder’s Revenge with a 5-year-old, and we have had an absolute blast. Did you know that kids still know and love the Ninja Turtles to this day? Guess it’s not just a thing for 40-year-old nerds like me after all.