The latest stab at recreating the magic of classic Ninja Turtles games is TMNT: Mutant Melee, a budget title which portrays itself as a party-style fighting game. Unfortunately, it runs on the same engine and is built on nearly the same game design as the last two TMNT games, which were less than spectacular to begin with.

There are two main gameplay modes in Mutant Melee. One is possibly worth your time, the other is definitely not. The “Adventure” mode (and I use quotation marks with great purpose), lets you guide a character through a sequence of single-player stages, most of which occur on a single screen and involve beating up one or more other characters. Each level is introduced with a story blurb and a description of the objective. The plots are laughably arbitrary and disjointed, likely written by a Konami intern during his lunch break. Missions range from pitifully easy to fist-clenchingly hard, and the difficulty curve, if plotted in Cartesian coordinates, might resemble a snowflake.

If the “Adventure” mode seems slapped together, it may be due to the developers spending far more of their effort on Melee mode. Rather than imitating its Smash Bros. namesake, this game plays more like Capcom’s Power Stone franchise on Dreamcast. You see the 3D arena from an elevated, isometric view, and strategic gameplay elements are rather thin. It’s more about wacky action and mayhem, and in that regard, Mutant Melee is capable of being a fun game for at least short bursts of play. You will definitely need to gather a few friends, because the A.I. is alternately cheap and idiotic. You’ll also want to be careful of which stage you choose, because some of them are too large and gimmicky, and others are wedded to special match types like King of the Hill and Keep Away, which are very poorly designed and just not enjoyable.

The fighting mechanics in Mutant Melee turned out to be deeper than I originally thought, due to the fact that I didn’t learn all the possible button combinations until after playing for a few hours. The control layout is illogical and not configurable, nor is it adequately explained within the game, so it took reading the instruction manual to learn how to throw shuriken, perform signature moves, etc. To win a match, you must earn the most KOs by depleting other characters’ life bars. Each of the twenty or so characters has a set of around five basic attack combos and about five special moves, which are executed with a standard set of button combinations (such as L + B). The free-roaming levels contain traps, bottomless pits, and plenty of crates loaded with weapons and power-ups. Many items (and even opponents) can be thrown for additional damage. By connecting punches and kicks to fill up a special meter, you can perform a super move specific to your selected fighter. Some characters are much more powerful and useful than others, and unlike seemingly similar games like Super Smash Bros. Melee, there is little strategic depth beneath the game’s frantic exterior.

Since the Melee mode is actually fun to play under certain conditions, it’s a shame that you have to play “Adventure” mode extensively to unlock characters and stages for multiplayer. You also have to drudge through these missions if you want enough tokens to unlock the plethora of fan service goodies in the game’s library. Or, you can play smart by buying a few items in the library to check them out, then loading your saved game to go back and unlock different items, until you’ve seen them all. Most aren’t even worth seeing, but the “Other Media” section has some really funny and bizarre videos that poke fun at the Ninja Turtles franchise and at the game itself. The archived comic books would be fantastic unlockables, except they are scanned at such a low resolution that you can’t read the words or even tell what’s happening in the art.

At full price, it would be hard to recommend Mutant Melee to anyone. There just isn’t enough to see or do that is worth that much money. But as a budget title, there may be enough multiplayer shenanigans to warrant the purchase. Check it out as a rental and see if you and your friends can get into it; the “Adventure” mode and collection items are certainly not enough to round out the game’s value.