Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Battle Nexus is a video game of the beat 'em up genre, that was released by Konami, for Microsoft Windows PCs, Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox in 2004. The GBA version is more of a Side-scrolling Platformer/Shoot'em up action game. The game is the sequel to the previous year's TMNT game, and is loosely based on the 2003 TV series' second season.
The game offers cell-shaded graphics, four-player option and has the classic arcade game of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as an unlockable. Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo are playable from the beginning, while Karai, Slashuur, Splinter, and Casey Jones can be unlocked.
Battle Nexus received a mostly negative critical reception, getting a 1.5/5 score from GameSpy and 6/10 from IGN. Reviewers complained of repetitive gameplay, poor controls and terrible AI.
Unlike the 2003 TMNT game, Battle Nexus supports up to four players. Each player may select a "team" that is color-coordinated to represent each Turtle - Blue for Leonardo, Red for Raphael, Orange for Michelangelo, and Purple for Donatello. Every team must be present in the game, and any team not selected by a player initially will be available during the game to cycle through. Initially, only the four Turtles are available for their respective teams, but one other character will become available for play for each team as the game progresses - Slashuur on Blue, Casey Jones on Red, Karai on Orange, and Splinter on Purple.
Each team has their own specific abilities that can help players progress through the game. Blue Team can attack while dashing, and cut through certain obstacles (grates, trees, bamboo, et cetera). Red Team can lift and push certain heavy objects. Orange team can reflect arrows with their guard (and Michelangelo can fly with his nunchaku). Purple team can utilize computer consoles (and Donatello can fire a laser instead of throwing shuriken).
Unlike the previous game, players share one health bar so if one player gets hurt, the health decreases for all of them. Characters have "weak" and "strong" attacks and they do different moves with different combinations. To beat the level, you must either get to the designated point of the level, kill all enemies, kill the boss, survive until the time runs out or do the specific goal until the time runs out. Side goals are to collect artifacts that are usually in hidden or hard-to-reach places and to collect crystal pieces that increase your attack, defense, charge attack and shuriken throwing ("flying") abilities.
