I did not expect the most promising turn-based tactics game of Steam Next Fest to star the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but here we are

We all change as we age, but one thing I did not necessarily expect for myself in the downward slope of my 30s is that I would become a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles guy. I am a great believer, however, in embracing destiny—so when I saw a new TMNT turn-based tactics game demo in Steam Next Fest, what could I say but "Cowabunga"?

Tactical Takedown (previously featured in our PC Gaming Show) is almost like a board game take on the series, turning battles against waves of Foot Clan ninjas into miniatures clattering into each other on an ever-shifting battlefield grid. Each turn, you can spend your turtle's action points across an arsenal of abilities, trying to keep enemy numbers manageable and move quickly through the level as areas fall away behind you. Why the streets of New York keep materialising and dematerialising as you fight I don't know, you'll have to take that up with the city council.

The demo levels only let you control a single turtle at a time, and it seems like that will be the case in the final game too. That does seem an odd choice for one of the most iconic teams in pop culture, but you certainly don't feel lacking in tactical options. As you'd expect, the turtles are highly mobile, able to leap over foes multiple times each turn—that's key to lining up perfect uses of your offensive abilities, which on top of simply dealing damage give you tools such as pushing enemies back (potentially crashing into each other or sailing over the edge of the battlefield), "juggling" them (a stun that also sets them up for bonus damage), or immobilising them.

Limited but effective animation makes each of these turns particularly charming, with the semi-static miniatures switching between different poses depending on how things play out—your turtle flipping to a heroic leaping pose when you jump, and ninjas going into cartoonish recoiling poses as they're struck.

Each turtle's moveset creates its own unique playstyle. Leonardo, for example, can gain either a damage bonus or a free dodge when he knocks an enemy out, based on which attack finished them, allowing him to play much more dangerously than the others—either chain-killing through crowds, or picking off weak enemies to let him avoid the hits of more powerful ones. Donatello is the opposite, playing keep-away with AoE shoves, immobilising kunai throws, and electric bombs that create fields of hazardous terrain.

All four feel fun and interesting in their own ways—but as it stands, not brilliantly balanced. Michelangelo, for example (who specialises in mobility and juggling skateboard dashes through lines of foes) is the turtle you start the demo with, and his levels feel like an uphill battle. Leonardo and Donatello come in the second half, where things should be getting trickier, but instead they're a breeze to play, avoiding damage with ease and well-equipped to take out whole groups at once.

I think it's a sign that this is quite an early demo, with a load of kinks still to be worked out. On top of that character imbalance, a lot of ability tooltips simply don't do what they say they do (a poison attack actually being an ice attack, for example), leading to some annoying trial and error in a genre where you really want to have all the info at your fingertips.

But it's a testament to how compelling the core strategy already is that those problems didn't really impede my fun. There's something particularly satisfying about its one-vs-many setup, particularly combined with the very simple enemy AI—you're constantly outsmarting the Foot Clan goons, and they love putting themselves in spots that give you opportunities to punt them off a ledge or slam them into each other. Even if the classic turtle teamwork is missing, you otherwise do really feel like one of the turtles using their brains and agility to take on overwhelming odds.

With some time to smooth out those rough edges—currently the release date is just "TBA", so hopefully the team is allowing itself plenty—I think this'll be a really exciting tactics game, and the roughly hour long demo certainly left me wanting more. The currently inaccessible loadout screen is particularly tantalising, suggesting you'll be able to customise each of the turtles' abilities to suit different playstyles.

TMNT: Tactical Takedown's free demo is available now to try for yourself, but just make sure to play it before Steam Next Fest ends on March 3—that's when it'll be disappearing from the store.