If you were a kid back in the early 90's and walked into an arcade, one thing was assured: Konami had you covered. You were likely surrounded by ridiculously loud G.I. Joe cabinets, The Simpsons were spouting off trademark witty humor in another, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles machine was screaming the trademark theme song. Rest assured, no matter which one you chose to drop your pocket full of quarters into, you'd be happy.
The TMNT games were almost always consistent with their high quality through the 16-bit era. This, the first, was a great start that was only eclipsed by later games in the series. You (and up to three friends in the four-player set-up) take control of the unique heroes and set off to rescue April O' Neal who's kidnapped at the end of the first level.
The game’s look was uncanny back in 1990 and it has aged, but only slightly. The characters are a bit on the small side, but there's quite a bit going on in the later levels to make up for it. Also, the animation is still to this day some of the best you'll see in an arcade game of this era. It’s definitely pixilated when scaled into HD on the 360, though that’s part of the appeal.
Game play is just a standard brawler, yet it has the proper feel and style to keep things fresh for the full game. Beating down the robotic Foot Clan never seems to get old thanks to the massive amount of animation. Watching them fly into walls with a resounding thud is simply a blast every time. The bosses are never too difficult making this one easily accessible for the younger set it's really geared for. It's a rare arcade game that has a perfect difficulty level.
Article comments
1 - Kaonashi
It's ninja turtle day! :) I just came back from a screening of the film, and now I read your review.
My sister and I used to play the Super Nintendo version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and would have a blast, even though 2-player only took about half an hour to complete the game. Looks like I'll be picking this one up as well!
2 - hdofu
The nes version wasn't terrible, it was just heavily restricted by hardware limitations,