Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time
In a previous review I had mentioned that the TMNT arcade game is one of my all-time favorites. As a child growing up, the Saturday morning cartoon was life.
The arcade game because a quarter-sucker for me and a literal cartoon brought to life by the Konami game, with up to four players able to play. The graphics were accurate, the audio lifted soundbytes and music from the series and just about every aspect of the game was perfect, as a beat-em-up that had you destroying hundreds of on-screen ninjas by its completion.
Much of that was carried over in the NES port of that game, TMNT 2. Yet, the translation left something lacking, as the game’s visuals and audio were altered for the underpowered original Nintendo. It added more enemies and added two entirely new levels with new bosses to lengthen the game.
That was great, but it felt like something was still missing.
The true sequel to the arcade game, Turtles in Time, is labeled as TMNT 4 on the Nintendo platform due to a third game, The Manhattan Project, being released on the NES during the end of its life cycle. Oddly, and not in a bad way, TMNT 3 borrowed the entire platform of the TMNT 2 port, down to the visuals and game play, creating an entirely new game which was a direct sequel to the NES title but not the arcade one.
Adding to the awkwardness is the timing of the game’s releases: TMNT 3, which borrows elements from Turtles in Time, released after the arcade version and only six months before the arcade game was ported to the new Super Nintendo.
Unlike TMNT 2 and TMNT 3, TMNT 4 (Turtles in Time) is a faithful recreation of the arcade classic. Everything that was in the original arcade game is retained, along with newer visuals, music, stages, and bosses. The turtles have some additional moves, and the game, even with it’s quirky time travel stages, melds the cartoon, movies, and toy line in harmony.
Also, unlike TMNT 3, this game doesn’t appear to extend levels by adding additional waves of the same enemies like its siblings. There are newer palate swap foot clan ninjas of course, but the update in technology in the arcade, as well as the horsepower of the SNES port, are on full display here.
The visuals are nearly identical to the arcade game, whereas the NES clones are not. A few unnoticeable effects were removed because of playing on a console, much of the stutter and glitchy-ness of 2 and 3 are gone. The game plays smooth as butter both from an animation and control standpoint.
Like the TMNT 2 translation, other changes were made, in particular to the bosses. The evil mutant turtle Slash appears in place of Cement Man (a great decision I may add) while the game also adds the Rat King (a major secondary villain in the cartoon) as well as Beebop and Rocksteady, who were absent from the arcade version.
The arcade sequel also includes the “fly” version of Baxter Stockman, who originally only appears in human form in the original arcade version, but replaced playing against the duo of Beebop and Rocksteady simultaneously on the NES TMNT 2 port. Other bosses from TMNT lore include Metalhead (or “Chrome dome” as he’s known in other mediums), Leatherhead (who appears in TMNT 3 also) plus Tokka and Rahzar (from the second movie) round out much of the roster.
Some of the auto-scroll levels were changed to bonus stages, with a new Shredder “battle tank” boss battle was added at the end of new Technodrome level.
The game ends with a climactic battle against a mutated “Super Shredder” much in the same vein as the end of the TMNT 3 NES game.
Overall TMNT 4 is one of the gold standards of arcade ports on the SNES. It showed just how powerful a home console could be, at a time when arcades were starting to die. Any fan of the games, cartoon, toys and/or movies would be hard-pressed to not give this game a look.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project
Well color me stupid. I never knew about this game, despite it being a pseudo-sequel to one of my favorite games of all time.
I used to play the heck out of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game. As noted in a previous review, I had the NES port of this game, TMNT 2: The Arcade game, near the end of that console’s life cycle. It’s why I likely overlooked and/or missed this title years ago.
Don’t get me wrong, I knew there was a third TMNT game released, as the second arcade game was released for the SNES as TMNT 4: Turtles in Time. The problem is, I never knew this played near identical to the NES port!
Here’s why.
Turtles in Time actually released in the arcades before TMNT 3 came out on the NES. The SNES came out in August 1991, with Turtles in Time ported to the console a year later, in 1992.
TMNT 3 came out in February of 1992, as the NES started to be phased out. And seeing as it wasn’t the sequel we saw in the arcades, myself (and likely others) dismissed this as another cheap port/title much like TMNT 1.
However, that’s anything but the case. It does get repeptitve and a lot of the same concepts are reused from the NES arcade port, but it’s a brand-new game and worthy of being played. Basically, the devs took the arcade port engine from TMNT 2 and created new stages and bosses, plus added a few tweaks with moves and different style foot clan ninjas.
The result is TMNT 2.5 so to speak.
That doesn’t make the game a cheap imitation. In fact, you can tell that the developers cranked as much out of the Nintendo hardware as possible with this game. The graphics are sharp, the sound is great and if not for Turtles in Time, this may be the gold standard for the Konami beat’em up games such as TMNT, X-Men, and The Simpsons.
The only place where this game does go wrong is the same faults of TMNT 2: an endless barrage of ninjas sometimes makes you feel you’re stuck on the same “screen” for long periods of time rather than the arcade’s natural flow/progression. The idea, as I surmise, was to get more value out of playing the game longer. It was easier to continue adding ninjas to the screen as you beat them than have you walk through the level.
That adds a new dynamic where you are “pulled to the left” as you clear a “screen”. I love the idea and it helps you to know when to continue moving.
The turtles still retain their moves as well as a throw and a special move that depletes your life bar. The ninjas are also a bit harder to beat, with the jump-kick move being practically neutered in this game. (It’s an essential, higher-power move to pull of in the arcade versions.)
Yet, the result is a fun game featuring TMNT bosses not seen in other iterations of the game such as Dirtbag and Groundchuck. Movie enemies Tokka and Rahzar, as well as Super Shredder and cartoon/toy enemies Leatherhead and Slash all appear in this game as well as Turtles in Time.
In all it’s a fun addition to the series, bridging the demand for a TMNT 2 NES sequel with that of its big brother sequel Turtles in Time. I really enjoyed it and think any fan of the series would too.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game
The NES port of one of, if not my favorite all-time arcade game is this one.
Now for the surprising news: I didn’t own this game until the NES was practically collecting dust. I received a handful of NES games well after I owned my SNES, probably because the games were cheap then. A near pristine version of this cartridge now sits in storage and honestly that’s where it was for awhile even after acquiring it.
I had played this game so much in the arcades that my desire to play it at home was practically nil. Imagine my surprise that many years later I would return to it and thoroughly enjoy the home console 8-bit translation.
First the basics: this is a beat’em up game, which in the arcades, was designed to make you blow through quarters rather quickly. Some of the cheap death stuff was altered for the home version, with a life bar at the bottom. The controls feature a jump and an attack button. You can combine the jump into a jumping diagonal kick that is fairly useful throughout the game and appears to do more damage than your regular attack.
The game is fairly straightforward. It was named TMNT 2 due to the original TMNT produced prior for the NES: a turd of a game that was missing many of the main characters and the charm of this cult classic. While the graphics are altered and more cartoonish in this 8-bit translation, I found that most of the concessions to work with the NES hardware weren’t just slapped onto the box. Sprits that were reduced in size, including the turtles themselves, just simply “work” within the environment.
Just about everything is redrawn, however, giving the game a bit of a different feel than the arcade version. However, the controls are tight and the gameplay is nearly spot-on. Even the timing of some events throughout the levels is identical or felt like it as to the game I came to play quarter-by-dollar-sucking-quarter.
Only a few things changed for the NES version. Baxter Stockman, a villain in human form only in the arcade, appears as “The Fly” in the home version replacing end bosses Beebop and Rocksteady: you still play against each of Shredder’s henchmen, but individually in earlier stages. Where The Fly is the boss now, you would’ve instead played against both henchmen in the arcade as it had a four-player co-op mode.
One stage is extended with a snow level in the city and one of the game’s two original bosses made only for this NES port. Another is like a Japanese-dojo level with a Samurai boss who has a levitating head.
I’m still unsure whether I like these additions. They give the NES game lasting appeal by not being as short of a game, which occurs as the difficulty and cheapness of dying are toned down compared with the arcade. Even the final encounter with Shredder, where he clones himself, is pared down from “3 Shredders” to 2 on NES: his insta-kill ray gun was also a no-show.
Yet one thing that’s really important is that the game is faithful to source material. That was my issue with the first TMNT. All of the bosses, including your never-ending run of minions in arcade version, and even The Fly for that matter, were (mostly) cartoon episode staples. From the Foot Clan ninjas to the mousers, it sure beat the first game’s “frog man” or “fire man” that were sorely out of place.
However, in this game, the polar bear or whatever ice creature boss and the samurai boss take away from that: reminding you of all of the awful and fake creations for the terrible TMNT 1 game… which lacks foot soldiers whatsoever, while this game has palette swap ninjas out the wazoo! That’s unacceptable considering how much source material is available from the cartoons, movies, and comic books, as well as the huge toy line.
I’d even venture to guess that the sound and graphics were fairly cutting edge for its time. This game even features heavy “Pizza Hut” advertising too. Packaged with the ability to actually play “the cartoon” with a game true in both feel and concept, this game lives on in re-releases even to this day as one of the greatest of all-time.
In all this is a port of a great game which is pared down in ways that it enhanced it for the home. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for an hour or two to burn one evening.
The Karate Kid
Love The Karate Kid movie? Awesome. Me too. It’s a classic!
I won’t even ask if you love The Karate Kid video game… it’s not a classic.
This may be one of the earliest movie to crap video game conversions ever. Don’t get me wrong, the game is playable and it brings with it themes and overtones from the first two Karate Kid movies, but that’s about where it ends.
The first level is the protagonist, Daniel LaRusso, fighting in the All Valley tournament. Except, the four rounds feature no opponents resembling the Cobra Kai bullies he faced in the movie. This first level will take you all of 90 seconds to complete.
You may never complete another level in the game after…
The second level whisks you away to Okinawa, where repetitive fights with the same animated goons will wear you out because the controls for this game suck. You’ll often get hit by the goons who you can’t always make contact with yourself.
B kicks. A punches. You get a special “crane kick” and “drum punch” you can pickup during three different bonus levels hidden in doorways you enter throughout the last three levels: a balance beam, ice block break, and catching flies with chopsticks.
None of them are easy.
You can pickup the special moves after defeating some enemies, as a “C” or “D” floats in the air for all of two seconds and disappears. Often, going for these special moves will cause you more harm than ignoring them, as enemies just don’t respawn, they auto-spawn constantly – the only saving grace is, I figured out its sometimes easier to outrun the opponents than fight them and have more spawn, as only two are on any screen at a given time!
The second level ends rescuing a girl above a tower. As with the jumping mechanic necessary to get around in the levels, you press up on the d-pad and hope the game responds with a jump that doesn’t send you to your insta-death.
The third level is pretty unique: it’s just the second level during a storm, with darker background textures and “wind/rain” that pushes items that hurt you and pushes you constantly throughout the stage.
Survive this and you reach the fourth level, which looks like it’s in desert mountains – the enemies look somewhat different and some brandish spears now and require an extra hit to kill.
True to the movies, the Okinawan goons will also throw vegetables at you sometimes.
But all of this is for nothing if you don’t save the girl at the end, who for some reason slides backwards during your final fight with Chozen, and if she falls off of the platform you have to start all over!
I hate to say this, but even if you’re a die hard fan of the movies and video games that suck badly, you may still want to avoid this title. It’s that frustrating to play!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Ask anyone who grew up with this game as a kid about it, and the likely reaction is repressed feelings and nightmares.
Unlike it’s (far) superior arcade cousin, the first TMNT game on the NES was a total disaster. Most of the non-boss enemies were not taken from the cartoon or comics, completely ripped out of nowhere. That would be so bad if the collision detection and controls weren’t horrid.
Some of the regular bosses took multiple hits to kill – and they would respawn soon as you went back in a stage, something which is vital on many of the boards. Worse, some of the bosses had second variations where they’d die and then something would float around the screen waiting to be killed. You could not duck or dodge from many of them, resulting in death.
Oh yeah, you can choose between each of the four turtles to play with, but once one died, that was it – unless you braved rescuing one in the scant few areas you can do so in the game.
Then of those four turtles, those with the shorter weapons (especially Raphael) were useless because you couldn’t get close enough to an enemy to hit them, resulting in damage (and more death).
Adding to the frustration are areas which require a precise jump despite imprecise controls and respawned enemies, resulting in you falling and starting over. And if that’s not enough, the frame rate drops to stuttering slow and unresponsive when there are too many enemies on the screen at once!
Then there’s a stage where the boss isn’t always in the same location, causing more backtracking through frustratingly difficult areas.
If you can make it to the final battle with Shredder, a feat in and of itself, he can instantly kill you with his ray gun.
When anyone brings up hard games of my childhood, this is among the top of the list. If you’re brave enough to try it, use save states and cheats – or else “say your prayers Turtles!”
Super Mario Bros. 2 (Japan)
If you ever wondered why Super Mario Bros. 2 was so freaking weird compared with the other SMB games, it’s because it wasn’t the true sequel to the original game, rather, a conversion of a non-Mario game due to decision makers rejecting the release of the much more difficult Mario 2 in North America.
The real sequel eventually found it’s way to the U.S. as part of the Super Nintendo collection “Super Mario All-Stars”. Branded as “The Lost Levels”, this version included revamped graphics and music, much like the other re-released games on the same cartridge.
I wanted to play this original version and not the “Lost Levels” remake. Fortunately, it was recently translated into English language markets via the Wii’s Virtual Console.
The Mario 2 as we know it may be an imposter, but it likely salvaged the franchise (and possibly the video game industry stateside) as this true successor to SMB was graphically and mechanically similar to the original game, but increasingly cheap and difficult in practice.
And I do mean difficult!
I highlighted many of these frustrating changes in the screen captures. Among them are wind (blows Mario off of platforms or makes it harder to jump), enemies in areas you wouldn’t expect (fire, Bloopers, Hammer Bros, Bullet Bills, you name it), gaps which required precise button taps and timing, and possibly the most famous addition, poisonous mushrooms which shrink/kill you!
It’s a great play to see what may have been, but I’m glad I didn’t own this as a child. Save states were necessary to get past many areas (some took me as many as 30 tries for a series of precise jumps). You could also get lost in areas where you’re looking for hidden blocks, warped to the start of the level, or worse, warped back SEVERAL worlds!
The payoff though is a special “fantasy” World 9, where Mario swims through the board as if it were a water level.
There are other secret levels, but I will address those in my review of the Lost Levels remake… as well as some other rare/little known Mario secrets in the near future!
Double Dragon
Alright, how many of yinz are going to admit playing this in single player and beating it with no cheats?! Huh?!
That’s what I thought!
This game would’ve made me cry as a kid… As an adult, it nearly brought me to tears still the same!
This is as painful of a memory of how hard video games were during my childhood. (Ain’t a wonder that Tradewest had a hand in producing this AND Battletoads!)
There’s one specific jump in a gear/factory room on one level that took me HOURS to perfect, even with the aide of save states. That’s why this game gets a “thumb in the middle” because I couldn’t imagine playing to the time limit, limited health, plus the wonky jumping mechanic (you have to hold both A and B buttons, since individually those are assigned to “punch” and “kick”).
Then there’s the enemies and the final level, which are beyond crazy. I can’t even fathom putting quarters in the arcade version, as it would bankrupt a family.
Yet, this game has fuzzy memories for some. More than likely I’d surmise that you got a lot of “replay” value from this game trying to actually defeat it! Today’s kids would just let it collect dust and never try, but seeing as we all had four or five cartridges at best until the next holiday rolled around (if we were lucky) I can sense that’s one of the reasons this is a cult classic. (The other being the height of karate/ninja themed media in the 80’s!)
Mega Man (Game Gear)
Well, well. This was a quirky little find.
For those unaware, Mega Man’s developer, Capcom, had been an exclusive partner of Nintendo’s from way back when the NES launched. Following Sega’s successful market penetration with their Genesis, Capcom broke that exclusivity by releasing games for both, the Genesis, and Sega’s handheld “Game Gear”.
But that’s not the only reason this game is “quirky”. As the only Mega Man game on the Game Gear it mixes elements of it’s NES siblings. Due to hardware limitations, only two of Mega Man’s “buster” shots are on screen at any time (rather than three in other games) but the charged shot does more damage. The game also feels faster, with not only MM but the robot master bosses and even jumping or climbing ladders.
Now the frustrating parts.
Like the Game Boy game, the small screen makes it impossible to find platforms below you, so you often fall to your death. Unlike the Game Boy, the color graphics really pop. (I may even prefer this to the NES games honestly.)
The game’s difficulty is about what you’d expect, with Capcom pulling cheapshots all over. Overall, the main concepts are pulled from the NES MM4 and MM5 so it’s a blend of both games, yet an original title.
However, the campaign is short. As a handheld title, there is only four main robot masters (rather than the usual eight) plus another two in Wily’s Castle (which is also an abbreviated tour).
Regardless, this title holds up as one of the more solid Mega Man titles of the 15 I’ve played so far!
Sonic Advance
This game restored my faith in the Sonic franchise.
The last “great” Sonic game I had played along my adventures was Sonic CD. Naturally, that came after the three Genesis titles and the Sonic & Knuckles add-on, which were all stellar.
Then came the (five) horrid Game Gear titles, which were mostly 8-bit bastards of their Genesis parents. Those games ranged from super easy to stupid difficult to beat. (There was no in-between!)
Most of that was due to awful programming with controls or smashing things onto a small Game Gear screen.
Imagine my surprise when I got my hands on the Game Boy Advance’s Sonic Advance. It was the first-ever Sonic game to be released on a Nintendo platform following Sega bowing out of the console wars.
In Sonic Advance, you can play as Sonic, Knuckles, or Amy. The graphics are altered for the Game Boy Advance and are an upgrade over the old 8-bit and 16-bit titles, with the exception of my personal preference of not liking the cartoonish art direction, especially with the main characters themselves.
Nearly everything else follows the same formula: each zone has two acts, you collect rings, fight a boss and/or “Eggman”, etc.. The game is brief but satisfying, with many nods to other games in the series (no spoilers!)
I urge any Sonic fans to check this out.
I, myself, can’t wait to check out the sequels.
Super Mario World
How could you not love all of the Mario games?
Growing up, this was the penultimate Mario game. It took SMB3 and injected it with steroids. The graphics were better, sound was better, controls were tight, and everything just popped off of the screen.
Gameplay elements introduced here became cornerstones of the franchise, such as Yoshi, bonus worlds, hidden levels, and more.
Because I loved this game so much, I made sure I played through and beat every single stage, including each stage’s hidden exits: up to and including the incredibly nasty SPECIAL WORLD, which was a hidden world hidden within the hidden Star World. (Follow that?) These stages had names such as “Tubular” or “Gnarly” and they are incredibly difficult to defeat!
Of the levels in SMW, my favorites are:
“Top Secret Area” – A hidden level which was only one screen large but had multiple “?” blocks to give you powerups to help aide in beating other stages.
“Backdoor” – This was a secret way into Bowser’s Castle, which was much easier than defeating the rest of the final world.
“Sunken Ghost Ship” – Once you find out you can swim out into the ocean; the first board is a homage to Super Mario Bros. 3 and their airships. This one is sunk underwater and doubles as a ghost house too!
IMO while the “New” Super Mario Bros. games which followed are excellent, this may still be the best side-scrolling Mario game ever made. The NES games will always have a special place in my heart, but Mario World was not only a sequel, but just about smashed every expectation for a SMB game up until that point and even to the present day. It’s the benchmark to which all other platforming games should be held.