Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The Short


Pros
- Lets you play as all four turtles, with their unique weapons
- Can switch between turtles at any time.
- Music is pretty awesome, and super catchy
- Lots of stages with lots of variety, and you can drive around in the turtle-van
- Has some classic bosses from the cartoon show

Cons
- Difficult, and in unfair ways
- Only Donatello and Leonardo have good weapons; Raph and Mike are garbage
- "Dam" level will forever be remembered as the stage that ruined my childhood
- Controls, especially for Donatello, are extremely obnoxious
- Doesn't look all that fantastic
- Plenty of cheap deaths and frustrating level design and enemy placement
- Why is everybody on the cover wearing red? Was it "Dress like Raph" day?

I have a feeling this review is going to be very polarizing

The Long

Let me establish something here: I love the Ninja Turtles, and I played the crap out of this game as a child. It was one of the few games that both my two best friends and my cousins owned, so I got ample time playing it growing up. I have lots of fun memories switching off, assigning each friend a turtle, and trying to blast our way through this game. However, even at the time I knew something was off. The game didn't seem fair like most other NES games. Sure, it was hard, but it was also really frustrating. And that stupid level with the dam...

Anyway, years later and I had to get a cart of this, for obvious reasons. After burning through it for a bit by myself (which isn't nearly as fun), I came to a similar conclusion that I'd been just on the cusp of as a wee lad:

This game isn't very good.

Might as well restart your game now. 

At its most basic, TMNT is an action-platformer with the emphasis on "action." You have essentially four lives (being the four turtles), and each with their own health bars. You can switch out at any time if one of the turtles is looking like he's in trouble, because once a turtle goes down he's gone for good. So you'd better get good at switching before getting screwed over.

Each of the turtles uses their unique weapons, for better or worse. Leo has his badass sword, which has long reach and can hit low enemies directly in front of him. Raph is by far the worse, spinning his little knife...thing like a moron and only able to hit stuff when it's right in front of him. Mike is a bit better, with the nun-chucks having ok range but still a bit crap. Don is by far the best, but with one rather large handicap: the only way he can hit short enemies is to duck next to them and stab down. Which is...really obnoxious.

So basically you'll use Leo and Don as your mains, and Raph and Mike as your punching bags. 

You can fight on the overworld which...um...that's cool?

The game starts out ok, luring you into a false sense of security. Yeah, you're fighting bugs and weird...other bugs, as well as foot-clan that look more like ghosts, but whatever; it's NINJA TURTLES! Plus everything explodes with an awesome sound effect that still makes me happy when I hear it. And there's power-ups like ninja stars and stuff, just like games like Ninja Gaiden! This is gonna be awesome, right? Unfortunately, the game gets kind of crap quickly.

The problem with TMNT is it wanted to be a hard game without putting forth the effort in level design. Games like Castlevania and Batman are great games because, while being hard, you never felt cheated. Enemies didn't respawn in the absolute worst locations, they didn't block ladders (essentially forcing you to get hit), and didn't insta-kill you on the world map (freaking steamrollers). TMNT falls into a rather large trap that many NES games fell in: an obvious lack of playtesting, and the idea that "more is better." There are whole, extremely difficult stages where your reward is...a pizza. Awesome. And when hunting for the Technodrome at the end, you basically fight your way through tons of the hardest levels in the game hoping it's there. If it isn't, you go back and try another one. This isn't fun. At all. 

But what really killed me as a kid was the dam level.

Just looking at this makes me mad. 

 Essentially the only "swimming" level, you are tasked with finding and disarming a set number of bombs before the timer runs out. The problems is everything's in a maze, and in most instances the walls hurt you (stupid stinging plants!). So you have to both go fast and try and not let your best turtles die, and all with loose swimming controls. I never got past this stage as a kid. Not me, nor any of my friends or cousins. We just couldn't do it. Luckily since then I've gotten a little better at games and can actually pass it, but the point still stands: this game is really frustrating. 

Now, I'm certain plenty of people see this as a challenge, which is fine. However, excusing lazy game design as "challenge" isn't hardcore or neat, it's just excusing crap. I've already mentioned some games that are very difficult but still manage to still be fun and feel fair. TMNT is fun for a while, but seriously...have you played the inside of the Technodrome? That crap is totally impossible. 

Luckily the music is rad, even with no TV show theme

Graphically, the game isn't awful, but it isn't very good either. As stated, I like how all enemies explode, but most everything looks bland and generic. Worse, the game has the "sprites flashing in and out of invisibility" problem that a lot of NES games have, except for this one it's way worse for some reason. I've heard playing on a top-loader helps remedy that, but I only have the "toaster" NES so I can't argue it either way. In either case, having enemies disappear just helps to make the game more frustrating and annoying. Too much crap on the screen, Ultra games. Maybe tone it down a little?

Music, however, is fantastic. Most of these songs (especially the first level's song) are burned into my memories. The title screen song is super catchy as well, even if it doesn't use any music from the actual TV show. 

Want...to smash...controller...

As it stands, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the NES is a game I'll always remember fondly because of the memories I had with it, but replaying it now the game just infuriates me. What bugs me even more is that TMNT 2: The Arcade Game was so much better (and had actual co-op), but we had this Turtles game instead. Why did everybody buy this crappy game? Ugh. 

Anyway, there is still a...decent amount of fun to be had with TMNT, just know it's going to come at the expense of your sanity. I'm completely convinced every person who grew up on the late 80s/early 90s has some memory of this game, and considering you can get it for around $3-5 you might as well for the nostalgia. Just be aware: this game isn't great.

Two out of five stars. 

"Cowabunga," you jerks.