Until the franchise resurgence in the last decade the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series is something that had no crossed my mind since I was a kid. Don’t get me wrong; I was fully entranced in the hysteria but looking back my interest in it seemed short lived. I collected the action figures, watched the television show regularly, and my parents even took me to see the two movies when they were in the theaters. My interest suddenly dropped off as I moved on to other things, and it seems to me that everyone else had a similar experience. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles seemingly disappeared off of the face of the planet overnight. Sure, there was one more movie and a couple of video games but by and large the series went from being a household name to obscurity almost overnight. It seemed like for the longest time the only time the franchise would be mentioned was when talking about retro video games. This leads me to today’s review. Licensed video games were extremely popular in the 8-bit days, and Konami secured the license to release titles based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. While many started with the arcade port of the classic beat ‘em up others were less lucky. This was the first TMNT game to be released was for the original Nintendo, and to be honest it’s a bit of a stinker. This release was a total mistake in my opinion.
In the story here the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rise to the occasion when it’s revealed that Shredder has in his possession a device capable of returning their master Splinter back to his original human form. Somewhere along the way April O’Neil has been kidnapped, and it’s up to the four reptilians to set things right. It has been a long time since I have watched the original cartoon series, but this seems fairly in line with what they might have done for an episode. There’s a surprising amount of dialogue (mostly on the pause screen giving you clues as to what your goal is) and even a few crude cut-scenes. It’s more than enough to carry the action along, but because I’m so out of the loop I couldn’t care less. Okay, let’s move on. Side scrollers were all the rage at the time of this game’s release, and so Konami decided to catch in on the fad with this title. There are some twists, but I will get to that later. Basic gameplay has you controlling one of the turtles as you walk left/right, jump, and attack foes using your primary weapon. You have a life bar at the bottom of the screen that depletes each time you’re touched by an enemy or projectile, and several areas feature bottomless pits that cost you a life. Yada yada yada. This is the same story you’ve heard a million times before. I’m just going to focus on what this game does right and what it does wrong.
Let’s start with the good. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a bit deeper than your typical side scrolling action title for a few different reasons. To start you explore the city from an overhead perspective. The camera only switches to side view when you enter a building or open manhole. From here you must make your way either left or right (while going up and down ladders and platforms) in a linear fashion. What’s cool is the fact that not all of these areas are required for you to explore. In the overhead sections your goal is to reach a specific building and some of the choices on the way will move you forward on it while others are dead ends that have just power-ups. It makes the experience feel less linear, and introduces some aspects of the adventure genre. What’s also cool is the fact that you can freely switch between all four of the turtles. Each has their own strengths (Donatello and Leonardo have longer reach with their weapons and Michelangelo and Raphael are stronger against specific enemy types) and their own life bar as well. You’ll need to take advantage of this and switch between them when one is low on health. This is an interesting mechanic.
Now we get to the bad stuff, unfortunately. As I mentioned earlier two of the turtles have long range, and the other two are far less useful because their weapons are so short. You barely even notice their strengths to be honest; the developers should have given them more abilities or something. Anything would have helped. Furthermore this game is difficult. If anything I’m selling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles short with that statement; it’s downright unfair. Enemies respawn almost at random, and they quickly become a real chore to deal with. The dam section of the game has grown to infamy thanks to the Angry Video Game Nerd, and believes you me he wasn’t selling it short. In this sequence you have a limited amount of time diffuse eight bombs, and it’s an underwater section. You have to dodge electric coral and one hit kills seaweed. I appreciate a good challenge but in this case it saps the fun right out of it. The other stages aren’t much more enjoyable, and the experience is totally uneven and not very fun.
The graphics have a lot of issues. In still shots it looks pretty decent by standards of the 8-bit era. The characters and enemies are recognizable, and the backgrounds are chock full of details. Unfortunately in motion it’s a different story. This game is riddled with glitches; much moreso than in your typical NES release. It shows that the developers didn’t take the time to test and fix the bugs before release, and it’s very disappointing. Additionally you have to deal with flicker and enemies that are supposed to respawn off screen just materialize randomly. The next issue is the fact that the hit detection is really problematic. Hitting enemies can be tough, and attacks that looked like they should have for sure made contact often do not. The opposite is true for the enemies; they have an unfair advantage. The final insult is the fact that this barely even feels like a Ninja Turtles game. Aside from the protagonists and Bebop and Rocksteady you’ll be hard pressed to find any regular references to the show. Konami could have simply replaced the cast with generic characters and there would be no remaining trace of the franchise. That’s just sad. Unfortunately Konami also managed to botch the soundtrack as well. Expecting to hear a rendition of the main theme? Well, it’s not anywhere in the game unfortunately. The music consists entirely of original compositions and it’s all just so darn generic. The sound effects really do not fare much better.
The big dilemma with licensed games is that they’re usually bad. With a franchise as big as this (at the time at least) you would expect a fair amount of effort. This holds especially true given the developer’s pedigree and how easily the series should translate to a video game. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is frustrating, runs poorly, and is just not fun. The first game in the franchise is definitely a pass from me.
