Customer Reviews

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This game was HUGE back in 1989, and even after the sequels came out, the game was still awesome, even today, and it puts up a great challenge. Although it isn't the best TMNT game (that would be TMNT 3:The Manhattan Project), it still remains as one of the classic NES titles, even if there were times where it was frustrating.

This game has garnered mixed feelings, and I can understand both sides of the spectrum. This game is OLD, and is indeed primitive compared to the games of 2010, but that in itself is certainly not a flaw.

What made this game frustrating is the clunky controls, the turtles did not move as smoothly as say, Mario in even the first Super Mario Bros. games, or even in the second TMNT game. The other issue is the inordinate amount of enemies. It would get to the point where it stopped being a challenge and just became frustrating, especially if you cleared the enemies off one screen, moved up one screen, got knocked off by one of the enemies on the new screen, and the old screen would be filled with enemies AGAIN. Or if you went into a building or sewer only to reach a dead-end after fighting all of these enemies, you would have to fight your way back.

The boss fights are actually surprisingly easy compared to bosses in other games, so I guess that kind of makes up for the enemies. Infact, the final boss (none other than Shredder, of course!)is so easy to beat it's almost ridiculous, all you have to do is stay in one spot and just keep swinging, and he;ll go down easy. He goes down faster if you have the throwing stars in your arsenal.

If this game were given a face-lift, much as the Mario and Final Fantasy games were for the Game Boy Advance, this could be a truly memorable game, even more so with a password or save feature.

Being the first Turtles game in the series, it was okay at best. Not a masterpiece, but just okay. Here is a little history lesson. Konami made this game under their Ultra brand. There was a reason for this: back in the day, Nintendo placed a hold on how many games could be released for their system by a specific company (I believe companies could only release 5 games a year, correct me if I am wrong), so to get around this companies like Konami, Capcom, Tecmo, and the rest of them made shell-companies so they could release more games for the NES. This is why the NES Turtles games were released under the Ultra brand.

Now, this game is actually based on the comic book, not the TV series (which definitely made some kids mad, me included), so the main enemies you will not recognize except for the bosses. Like any kid who grew up in the late 80's and early 90's remembers the TV show, and when this game came out, we all thought we were in for a treat like the arcade game....Boy, where we wrong.

This game is hard, no doubt, but what made this game hard was the clunky controls, the size of the turtles, the level design, and the hit detection was pretty off. Like an enemy could hit you without touching you, and you could try to hit an enemy and sometimes it would register and sometimes it wouldn't.

Now opinions differ with this game; it is pretty much a game either you LOVE it or you HATE it. There is no black or white area with this game. For me, it is fun don't get me wrong, but for me this game is like a bad movie where it is so bad it is good. Also, with the fun comes the frustration.

While the game is fun, it can be VERY FRUSTRATING at times; especially the Dam level where you have to swim through electrical currents while trying not to get sucked into the deadly seaweed and diffusing a number of bombs under a time-limit (that time-limit is 2 minutes and 30 seconds), and if you don't diffuse all the bombs, it's GAME OVER; you don't get a second chance even if you have both continues.

Although it isn't the best game in the series, if curiosity peaks your interest, it is worth checking out for at least the nostalgica part of it.

Let it be known that this is a fun game to play. But if your first TMNT game was TMNT2 or any other two-player game that featured combat similar to Streets of Rage or Final Fight, you should think carefully before purchasing this game.

This game is for one player only.
This is a side-scrolling platformer game. It is NOT a traditional beat-em-up like TMNT2.
This game can be quite difficult.

There's nothing wrong with any of this, but it cannot be stressed enough that this game's combat style is vastly different from the other games in the series.

As for the game itself, it has six levels. Each level (except for the last one) has an overhead map where you can walk around and enter various action stages. Visiting every action stage is not required, but if you don't plan on using an FAQ or some other game guide, you will have to do a lot of exploring to find your way to the end of the level.

Level 1 is short and straightforward.
Level 2 is short, but considerably more difficult.
Level 3 is large and can be frustrating.
Level 4 is long and has multiple paths of various difficulty.
Level 5 is either very short or very long depending on how lucky you are.
Level 6 is very hard.

You can control one Turtle at a time. Not all Turtles are created equal though.

In terms of strength, the strongest Turtle is Donatello, followed by Raphael, Leonardo, and then Michaelangelo.
In terms of range, the longest weapon comes from Donatello, followed by Leonardo, Michaelangelo, and then Raphael.

Most of the time you will want to use Donatello because his weapon has the best range and is the strongest. You can also pick up a few ninja weapons, such as shuriken and boomerangs to help you attack enemies out of range. This is a nice addition.

But again, this game gets pretty tough pretty fast. If a Turtle loses all of his life, he gets "caught." You can rescue these Turtles on some levels, but if all four of you get "caught," the game is over. So you basically have four lives. But if Donatello gets "caught," your chances of survival become a lot slimmer.

This is a classic NES game with classic NES difficulty. The combat system seems more similar to Ninja Gaiden than to the other actual TMNT titles. Again, that's not a bad thing. But be prepared because this game IS different from the other titles in the series.

I've loved this game ever since I was a kid. For being a game for the NES, the graphics are decent and the music is fantastic. It is, though, one of those games I've never finished. You see, it is very, very hard.

The beginning of the game is easy enough, but there is a level where you must swim around and defuse bombs underwater. This stage is pretty difficult unless you have memorized where all the bombs are. As difficult as this stage is, the difficulty grows rather exponentially afterwards.

If you're a fan of classic games, you may as well pick this one up. If you like a challenge, it's good for that as well.

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" were a hot property back in the late 1980s. They had spawned a successful comic book series, a television show, three feature length movies, and other related merchandise. They were even featured in Pizza Hut advertisements.

So it was natural someone would feature them in a NES game.

Enter Ultra, a shadow company of Konami. Ultra was a subsidary of Konami and created for the sole purpose of publishing more NES titles than Nintendo allowed a developer to publish in any given year.

There was already an arcade game as a four player beat'em up released in Japan when Ultra released TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES in North America. Rather than do a port of that title, Ultra developed their own title. The arcade port would be released as TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II: The Arcade Game. Although billed as a sequel, the port of the arcade title had nothing to do with the original NES game, and had much different gameplay. Instead of four player, the NES TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES II had two player. Otherwise the game as largely identical to the original arcade title.

The game proved very popular back in the day. This video game would even appear in the 1989 NES commercial posing as a feature length Hollywood film called THE WIZARD. (Interestingly enough, Lucas ("I love the Power Glove. It is so bad!") is now a convicted felon due to sex crimes.) It's great to hear Beau Bridges complain about the Technodrome! It's even better to read Roger Ebert's review of THE WIZARD where he discusses the games as well.

The overall gamestyle is either top down perspective or sidescrolling, and this title uses both constantly and interchangeably, similar to ZELDA II, although there is more to do in the overworld perspective than ZELDA II..

The game features all four turtles as playable characters from the start. You are able to switch out any turtle at any time (provided they are still alive and have energy). Leonardo has medium range sword attacks. Raphael has the worst attack range but has the very powerful attack. Michelangelo has medium range and power but is the fastest turtle (and the best to use in the infamous water stage). Donatello is by far the best turtle to use due to his attack range and power, almost making the other three turtles obsolete at best.

Like previous reviewers have noted, the game strangely lacks any major enemy characters from the franchise, which is a rather strange omission given the fact Konami was marketing this product and kids obsessed with the turtles. For bosses, Bebop, Rockseady, Turtle Van, Blimp, the Technodrome, and Shredder are the only main characters from the franchise that make an appearance. Where is Krang (my personal favorite), Leatherhead, the Rat King, Casey Jones, etc? Nowhere to be found.

The game overall is short and brutal. You only get three continues. There are only six (long stages), but trust me, those stages will have you pulling your hair out at the end. Although there have been complaints about the controls, they are not THAT bad. The Angry Video Game Nerd has shown in his famous review of this title a spot where you must jump over a certain hole in the floor that you actually just run over. That is the exception, though, not the rule. Overall the play control is rather good.

Like several NES games, "TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES " features a stage notorious for its difficulty. "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is rather infamous for the water stage where you must guide the turtles through an insanely challenging swimming level where you must disarm explosives before the bad guys blow up a dam. TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES gives you 2:20 minutes to swim through this underwater labyrinth in an attempt to disarm the bombs. You must avoid water currents, electric beams, pink seaweed that is very difficult to avoid. Other stages that are difficult are Stage Four, the spiked wall sequence, and the final boss.

The difficulty and the length of this game was in line with other titles and these features were rather common in that era. Other famous difficult levels from the NES era are 8-3 from the original "Adventure Island", the "Battletoads'" racing level and snakes level, "Ninja Gaidens" 6-2 and beyond, and the Yellow Devil boss from the original "Mega Man". The games were just hard as balls back then and short. The length was due largely to the technology of the time

The reviewer who complained about the ending being "the worst" he has ever seen is rather laughable. It is a NES game, after all. Overall, the endings to NES titles were always rather lame. As far as the "worst", I would probably nominate GHOST AND GOBLINS, because after beating the game, you discover you have literally been tricked by Satan (!), and the only way to see the "true" ending is to go back and beat the game a second time. As that game is damn near impossible, this ending just adds insult too injury. How Capcom ever got Satan past Nintedo's censors (who wanted all religious content removed from North American NES video games) I guess we'll never know. Shigeru Miyamoto's 1983 DEVIL WORLD even went unreleased in the United States due to the title.

For availability, obviously you can get the game used for your NES or emulate (which may be safer for your controller, as you can save state your way through the more difficult sections). Nintendo also sanctioned the title's rerelease in the Wii's Virtual Console (the greatest invention in the history of mankind, if I do say so myself!), although TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES is 600 points rather than the standard 500 points for NES titles due to licensing issues.

Although now in the twenty plus years the game has been out, it has become favorable to blast the game for its difficulty and other perceived offenses (largely due to the AVGN review), it helps to remember that TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES sold over four million copies when first released, making it one of the most successful third party NES titles ever. Nintendo Power gave this game their Game of the Year award in 1989 as well.

Much like ZELDA II: THE ADVENTURE OF LINK, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES was a tremendously popular game, and much of the hostility present toward the title in the present gaming culture was not present back in the late 1980s (though this is probably more true of ZELDA II than TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ).

Although difficult and sometimes frustrating, this is one of the great NES titles. The video game website IGN rated this title as the 98th greatest game on their top 100 NES games of all time.

Near the late '80s, the Turtles franchise was taking off after starting out as a comic book series. The transition from comic books to the TV screen proved to be successful. After the excellent arcade game came out, Ultra Games (or Konami as we all found out afterwards) announced and then released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES. Of course, it sold very well based on the brand recognition but it divided up the fans when it came to who liked the game and who didn't. It was not a port of the arcade game but rather an original action game with open world game play elements mixed in. To this day, some called it a classic, while others called it average. I side with the latter as it could have been much better.

In this game, you take control of all four turtles from the get go. Each turtle has his own weapon, health bar and were able to use weapons such as scrolls, etc. You had to navigate through 6 stages with goals to complete before you were able to face the boss at the end of each stage. There were two views of action in the game: the top down, overhead perspective like Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and the regular side scrolling view where you walked from left to right and vice versa. There were weapon and pizza icons to pick up to help you along the way. If you died using a turtle, you start at the beginning of the stage with the next turtle available. The game did offer you a chance to "rescue" your turtle on some stages in certain places so as you were able to find him. When you die using all of the turtles, the game is over and you are allowed three continues before you start from the beginning of the game.

The PROS: The graphics were decent enough and the overall presentation is okay. The controls were easy to use as alternating between the turtles proved no problems to be had. The music was also pretty good to listen to. Ultra Games used most of the enemies from the TV show and added new ones to populate the stages. Several villains also made appearances here like Bebop, Rocksteady, Mecha Turtle and of course Shredder. You were given control of all of the turtles from the get go and had to manage their weapon count and health bars. This added strategy as you'll use a combination of them at certain points in the game. There are six stages in total and while it sounds like it's not a lot for a game, they were all rather long. Plus, it was incredibly difficult, which pleased some gamers.

The CONS: I borrowed this game from my best friend at the time and beat it in a week; the hardest week I ever experienced back then. Here's why:

Every stage had objectives to complete. Sometimes, you can use the map when you hit the start button and see the location for some objectives; others you were left on your own to find it. Second, the game never offered any hints so you had to roam the open world parts to find out which way you would go. Third, the game demanded precise jumping skills so it was common to try again and again to cross small and large gaps. TMNT had gained a reputation for being one of the most difficult games to beat (the underwater section in the 2nd stage, the spiked walls closing in on you in the 4th stage & facing off against the Technodrome in the 5th stage are examples of intense sections players had to pass through.) Finally, TMNT had one of the WORST game endings.....ever. The feeling I had after I played it every day for a week and then seeing it for myself was of disappointment and anger; I realized it was not worth it and never ever played it again.

Some players had fond memories of this game when they were younger. I didn't and while it was popular for a while, that didn't excuse it from the areas that needed work. The top down perspective wasn't helpful, the game didn't offer any hints as to where to go, you had three continues to beat the entire game and it was brutally difficult in certain sections that frustrated many players. Having one of the worst endings ever in a game was inexcusable and that was only seen by those who actually completed the game like myself. If you want an exercise in pain and also see a part of the Turtles history in games, you can download this title for the Wii from the Virtual Console for 600 points (US $6.00.) On the other hand, use an emulator because it's safer.

I took a trip down memory lane and decided it would be a lot of fun to show my daughter the TMNT game I played as a child. As soon as the game started all of my rage and anger from playing it as a child came right back. This game is a piece of hot garbage. Classic my shell. TMNT 2 and 3 are great! Don't waste money on this disgrace. Levels were terribly hard, control sucks, enemies spawn like crazy, and there are only 2 turtles worth a darn to play as. None of the enemies were ever used in the TMNT cartoons, figures, etc. The bosses and Turtles were the only recognizable bad guys. Crap!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES

How to approach it? First is the measuring stick. When determining what number of stars it should get, I think comparing to any non NES games is a mistake. In my mind this game can only be measured against other NES TMNT games first, other NES games with similar styles second, and finally, other NES games in general. Any other game, such as Sega, PS1, Xbox, WII simply should not compute. Some reviewers do this, I will not. My final rating is based on the three Categories of the NES games and put together to come up with a final product.

This game was the first of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game series that spawn other memorable hits, such as NES TMNT Manhattan Project, and SNES Turtles in Time just to name a couple. This game was created as part of the cash in on the successful TMNT TV series on CBS (and syndication in places) which literally forged an empire that was top of the cartoon world for almost a decade.

Since this game was both created to cash in the TMNT show, and made for kids, I get to come to the two weakest points.

1. For a cash in, this game was devoid of major Turtles characters that would permeate later games. Far as a TV TMNT fan, this game only features far as memorable characters, the 4 turtles, Master Splinter, Shedder, April, and Bebop & Rock steady. Other than that, you do see the Turtle Van, Blimp, and the Technodrome.

Looking at this game by itself you might say, that's plenty right there, consider the Manhatten project, that game possesses all the same characters at one point or another as I've mentioned, plus Krang, Dirtbag, Leatherhead, and many others, including from the TMNT 2 movie, Toka, Razar, and the Super Shedder. Compare that to this game? This game is definitely lacking in that respect.

2. This game is hard, no doubt very hard, now I saw without hiding arrogance that I've beaten this game without losing a single turtle once... but that comes from years of trying. This game is made for 5-10 year olds and as I said, this game is just brutal. However, it don't affect the rating too bad because NES games with a few exceptions, are generally very hard anyway. Even Super Mario Brother's 3 is hard, and that was a pure classic.

A previous reviewer referred to clunky controls, uh... yes and no. Generally for most of the game, the controls work fine, very responsive and very useful, both with laptop controllers and NES controller. But there is one exception famously noted by the Angry Video Game Nerd on his web series.

That is jumping, jumping is just brutally difficult, the problem lies in a flaw within the system, the same button that jumps, if you press harder is supposed to make you jump higher. Problem is that the variance between a small jump and a big jump is paper thin, just the slightest amount of pressure and you will over jump, which becomes a key problem with level three when you're trying not to land in the water below. It should be noted, that I've managed to negate this problem with laptop controllers, but no promises as a different brand might still struggle.

This game can be beaten without using Game Genie and walkthroughs. Both are points in its favor. Also, save states though very nice, you can get by without them. What you can't get by without in this game is health grinding. With an inordinate amount of enemies which change constantly, you'll find yourself constantly having damaged turtles needing health.

Thankfully, each level has a place to grind for health which is done so through Pizza's, even inside the technodrome. It is my opinion that a game should not REQUIRE grinding, even an RPG. A game should if needed be able to beaten without taking the extra time. However, there is no need to grind weapons as if you just save your boomerangs (which you can catch again) you can get through almost the whole game.

Finally, the levels, the difficulty is of a natural incline in nature, each level being harder than the last, and that's good, a natural flow which shows that the game had some good design work put into it. One exception is the ever so annoying bomb section.

In that section, your turtle (I recommend Mike as he's the weakest turtle) must disarm a bunch of bombs in two minutes. Problem is the level is filled with crap to kill you, rotating spikes, electro seaweed, the seaweed that sucks you down to instant death, the works. However, as noted for a youtube walkthrough, this becomes manageable because if you're running out of time, kill a turtle, and then go again; all bombs you've defused are still defused.

Finally, the bosses. The bosses are very unusual in difficulty, I'd blame faulty design (which I just got done praising) Bebop is a slug fest, decent enough. Rocksteady shouldn't even cost you health if you stand on top of crates (there are a few version of NES that fixed that glitch). The mechaturtle is difficult, and then turns into rocket man. Then you have the giant mouser... that's a late game boss that's way too easy in my opinion. If you want a challenge though, stay away from Don, cause for a turtle like Mike without weapons, that Mouser will be tough, whereas Don just stands under it and bashes it to death, or you use weapons from a afar to wipe it out.

The Technodrome is the hardest boss in the game, best I've done is about two turtles worth of health to beat it. Thankfully you can change Turtles in mid fight. Then the Shedder, Shedder is a mixed bag of difficulty. If you don't have don, or weapons, (boomerangs and Scrolls are the best) Shedder is a beast in this game, plus his gun is a one hit kill, but if you do have at least one the above, he's far easier, especially with scrolls, which you might not lose any health while fighting when using those.

Overall, this game is good for a NES era game. It uses top down on map and then side scroller in level area methods as found in Zelda 2 for the NES, which hasn't proved completely successful as a type of game. This game is fun, and it is a challenge, which is why it gains points in my book, but it's not perfect by any means. There are better games out there like TMNT 3 Manhattan project, but there also many far far worse like TMNT2 the bad copy of the classic Arcade game.