TMNT has a good presentation, but difficulty can turn off people unfamiliar with NES days.
User Rating: 6 | Gekikame Ninja Den NES
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) was one of Nintendo’s earliest hits, and it had a great line of sequels with the likes of Castlevania, Super Mario Bros., Ninja Gaiden, Double Dragon, etc. The game was originally released in 1989, and it is based on the popular late 1980s, early 1990s cartoon series, so naturally a lot of kids (like myself at the time) were attracted to it. The Shredder, the Turtles’ archnemesis, along with the Foot Clan have captured your news reporter friend April O’Neil, so in the first stage you must rescue her. After you rescue her, you’ve learned that the dam in New York will explode so you must disarm the bombs, and so on and so forth until your final confrontation with the Shredder. The graphics of the game were decent at the time. The Turtles looked good and the enemies looked ok as well. The overview of the game looked detailed at the time it was made. Everything looked decent. The music was also good, though it didn’t have the jubilant TMNT theme music, but the Boss Battle music added good tension to the action. Level 5 music was a bit dark, but it fitted there. The gameplay is what made the game difficult, so it takes time to get used to it. The jump you really have to time because, especially in the sewer, if you time it wrong, you will fall in to the river and start over from the beginning of a building. Tap the A button to make light jumps, and many times you’ll have to do it. In the overview mode, there is no jump, but be wary of the steamrollers because a single contact without the Turtle van will flatten you (get “caught”). A single standard hit from Leo, Mike, and Raph costs the enemies half a lifebar, while Don’s bo will take one full one. Each of the Turtles control their weapons in different ways: Leonardo basically slices, as is Mike’s nunchucks, but have a much smaller reach when doing it upward or downard. Raph’s sai is the shortest weapon. Don’s bo can only thrust sideways, up, or down, so it isn’t ideal for him to fight smaller enemies. You can also collect weapons to throw: ninja stars (1 or 3 at a time), boomerangs (max of 3 at a time), and the powerful scrolls. In Level 3, after destroying the first barricade with the missile via Turtle van, there is a big blue building you can enter to obtain the scrolls. Each collection is 20 each. If you want to progress the game easier, each Turtle must obtain 99 scrolls, because in the later levels, the enemies are unforgivably difficult, even with Don’s bo, it would take a lot of hits to kill your enemies. Once you get the scrolls, fall into the sewers to repeat the process until each Turtle has 99 scrolls.
Very few enemies are from the TMNT cartoons like Bebop, Rocksteady, the Foot Soldiers (although they absolutely look nothing like the Foot Soldiers), the Technodrome, Mousers, and finally Shredder. Others such as the firemen, the robot with the flying head, the frog, and the chainsaw men, are creations of the game itself, but they’re not necessarily bad. Krang is unforgivably absent. Enemies from Levels 5 and 6 (and oh, how I hate the purple jetpack men with the lasers) are undeniably difficult, so again, arm yourself with the 99 scrolls you were supposed to have to kill them. If you lose a Turtle in Level 6 (last level) you must start the level all over, and most likely, your Turtles are dying, so you’re screwed from that point on. You only have 3 continues so do be careful.
Frank Provo’s criticism of the ending can only be left up to interpretation since that can only exist in an alternate universe. Then again, the Joker dies in Tim Burton’s version of Batman, yet in the comics he lives on, so again you be the judge of the ending.
The game is still playable even after beating it the first time though it would be the same all over again. No second quest maps, no weapons remaining from the first game. You just start from scratch over and over.
Even with the superiority of the original arcade game, as well as Turtles in Time, and the Manhattan Project, this TMNT game is unique in respect that it’s the only game of this franchise that is a sidescroller. This is the only NES game that costs $6, which is a bit of a rip-off considering that the more superior arcade game costs $5 for the Xbox 360 (yes, I know that the 360 relatively costs an arm and a leg to buy, but that is no excuse to make an inferior version more expensive). But the difficulty of the game, even for diehard TMNT fans, can turn off a lot of people. If you’re a “casual gamer” you might as well save yourself the time to skip this one.
