Heroes on the half shell? More like heroes on the whole shell!!!
There isn't really a "main menu" in this game per se, you start off at the main title screen. If you let it sit there for a short while a sequence of cutscenes will eventually play describing the story behind the game, showing Shredder capturing April O'Neil and then of course the Turtles response to it. Anyways, to get started just press the Start button at the title screen and you will then be taken to the configuration screen, where you select your two main game options. The first option you need to decide upon is what stage you want to start at. There are five total stages in the game and you can start at any of them. If you start at the third stage for example, you don't have to go back and play the first two stages, you just continue on and play the final three stages of the game. So if you wanted to beat the game really quickly I suppose you could just start at stage 5 and be done with it! Anyhoo, the other option you need to decide upon here is your button configuration. There are two schemes you can choose from which basically just see a swap of functions between the A and B buttons.
When you confirm the two options I mentioned above you will then be taken to the character select screen, where you will pick which turtle you want to control for the upcoming stage. Your choices are four of course, including Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo, and Donatello. When you complete a stage you will then be asked to choose which character you want to control for the next stage, so you don't have to use one single character for the entire game, you can switch things up. If you are defeated at some point in the game that particular Turtle will be captured by your enemies and will then be greyed out from the character select screen, no longer available. Anyways, once you select the character you want to control you will then be taken straight to the game action. Like I said there are five total stages in this game, here is a brief description of each:
Stage 1 starts off in the alleyways of New York City. As you proceed through them you'll have to face a number of Foot Soldiers as well as these weird flying mutant things. Eventually you'll head down in to the sewers and be forced to square off against more Foot Soldiers, some Mousers, some bats, as well as avoid rolling oil drums that come barreling through. Eventually you'll pop back up on to the streets of New York, battling more Foot Soldiers, flying mutants, and having to avoid these huge motorcycles with Foot Soldiers riding triple! Finally you'll head back down in to the sewers to eradicate more Foot Soldiers, Mousers, and this time avoid big bits of debris that fall from the ceiling. At the end of this last sequence in the sewers the level's boss lays in wait, and the boss in question is . . . Rocksteady, toting a machine gun!!! So funny . . .
Stage 2 is a bit of a shorter one. It begins in the sewers, possibly from where things leave off at the end of Stage 1. This section of the sewers is a little more complicated though as it has more environmental objects throwing kinks in to your plans, including rolling oil drums, falling debris, and giant pumping pistons. Along the way you'll do battle with many Foot Soldiers as well as those flying mutants. Eventually you'll come to a more industrial section of the sewers, where there are pits to jump across that feature these bizarre flaming head creatures flitting about. At the end of this section of the sewers comes the stage's boss, and of course this time around it's Bebop, who's carrying some manner of sonic blaster gun.
The shortest stage of all is Stage 3 though. You start off on top of a big rig cargo truck, rolling along the highway at full speed!! You then have to make your way from roof to roof over a convoy of these trucks, all the while having to fend off the hordes of Foot Soldiers who are on the prowl. A few of the Foot even fire cargo at you straight off the back of the trucks! You'll also have to deal with some of those flying mutant creatures as well. It isn't long in to your journey over the convoy when you'll find the stage's boss perched atop one of these trucks. The boss this time around is Baxter Stockman, otherwise known as "The Fly"!
Stage 4 is actually a water based stage, you start off at the mouth of some river or lake, trying to stay afloat by jumping across the logs that come floating by. Attacks from Foot Soldiers and flying mutants will hamper your efforts somewhat, however! Eventually you'll be forced to plunge in to the drink, making your way to the bottom of the lake. As you traverse the lake bed you'll engage a good number of piranhas, as well as have to avoid some detritus that keeps falling through the water. After getting out of the lake you end up in some sort of swamp area, as you traverse it more Foot Soldiers and Mousers attack, plus you have to avoid some weird orb organisms, rolling oil drums, and falling debris. At the end of this sequence comes the boss of the stage, none other than the Shredder himself!!
Finally, Stage 5 starts you off in a big hallway within the Technodrome. Right off the bat there is a lot of action to deal with as Foot Soldiers and Mousers are on the attack, there are new tiny enemy rocket ships to deal with, plus there are these laser beam generators shooting out of the floors and ceiling that you must exercise caution with when crossing. Those robots that ride on one wheel and shoot out an electrified whip also eventually show up on the scene, further complicating matters! Eventually you'll move in to a smaller hallway within the Technodrome where you'll face more of the same enemies as mentioned above, the only thing new are these rolling towers of spikes that you need to jump and duck to avoid, attacks don't affect them. At the end of this hallway waits the final boss of the game, good old Krang tucked away in the control room, and he's not happy to see you!! After you defeat him the game shows a final cutscene of the Turtles freeing April and saving the day . . . GAME OVER.
As you make your way through this title there are three types of hidden bonus games that you can play. These bonus games are usually tucked away in the nooks and crannies of the game stages, areas that you wouldn't normally traverse. When you do happen to find one of these areas your Turtle will flash for a few seconds before being taken away to play the bonus game in question. The objective of the first bonus game is to "hit six targets". A screen will come up with a set of targeting reticles in the middle, soon some black orbs will start shooting across the screen from random directions. Use your targeting reticles to aim at the orbs and then blow them away! I believe there are about a dozen orbs in total that you can shoot at, but you simply have to hit six of them to complete the bonus game.
The second bonus game tasks you to "guess the correct number". A screen with Splinter's furry mug will come up, beside him are ten slots where you can input a number between 1 and 1000. When you confirm your guess Splinter will tell you whether the number in question is higher or lower than your guess, you use his hints to try and guess the correct number within your ten opportunities.
Last we have the "leave one remaining" bonus game. A screen with Krang's ugly mug will come up, below him are three rows of throwing stars, a row of 5, a row of 4, and then a row of 3. You take turns removing any number of throwing stars from any of these rows, the player who is able to leave one throwing star remaining wins! These three bonus games aren't just for fun, if you successfully complete any of them your health is fully restored as your reward, so there is a purpose behind them.
The game screen isn't too complicated in this title. In the lower left corner you will see your life bar, which is filled with eight dark squares. As you take damage these squares will disappear, once they run out totally your Turtle is captured and you have to restart the level with a different character. In the bottom right corner of the screen is your current point total in the game. When you face the boss of a stage your point total is temporarily replaced by your enemy's own life bar. Similarly there isn't much to look out for while you make your way through this game, the only items you'll come across from time to time revolve around pizza. A slice of pizza will restore your health by two squares, whereas a full pizza will restore it by four squares.
As for the game controls, they're very simple as befits most original GameBoy games!! Pressing left and right on the directional buttons moves your character through the stages. Pressing down on the directional buttons makes your character duck. As for the A and B buttons, they are your jump and attack buttons, just assign them the way you prefer in the configuration screen before you start your game. Tap the jump button to do a small jump or hold it down to do a high, flipping jump. As for attacking, when you press that button your character will attack using his particular weapon. If you duck and then press the attack button he will let loose a throwing star, and if you jump and then attack he will perform a jump kick. And that's it, pretty sparse!
The game's presentation is really, really good. Of course on the original GameBoy the graphics were always pretty basic in essence and lacked colour, but some games rose well above and beyond the others, and this is one of them! The graphics in this game, particularly the way in which they brought the Turtles and their various enemies to life, is top drawer. The game environments were also well done, and the small amount of cutscenes were an added bonus. The game controls are pretty simple like I said, and thus respond just perfectly. The sound is awesome. There is some original music that plays during the game menus, but during actual gameplay there is a Nintendo-ized version of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song playing, and I could listen to that all bloody day!! The sound effects are also really good. It's a very pretty game, what can I say?
In terms of the pros and cons to this game, the pros vastly outweigh the cons. First, the game's presentation, like I mentioned, was fantastic at the time for an original GameBoy title. The way they bring the whole world of the Turtles to life was is just amazing. Also, at the time there were no TMNT games available on the GameBoy, so this came along at just the right time and satisfied all of the nerds like me out there's thirst for portable Turtle gaming! Back then there wasn't really any "unlockable" material in games, but the hidden bonus games in this title kind of pointed in that direction, very innovative. The only con to this game is it's length as it is very, very short. But like I said when I opened this review, they sure pack a lot of fun and adventure in to what they gave us.
I don't really have any tips or tricks to offer on this game, if you need help beating it than you really shouldn't be gaming in the first place!! The only hint I can give is for one of the bonus games, in particular the "guess the correct number" game. After you enter a number as your choice and Splinter tells you the actual number is smaller or bigger than your guess, he actually means the opposite of what he says. So if he says bigger, guess smaller, and vice versa. I usually start with 500 as my first guess, if he tells me it's "smaller" I'll then guess 750, and so on an so forth until I get the right number, usually on the last try.
So there we have it! Overall this is a really well done game, with great presentation and some innovative elements, enough so that it's short length hardly puts a dent in the fun. Go green machine!!!