Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - In-depth NES Written Review With Pics

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

NES, 1989

Konami/Ultra
$43.95

*My video review for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
*Next article

*Previous article

*Alphabetical list of writings

"Did you beat the swimming level? I beat the swimming level! Isn't driving around in the Turtle Van cool?" The schoolyard banter of some tiny, but surprisingly capable, gamers. Seemed like everyone you knew with a Nintendo Entertainment System had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) in their arsenal of cartridges. In fact, it ranks as the eleventh best selling NES game, with four million units sold. Yet today many would have you believe it was an awful game that nobody liked, and nobody could get too far into. As is often the case with these tall tales designed for humor, a small amount of truth gets distorted, consumed by those who had little experience with said topic, and morphs itself into a perceived reality. 

^Whom will you choose? Guess what? You can play as any of them throughout the game!

TMNT was developed by Konami and released under their subsidiary, Ultra. Nintendo of America was strict in only allowing third party developers to release five games a year, and Ultra was created to get around that policy. You start the game with a bird's eye view overhead map showing your surroundings. There are dangers present in this view in the form of vehicles that can kill you in one hit, as well as foot soldiers that will attack and take away some of your health. I find the outdoor map interface to perhaps be the most impressive feature in the game.

For a bird's eye perspective I find it amongst the best in the NES library of games. Cobblestone roads, a quite pleasing blue for the water, some occasional green shrubbery or grass. There's enough of an angle to the view that you can even make out the depth of buildings. The use of this map allows a certain degree of non-linear gameplay. Some levels may be skipped altogether, while choosing to go through those not required may reward you with health (in the form of pizza, naturally), or other powerups like weapons. The different map areas start out with only minor deviations available, but later on you'll even find multiple ways to get to end locations. ^Map view and 1st couple of boss fights

Levels that can be played in a traditional side scrolling manner are indicted on the map by sewers and building entrances. In terms of difficulty some levels may be incredibly easy, where the end is reached by simply going up a ladder on a single static screen. There are long levels that span multiple floors and even multiple buildings, with massively hard platforming sections that might have you screaming with rage. TMNT features several quite famously difficult jumps, but you should have many chances to perfect them in a given run, as missing the jumps in question usually don't cause the death of your current turtle. ^Care for a swim?

There is a rather infamous swimming level in TMNT featuring a timer. I can still remember being a kid and losing all four turtles on this level, as well as my two continues. In two minutes and twenty seconds you're meant to disarm eight bombs in the Hudson River. Besides the time limit, there includes a couple of electrified obstacles that can quickly drain your health. Siphon out my health and energy it did, in terms of the game and perhaps in real life as well. But there came a time when it no longer did that, and the time was well before I was ten years old, perhaps in the five and six year old range. I can remember getting to the end of the level only to have found out I missed one or two bombs. Well, the next time I got the chance I took a different fork in the water, eventually I knew where all the bombs were, and figured out the best routes to take in order to get to them quickly. Ever since I first figured out that level a quarter century ago I don't believe I've failed it since, no matter how long since my last play.
^The Shred-Head took Splinter, get the van, hop some rooftops!

As a kid it was kind of a badge of honor to have gotten through that area, because friends were aware of it. But by no means was I the only one that managed that particular feet as a kid, and I have all the faith in the world that all of you gamers out there, now older and wiser, can pull it off as well. I now consider it one of my favorite areas of the game. "One of" does not denote the top spot, however, and my favorite area belongs to the one I spent the most time in, the streets of New York.

Were you having fun walking around on that lovely 8-bit overhead map? How about we take a ride in the turtle van? This was the area I strived to get to back in the day, it was awesome to putt around in the van on those streets. It also happened to be the most widely open area we have yet seen, with many forks in the road with different buildings to go through. While inside the van your turtles will not instant die when hit by another vehicle, but it will take a bit of damage in the same way an individual solder would damage you on foot. Solders will still be on the ground, waiting for you to splat them in your vehicle. The van also shoots bullets and can be loaded up with missiles you'll find through some of the platforming stages. You'll need them to knock out barricades that have been set up along the road, trying to keep you away from Splinter.

^The airport is a maze of levels, you can pet the dog in TMNT, off to get Shredder!

Bosses in TMNT are usually at the end of a given world and are typical of the system, in that you'll probably die several times until you figure out their basic patterns. Once you've figured them out, most of them will seem rather easy. They are always welcome changes and defeating them are sometimes rewarded with an in-game cutscene. There are also numerous "mini-bosses" located on normal levels, but I use that term lightly. It's more like a timeout on the level scroll while the boss music plays and you deal with a single regular enemy, with no extra health or attacks.

Once we get into the airport and Footclan areas things start becoming a tad unfamiliar with me. As a kid I managed to get all the way to the outside of the technodrome, where I was always swiftly taken care of by that giant boss. But I wasn't able to get there all too often, and by the time I did, health was in terribly low supply. The airport is the biggest area of the game in terms of the overhead map, though its levels are often on the shorter side. This is set up like a maze, which level do you choose to take? Will you just find your way to a dead end? There's genuine choice in figuring out the best route to take, as some of the paths will eventually lead you to the same place. The platforming is becoming increasingly more challenging, with even a couple difficult jumps over death pits.  ^It's nighttime, ready to face your fears?

I say death but the turtles don't exactly die when they lose all of their health. They are captured by the Footclan, and held hostage. You can find a captured turtle once per world, starting with world 3. They are always in the same building, but may be easy to miss for if you have all of your turtles, the area where one would be tied up will instead look rather normal to you. You'll have to explore when one of your members is taken from you, and attempt to memorize where they get sent to. So we essentially have four guaranteed lives, represented by each turtle. If you know where to get them once they are captured, you can have up to an additional three extra lives, with two continues.

Many who've played this game through will say that Donatello is the only one worth using, and to only switch to the others when you know you're going to get hurt. They all do actually have their uses, but you've got to play as them all in order to figure out what enemies pair best with them. I find Leonardo to be great for many of the early enemies because his katana is quick and can one hit kill many of them. Raphael's sai's come in quite handy with some of the later game enemies which he can one hit kill faster than Donatello. I've even seen Michelangelo do well with some of the enemies that duplicate themselves. Part of the reason why I enjoy this game is the fact that we get to play as all of the turtles in the same gameplay session. ^Inside the technodrome we find Shredder

The other games in the series are looked at much more fondly by fans, and perhaps even me. I'm not the biggest beat-em-up fan, and while those other games don't offer anything concrete to point to which make them stand out against anything else in that genre, I still get quite a big kick out of them. But I'm still quite happy this original game exists. It's amazing to find these unique gems in an NES library which often times is just copying from one or another game. They really did try to make this game something special, and to me it is just that, it is special.

Reviews of the time were not any more kind than people today. Seems the overall consensus is that it may be okay to even good, but it was nowhere near what they were expecting. Well, I ask, what were you expecting? I think they were expecting something they've seen before from others, instead they got something unique. History proves that when it comes to unique games on the NES, people don't take kindly to them. It's not a perfect game. It's certainly frustrating at times, but I am positive most people could proceed past the swimming level and have a good amount of fun with th is one. I will also guarantee that while I don't feel all too many will be able to defeat this game, because it is hard, I'll say that if you do manage that "feet", you'll be glad you did. I've defeated many hard games, and some of them don't always make you feel all that great at the end, I really did have a nice smile on my face when I managed to beat this for the first time.

If I can impart any advise to those hoping to defeat it themselves, it's to treat the final areas more like an RPG. Grind. Find a building or two that have the games best weapon, and go in and out of it until you've got all of your turtles stocked up. If health is running low, find a building with pizza and do the same. In the final foot clan area you're meant to search the sewers for the technodrome, and you'll be faced with the games toughest regular enemies along the way. Where the technodrome is will be determined randomly of three possible locations. So if you don't find it, go back and restock on supplies. Once you make it inside the technodrome, believe me, while those weapons will certainly help you, I still managed to die countless times attempting to figure out the best way to approach the final level.

I also give mad props to the end screens, how often have you seen a video game willing to end the entire franchise for the sake of a good ending? It certainly went on, despite this concrete conclusion, but I was quite shocked to see that. This game has more of a resolution to the Turtles saga than any other media. If you want to get a turtles experience and feel a true resolution at the end, this might actually be the best thing to turn to. I hope everyone will check out my video review where I give some more opinions and even go into a reading of a couple pages from the manual, as well as reviews from when the game was new. Readers of this article may also be interested in my article or video for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist for the Sega Genesis.

*My video review for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
*Next article

*Previous article

*Alphabetical list of writings