the least infuriating and least boring tmnt game on gameboy
that said, its not great. theres a lot of backtracking through areas that look similar (though for any metroidvania on gameboy that feels like a given), and bosses just straight up feel like bullshit, i dont know how kids are supposed to do the boss rush at the end (without rewind lol), or how youre supposed to dodge shredders attacks. a tmnt metroidvania is a cool concept, especially with how each turtle has their own gimmick but in execution, its not all that great

I have played TMNT3: Radical Rescue for a number of hours (but still haven't beaten it 🥵).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue is an early Gated Exploration game developed by Konami and released in 1993. Michelangelo returns to the Sewers after getting some pizza for the gang, only to find that Shredder has kidnapped the other Turtles, April O’Neil, and Splinter. It’s up to Michelangelo to save everyone!

The player is tasked with exploring a labyrinth filled with enemies, obstacles, and bosses as they try to locate Leonardo, Raphael and Donatello, who are all locked in cells dotted around the map. The game play loop is as follows:

1. Use new ability to explore expanded environment
2. Locate boss
3. Defeat boss to acquire a key
4. Locate locked cell and use the key to
5. Save the next Turtle
6. Repeat

Each Turtle you save will allow the player to switch to them, and thereby use a new ability unique to each of the reptilian pizza lovers. Michelangelo can hover using his nun-chucks, Leonardo can drill down certain blocks using his katanas, Raphael can slip inside his shell to shimmy through small holes in the walls (morph ball cough) and Donatello can cling to and climb walls.

Radical Rescue was the first ever gated exploration game to feature a modern map system. By modern I mean, you can press START, switch to a view of the all the rooms in the game and see where you are and where each room is in relation to the next. You can also see points of interest on the map (denoted by black dots in the US and EUR version) to help you figure out where to go next.

Now, here is the thing, in the JP version, those dots are swapped out for a boss marker, a key card marker (they open smaller locked doors across the map) and the cell doors with the other turtles locked behind them. This makes the Japanese version soooo much less frustrating to play and the clear choice if you want to give the game a shot yourself. Having the map show how each room is connected to each other by way of door or ladder (like in Super Metroid) would have been a welcome addition but Radical Rescue is a very early gated exploration game, so I won't hold that against it. The decision to make exploration so much harder in the western version is completely baffling. I would have given this game 3 to 3.5 stars if the Western map system was the only one available - it's that frustrating! You can find my own article breaking down the differences in the Western and Japanese version's of Radical Rescue if you are interested. The article can be found via the articles section of my website (link in profile).

As far as the graphics are concerned, this features some of the best artwork in the licensed catalogue. The backgrounds are beautifully detailed, the animations are rich with personality and the cutscenes are absolutely fantastic. The music and SFX are top notch too.

The difficulty is going to be an issue for some people (myself included). The moment to moment combat is really fun with each Turtle offering a new fighting style but the enemy design can get frustrating in the cramped corridors at times. The Boss fights are equally fun and inventive with excellently crafted fights but yes, they too are extremely challenging. As I said at the beginning of the review, I still haven't beaten this one but it's engaging and well designed enough enough to ensure I will be returning to give it another go.

Sometimes I think handheld games are criminally overlooked when it comes to recognizing their contribution to innovation in game design and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue would be one of the prime examples in my opinion. After all, this particular game’s map system marked a considerable step forward in the genre and, more importantly, the game itself acts as a precursor to Konami’s own Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, literally the defining title in the Metroidvania genre.

Minor Introduction
And here we are, the final GB game and the one I was most interested to check out for one singular reason: it’s a metroid clone (not really metroidvania, since this came out before sotn). Yup! A TMNT metroid clone, so this should be fun. Welcome to my tenth review of the marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection and let’s jump immediately into it, cuz i’m very curious if they were able to pull it off or not.

First Impressions
Yep. They pulled it off. This is my favourite of all the GB games and it’s honestly amongst the most memorable of all the TMNT games, purely for having the balls to break out of the bubble and have its own take on a metroid game. Since this is still a clone of the metroid game formula during its developing stages (before it would reach a sort of pinnacle with Super Metroid), there are flaws here and there, especially on gameboy hardware, but they did a very good job with it and I loved my way through this game, start to finish.

Gameplay
The BASIC controls remain the same: jump, attack, movement and a jump attack combo. Where it differs is that this is used in a metroid formula, where the priority is the overall maze level and powerups you acquire through the level. For story reasons, you start as Michelangelo, who has one unique ability: Glide. It’s exactly what it sounds, it lets you glide after jumping. Over the course of the game, you’ll unlock three more powerups: drilling over certain terrain with Leonardo, this game’s equivalent of the morph ball to enter small spaces with Raphael and climbing walls with Donatello, each one of them with their own uses. The maze design does a good job of making each of them useful and progression feel quite natural, even while being nonlinear. I do feel Raphael’s unique power is more underutilized than the others (which is quite funny, since it’s the only one to copy the most iconic move from the metroid games), but it makes up by also making you almost invincible to enemy attacks, which becomes quite useful in sections where you want to descend super quickly. Outside of that, the rest are very useful throughout the game, whenever used as intended or used as shortcut or speedrunning options. The general design of the maze is also very solid for a metroid clone, each with their obstacles, methods of getting through, enemy placement and the whole package and it’s fun traversing them and finding quicker routes through the newly acquired powers. The enemy variety is also solid, but the bosses have to be a highlight. They’re probably some of the best that all the games have offered, with understandable attacks and patters, but with an added level of unpredictability to them, which adds to their challenge and tense feeling throughout the bosses (if you do happen to lose, the game has both continues and a password system to get you back in no time). They also replenish your health when you beat them, so they serve as great resources of health outside of pizza. Speaking of, the game also has its own hp bar increase collectibles, similar to metroid games, which are usually hidden in off-the-beaten-track paths that normally you would ignore, serving as neat little rewards for exploring and experimenting with the environment and your moveset. Simply put, I quite enjoyed the gameplay here a lot more than I was expecting, I thought they were gonna do a lazy man’s metroid with no effort, but I was proven wrong.

Story
Once again, the story merely serves as an excuse for the setting and why this game exists, but the initial concept and presentation of it is definitely better. This time Cyber Shredder kidnaps all the turtles, april and splinter…except for Michelangelo, who gets challenged from him instead to save all of them. The story progression after the fact is straightforward, but I appreciate that they present it better, with cutscenes and even dialogue boxes after each save for some turtle interaction, neat touches.

Presentation
And of course, this is the best looking TMNT game on the gameboy. The presentation jump isn’t as noticeable as going from first game to second, but it is still noticeable in its own way. The game runs smoothly as you would expect, the character sprites look very good and are an improvement over the second’s, the animation is also really good, as is the music. The backgrounds and environment work is also well-done. Generally well-done presentation work yet again.

Negatives
My flaws are related to this being a metroid format game on a limited hardware like gameboy, which leads to the classic “where the fuck do I go” problems and a map that doesn’t really help you, outside of showing how many total rooms there are, your location and which rooms hold important stuff…but the game never tells you what those important stuff are and where are the entrances, so you have to gamble a lot to figure out the ideal route….or alternatively look up a better detailed map (which the strategy guide on the cowabunga collection thankfully provides). While the difficulty of this game is actually perfect for the most part, there are still spots where the game likes to throw unavoidable attacks from offscreen just to chip a bit at your health, and the bat enemy ends up becoming quite annoying to deal with…there is also a boss rush at the very end, which was thankfully a bit more manageable cuz the game always replenishes your health to max when you finish a boss. These really are my only complaints.

Final Thoughts
Overall, this was a great send-off to the ninja turtles’s stint on the gameboy, with the most interesting installment in the series, one that experiments with a very unlikely formula and succeeds 80% of the way through. As long as you have a detailed map with you, you’ll have a great time with this game, I highly recommend you check it out. Final verdict: 8/10.