As far as quarter-munching arcade beat-em-ups go, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles '89 is one of the better ones. I would argue that among the "Konami licensed beat-em-up triumvirate" (just made that up) it is overall much more fairly designed than the likes of X-Men and The Simpsons. What I mean by that is, beating this game by yourself or maybe even friends to further confuse boss AI is possible to achieve with only perhaps 2 or 3 dollars worth of continues. Of course, that's if everyone involved is trying their best to understand the mechanics, or at least the i-frames the enemies are granted almost constantly.

The graphics were also pretty impressive, and captured the essence of the cartoon it's based on very well. However, as I mentioned before, fighting enemies can be cumbersome and their i-frames to ensure you can't absolutely trounce them with your mashing is annoying to say the least. I understand the notion, I just think the designers could've provided challenging beat-em-up gameplay in a different way. Although I can't even make suggestions that would've worked in the late 80s, I'm sure they were pushing limits with how much this game provided. Perhaps the enemy count couldn't get too high before things go internally haywire. Boss fights also amounted to quick 'touch-and-go' strategy, lest you get pummeled by their devastating attacks.

Overall, it's a fun game to learn and tear apart if you're willing to do so, perhaps even a good place to start you're trying to figure out the beat-em-up subgenre, but I think most remember it for just mashing buttons with friends for a good 5-10 minutes. Like many did in their popular arcades, or even Xbox Live back in 2007. There were pretty much random games happening all the time you could hop into at an instant back then. It was magical.

Given the choice between Konami and Capcom arcade brawlers, I will almost always take Capcom. I'm not good at either, but Capcom beat-'em ups have a lot more complexity to them, while Konami beat-'em ups tend to be fairly straightforward and basic with little mechanical experimentation.

The original TMNT Arcade is the poster child of that for me - just a very standard belt-scrolling beat-'em up where there isn't much to do but use the same two or three attacks on similar enemies across multiple levels. Maybe I'd get more out of this if I had any attachment to TMNT or if I'd played with friends; I do not and I did not. All that left me was endless Foot Clan guys and cheap bosses (giving the final boss an honest-to-goodness insta-kill is dastardly).

This 1989 classic is made for the arcade halls and it shows. It looks gorgeous, is full of details and the soundtrack kicks ass. But this machine is made for devouring your hard-earned quarters and the game plays accordingly. Even the regular foot soldiers are a severe threat either because the game throws many of them in your way or because the hit detection is pretty wobbly. In fact, the whole game feels imprecise. It doesn't feel like you are hitting an enemy. There is no real impact. Also, it feels like you have to be right in front of them but they can hit you slightly above or below you. And then most of them hit back without a real pattern that you can learn and anticipate. Same for the stage bosses. They look cool and just like in the SNES and Genesis games have a lot of charm. But you never really know how to get out of combat because they will throw a punch or a kick at you. At least the enemy throwing looks so satisfying. But also here I am missing a certain noticeable punch to it. The regular enemies and stages look awesome too but it misses the variety of Turtles in time. The fun of the game here comes entirely from the design and style of the Ninja Turtles setting. There are rarely any real tactics due to the spongy hit detection. If you want more beat 'em up turtle action, take a look here. Fortunately, with MAME you don't need real quarters any more. Also, I bet it is a lot more fun when you play with friends.

A kind of mediocre beat em up that made a ton of money way back when. It took me $9 worth of continues to beat.

Pros:
pretty great art
very faithful to the show
plays decently
Helped to bring back arcades for another decade along with final fight and double dragon, which were starting to have issues at the time.
Indirectly lead to street fighter 2 being created.

Cons:
A real quarter sucker
Fairly bland unless you really love the tv show
That awful side art
Generally impossible to defeat normally without continuing a ton

Turtles in Time is better in every possible way but this is still a fine arcade game and I don't regret the 30 minutes.