first game evur I think. my 4 yr old self rate 3 stars????????++ hæ
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.
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.
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.
"The metroidvania one."
So what do we really have here? You start off as Mikey. You're trying to find and rescue your brothers scattered throughout a large continuous environment. Each turtle has a unique ability that allows you to progress deeper through the labyrinth.
You get a complete map at the beginning of the game with areas of interest marked with a nondescript dot. Unlike Castlevania, you don't see doors marked on the map.
The player is left to make educated guesses about where to press forward, and this is my favourite design element. The maze is fairly simple to actually explore but seems vast from the map. Navigating without a guide is not difficult.
What is difficult, is the bosses. They move too fast. They are too big. They have too many i-frames. As you learn their movements and improve your reaction time, they are beatable but it's not enjoyable.
The turtles themselves are fun to control. You have an air kick, and a generic attack. As best I can tell the hit boxes are the same for all turtles. You aren't able to spam attacks, they have about a half second cool down period, so you need to be precise with your strikes like with a Ninja Gaiden.
Music is good. Enemies lack variety. It's no Metroid II but it's interesting and competently put together.
So what do we really have here? You start off as Mikey. You're trying to find and rescue your brothers scattered throughout a large continuous environment. Each turtle has a unique ability that allows you to progress deeper through the labyrinth.
You get a complete map at the beginning of the game with areas of interest marked with a nondescript dot. Unlike Castlevania, you don't see doors marked on the map.
The player is left to make educated guesses about where to press forward, and this is my favourite design element. The maze is fairly simple to actually explore but seems vast from the map. Navigating without a guide is not difficult.
What is difficult, is the bosses. They move too fast. They are too big. They have too many i-frames. As you learn their movements and improve your reaction time, they are beatable but it's not enjoyable.
The turtles themselves are fun to control. You have an air kick, and a generic attack. As best I can tell the hit boxes are the same for all turtles. You aren't able to spam attacks, they have about a half second cool down period, so you need to be precise with your strikes like with a Ninja Gaiden.
Music is good. Enemies lack variety. It's no Metroid II but it's interesting and competently put together.
I was totally not expecting this game to be a Metroidvania style game. First of all I had never heard of Radical Rescue and to be honest I didn't know the Game Boy had 3 TMNT games, I thought Fall of the Foot Clan was the only one. That aside, I only found it out through the Cowabunga Collection and it shows images of the game and I thought it was another side scroller brawler like the others, but the sprites were sized better. Nope, this is a TMNT Metroidvania and honestly it feels like TMNT (NES) done the right way.
I honestly really like the detailed sprites of all the characters including the turtles, it really doesn't look like it was reused from any of the past games, all the assets actually look brand new. The world is pretty open and there's health upgrades and stuff to find. It's not a deep Metroidvania by any means, but it's done quite well.
I'll admit I was a bit thrown off at the start of the game because you are forced to use Michelangelo due to everyone else being captured. My first thought was "Great..." until I jumped and pressed A again and found him spinning his nunchaku to slowly glide down to the ground. This! They got that from the cartoon intro and it's the reason he does it in future games! Honestly it was awesome to see. Each turtle has their own ability to help get through the areas, while none of them have any other difference of speed or power or anything besides Donatello having like an extra pixel of reach their difference lies in their newfound abilities.
The music is actually really good and again uses it's own songs only borrowing the main theme in spots, but everything else is brand new.
The difficulty sits somewhere between Fall of the Foot Clan and closer to the end hits like Castlevania levels of difficult, but all in all stays fun.
I highly suggest people play this game, it's very different and I think they were on to something, though it seems this was the last time they made this type of TMNT game, future ones would just be brawlers or regular side scrollers. Shame, this was amazing.
I honestly really like the detailed sprites of all the characters including the turtles, it really doesn't look like it was reused from any of the past games, all the assets actually look brand new. The world is pretty open and there's health upgrades and stuff to find. It's not a deep Metroidvania by any means, but it's done quite well.
I'll admit I was a bit thrown off at the start of the game because you are forced to use Michelangelo due to everyone else being captured. My first thought was "Great..." until I jumped and pressed A again and found him spinning his nunchaku to slowly glide down to the ground. This! They got that from the cartoon intro and it's the reason he does it in future games! Honestly it was awesome to see. Each turtle has their own ability to help get through the areas, while none of them have any other difference of speed or power or anything besides Donatello having like an extra pixel of reach their difference lies in their newfound abilities.
The music is actually really good and again uses it's own songs only borrowing the main theme in spots, but everything else is brand new.
The difficulty sits somewhere between Fall of the Foot Clan and closer to the end hits like Castlevania levels of difficult, but all in all stays fun.
I highly suggest people play this game, it's very different and I think they were on to something, though it seems this was the last time they made this type of TMNT game, future ones would just be brawlers or regular side scrollers. Shame, this was amazing.
Unplayability and without guide
Alex's Cowabunga Collection Marathon, Pt. 11 of 13
Radical Rescue has a LOT of potential as a concept. It's such a shame that we didn't get more TMNT games in this style! It's a thoroughly enjoyable Metroidvania with a couple of downsides. The main issue is the map, which is just boxes, with no doorways shown. This means that even though 4 or 5 rooms are touching each other, there may only be one way in or out of some of them, and if you were playing in 1993, you'd have nothing to do but trial-and-error your way through, hoping you don't get horribly lost. The second issue is how difficult some of the bosses are. The boss rush at the end followed by a tough-as-nails Shredder fight must have broken the spirits of countless kids in the 90s. If this game were to get an AM2R or even a Samus Returns, these are the only mechanics that would need updating.
Thankfully, if you're playing in the Cowabunga Collection, a detailed map is only a few button presses away at any given moment, and you can rewind or save scum your way through bosses if they're giving you trouble. Since that's how I played Radical Rescue, I had a fantastic time! Rescuing each of your brothers as Michelangelo is a much more unique premise than most of the TMNT games, and each turtle has different traversal ability, making each of them feel more specialized.
This is also (so far) the longest game in the Cowabunga Collection, which was a pleasant surprise. Everything else can be knocked out in about an hour, but this took me around 3 even while using the map. If you've picked up the collection just to play a few specific games, don't skip this one!
Radical Rescue has a LOT of potential as a concept. It's such a shame that we didn't get more TMNT games in this style! It's a thoroughly enjoyable Metroidvania with a couple of downsides. The main issue is the map, which is just boxes, with no doorways shown. This means that even though 4 or 5 rooms are touching each other, there may only be one way in or out of some of them, and if you were playing in 1993, you'd have nothing to do but trial-and-error your way through, hoping you don't get horribly lost. The second issue is how difficult some of the bosses are. The boss rush at the end followed by a tough-as-nails Shredder fight must have broken the spirits of countless kids in the 90s. If this game were to get an AM2R or even a Samus Returns, these are the only mechanics that would need updating.
Thankfully, if you're playing in the Cowabunga Collection, a detailed map is only a few button presses away at any given moment, and you can rewind or save scum your way through bosses if they're giving you trouble. Since that's how I played Radical Rescue, I had a fantastic time! Rescuing each of your brothers as Michelangelo is a much more unique premise than most of the TMNT games, and each turtle has different traversal ability, making each of them feel more specialized.
This is also (so far) the longest game in the Cowabunga Collection, which was a pleasant surprise. Everything else can be knocked out in about an hour, but this took me around 3 even while using the map. If you've picked up the collection just to play a few specific games, don't skip this one!
What could have been a fantastic game is severely hampered by shoddy, unbalanced boss fights. Technically impressive nonetheless.
This is my most played game on Game Boy along with Pokemon games. Great Metroidvania. Plus banger OST.
The last GB TMNT game turned out to be the best (sort of). In terms of control and look it's the best in the group, but everything else is just kinda blaaaaaaa. The game is a Metroidvania and you start with only Michelangelo having to go and find the other turtles. Each Turtle has there own power Miky can hover, Leo and drill, Raph can roll, and Don can climb up walls. to save each turtle, you need to beat a boss and get their key which will unlock the door where the turtles are in; the only problem is that everyone pretty much looks the same and the map isn't all that helpful.
I know this was Gameboy so of course theirs gonna be hardware limitations, but it got very tedious after a while.
Lucky the game is only 45 minutes long so I didn't waste too much time on this.
Also, the bosses are really cheap and way too hard, which doesn't help that by the end of the game there's a boss rush which makes you do it all on one health bar. Fuck that.
Overall pretty good, I'm still shocked at how all of the GameBoy games are better than the NES games.
I know this was Gameboy so of course theirs gonna be hardware limitations, but it got very tedious after a while.
Lucky the game is only 45 minutes long so I didn't waste too much time on this.
Also, the bosses are really cheap and way too hard, which doesn't help that by the end of the game there's a boss rush which makes you do it all on one health bar. Fuck that.
Overall pretty good, I'm still shocked at how all of the GameBoy games are better than the NES games.
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
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
No me esperaba que se influenciara de Metroid en cuanto a la estructura del mapa y upgrades opcionales para la vida, aunque sigue siendo bastante lineal. Empiezas solo con una tortuga y vas poco a poco rescatando a las demas. Cada una tiene una habilidad especial que te permite explorar zonas nuevas similar al primero para NES solo que mas en cuanto a movilidad y exploraciĂłn mas que solo combate y alcance. Me hubiese gustado ver otro juego de home console con estas ideas.
A great GB title. A Metroidvania that isn't too confusing but still is fun to explore and find new areas. Good graphics, music and controls. Overall this game is radical.
Played via The Cowabunga Collection
I dare say this is unfortunately the only TMNT Castleroid (at least to my knowledge), because Radical Rescue has some neat tricks up its sleeve for an original GameBoy release. Obviously, Radical Rescue plenty of technical limitations related to the hardware, and the expected gnarly difficulty at specific times (notably the final boss gauntlet).
That all being said, Radical Rescue is easily the best the TMNT had to offer on the original GameBoy.
I dare say this is unfortunately the only TMNT Castleroid (at least to my knowledge), because Radical Rescue has some neat tricks up its sleeve for an original GameBoy release. Obviously, Radical Rescue plenty of technical limitations related to the hardware, and the expected gnarly difficulty at specific times (notably the final boss gauntlet).
That all being said, Radical Rescue is easily the best the TMNT had to offer on the original GameBoy.
Mini metroidvania
A real breath of fresh air for early TMNT games as it is surprisingly NOT yet another brawler, but instead a competently put together mini METROID-style adventure where you rescue the turtles one by one and use their skills to open new areas of the the large, interconnected dungeon map. It's never particularly thrilling or challenging, and eventually you just explore the whole map and then it's over, but bigtime effort points for trying to do something a little different with the license for the first time since that abysmal NES game.
Radical Rescue is a very ambitious GB title. You have to give credit for that. It's a solid game. A metroidvania game that runs well and has a huge map with bosses and hidden items on the game boy!
The problem is I think it's too ambitious for what it is and what it's on. I played this game on the Cowabunga collection so that helped me with the map but the default map is kinda weak. Lots of places you think you can get to and then there is a wall. Looks like you can get there on the map but now you gotta back track and find a more obtuse way to get into that room you need to go. I can see a lot of people getting lost in this game back in the day with out a decent strategy guide. The difficulty of this game is rather tough too. It's fair but I think it's more punishing than it needs to be. Especially for a early handheld game. However this is a pretty strong game for the GB all things considered and it's quality is undenaible, plus you could do much worse.
The problem is I think it's too ambitious for what it is and what it's on. I played this game on the Cowabunga collection so that helped me with the map but the default map is kinda weak. Lots of places you think you can get to and then there is a wall. Looks like you can get there on the map but now you gotta back track and find a more obtuse way to get into that room you need to go. I can see a lot of people getting lost in this game back in the day with out a decent strategy guide. The difficulty of this game is rather tough too. It's fair but I think it's more punishing than it needs to be. Especially for a early handheld game. However this is a pretty strong game for the GB all things considered and it's quality is undenaible, plus you could do much worse.
A good TMNT game for the game boy!
I'm not sure what business anyone has calling them "Metroidvanias" when Radical Rescue had the format down well before Castlevania started doing metroid-ass gameplay. To be fair, Metroidvania is a better name than "Metrescue," and way less French-sounding to boot, which is never a bad thing.
Also, I've now played a lot of these retro TMNT games and it is my contention that the music in them, if it's not just the cartoon theme song outright, always sounds like Weird Al's "Dare to Be Stupid."
I'm not sure what business anyone has calling them "Metroidvanias" when Radical Rescue had the format down well before Castlevania started doing metroid-ass gameplay. To be fair, Metroidvania is a better name than "Metrescue," and way less French-sounding to boot, which is never a bad thing.
Also, I've now played a lot of these retro TMNT games and it is my contention that the music in them, if it's not just the cartoon theme song outright, always sounds like Weird Al's "Dare to Be Stupid."
I struggled with this quite a lot as a kid, I remember how I found the maps extremely confusing.