While I am sure that others had fun with this beat em up, I did not like it at all, mostly because some people said to me that after I played Shredder's Revenge, I should totally check this one out, because it is so much better.

Technical things aside, Turtles in Time is a very simple beat em up with cheap bosses and a lot of personality, thanks to the titular turtles. What makes this one a very "whatever" game for me, is that I simply cannot enjoy the fights and the bosses as much as the game wants me to enjoy them.

I am sure there are better TMNT beat em ups from the past, however, this one was not made for me at all.

Above anything else, Turtles In Time is a vibe. The time travel concept opens the door to a brilliant series of level motifs that, in conjunction with the expressive animation and beautiful pixel art, justify the forty minutes you'll spend on a run alone. I'm not a beat'em up expert so I can't speak to the depth of mechanics here (as I just button-mashed for the most part) but even that visceral experience is enough. Beautifully presented through the Cowabunga Collection, all that really dampens my enjoyment is that this isn't Shredder's Revenge. To my casual tastes in the genre, Tribute Games and Dotemu's spiritual sequel is just an even more successful take on this formula - one that isn't trying to wheedle quarter after quarter out of my pocket with spongy bosses!

Technically played via the Cowabunga Collection on Nintendo Switch.

Turtles in Time was a great arcade game that nailed that beat-em-up gameplay to a tee and a year after the arcade original came this port for the SNES featuring some extra new levels created exclusively for this version.

So if you're looking for the ultimate Turtles in Time experience this is most definitely the way to go as it's still a cracking little game indeed.

Virtualmente impecável e entrega praticamente tudo de melhor que um bom beat em up poderia oferecer.

Absurdamente bem otimizado e distribuído em todos os setores possíveis, você nunca sente que por estar em um console mais fraco em comparação aos arcades ele perca alguma qualidade significativa, além de se manter belíssimo esteticamente e encher os olhos com sua gameplay.

É simples e tão satisfatório ao mesmo tempo, ainda conseguindo ser desafiador sem deixar de ser instigante. Traz uma brisa tão refrescante que consegue até remeter a nostalgia de tempos que talvez nem vivenciamos.

This is probably THE Turtles game. Because when someone says Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game, nearly everyone will probably think of Turtles in Time. And rightfully so, because it's the next logical step after the NES and Gameboy games. Turtles in Time is a typical scrolling beat 'em up like Streets of Rage or Double Dragon. But with the colourful, cartoony world of the 90s Ninja Turtles. The gameplay is a bit button-mashy at times when there are many enemies on the screen. But then the game throws more and more a mix of different Foot Soldiers, Roadkill Rodneys, Rock Soldiers and so on at you, so you quickly start to prioritise which enemy type to clear off the screen first. Also, positioning in the depth of the screen becomes more and more important to dodge and plan your own attacks. The art style is clearly based on the 90s cartoon series and is bursting with charm. Many small effects and enemies not only run into the picture but ride up on horses, climb over fences or board ships. Sometimes you can even interact with the stage, e.g. explosive barrels or hydrants that shoot out water. The "medipack" is of course pizza and as a power-up there is even a bombastic pizza which makes our chosen turtle go berserk for a moment, making him invulnerable and attacking everyone around him. The stages themselves are wonderfully varied, not only because of the different time periods that take us to prehistoric times, on a pirate ship and even to the near future 2020 (!!!), but also because of little twists like surfing on a surfboard or racing on a floating platform over a futuristic motorway. Technically, too, the game is first class for a 90s SNES title. In the aforementioned Future motorway scene, for example, we ride with Mode 7 into the depths of the stage and suddenly the camera pans 90 degrees to turn the level into a sidescroller. Especially cool are the various bosses, which are taken from the series' roster, such as Baxter Stockman, Rocksteady, Bebop and of course many other well-known names. Here, too, the game has an incredible amount of charm, for example when Rocksteady and Bebop join the fight but only send one of them into battle at a time. When we have beaten one of them up enough, he runs whining to his buddy to push him into the fight instead of him. In purely audiovisual terms, the game is terrific. Despite the aforementioned diversity of levels and enemies, there are still a few complaints, as the game is still somewhat repetitive, and at least on normal difficulty, you can already see the end in about 30 minutes. But the feeling of fighting through hordes of enemies as your favourite ninja turtle (Raphael, of course!), swiftly dodging and putting a stop to the evil Shredder feels so damn good.

Never goes outta style! Charming, quick, and simple; people love this for good reason. Can’t stand Raph in it tho, he’s too fucking slow.

In 2-Player Co-op, we beat the game in under 30 minutes, It ends before it bores within the limited moveset. Levels never dragged on either.

I didn’t know, before this playthrough, that pressing buttons JUMP and ATTACK at the same time does a health chipping, ass kicking special move like in Streets of Rage. I pulled it off as Leo, surrounded by Mouser Robots, and sent each one flying into inferno. Cowabunga indeed.

Overall, the lean mean green machine is still quite pristine.

Pros: Whoa dudes, this arcade port is mondo bodacious, like, totally radical! Everything you love about the original, packed-in an SNES cartridge to play at home! For real though, this game rules, each and every stage has something unique, as the game takes place across several time periods. It shakes up the setting enough to keep the game feeling fresh. New moves like grabbing a foe with your weapon and smackin' em to the ground, back and forth, left to right, it's a satisfyin attack, another satisfying move shows off what the SNES can really do, and lets you grab enemies and toss them INTO THE SCREEN!! COWABUNGA!! There's even a stage from the arcade version that got an upgrade on SNES, the 'hover board' stage that takes place in the future, is now all F-Zero style Mode7. It's awesome! It's a complete leveled up experience from TMNT II and III on NES. There's even a 1v1 battle mode, and additionally, you can change your turtles palettes into the classic Comic Book/Toy figurine colors, complete with white pupil-less eyes! Wicked!

Cons: Still only two players here, not four, unlike the arcade version. Unfortunate, since the SNES multi-tap was a thing that existed, but maybe four on screen characters at once would've been too much for the SNES to handle... Either way, major bummer once again, bro! And once again, these types of beat-em-up games can get monotonous after a while, even with the cool new moves, new settings, and fun boss battles. Still, this one holds up better than most other beat-em-up games you'd find on the market at the time.

What it means to me: Surprisingly, as someone who grew up addicted to TMNT during the height of its popularity, this game somehow passed me and my brothers completely by. Didn't play it til the 2000s, crazily enough. Spent our childhoods playing the Sega Genesis TMNT Hyperstone Heist instead, which is essentially a watered down, but still excellent, version of Turtles in Time. Once I did play this one, yeah, I was all "oh right, this is awesome, can't believe I hadn't played it before". Because it is indeed, awesome as shell!