Minor Introduction
Welcome to the penultimate review of this marathon, courtesy of…wait that won’t work here. Courtesy of itself? Well, whatever. Today it’s gonna be a rather different type of review. We are going to be checking out the cowabunga collection AS A WHOLE. I have already reviewed the games contained here, but what does the collection itself do beyond just game bundling to warrant itself a purchase? For all you know, the games could be emulated or look like shit. Due to the fact that i’m reviewing the collection as a whole, rather than the games themselves within it, this review will be a bit different and structured differently as well.

First Impressions
This very much falls in line with other Konami collections of their beloved franchises in regards to effort…in that this is also a quality collection. Everything you expect with a Konami collection is here and it’s the perfect gateway to get people into the beloved ninja turtles videogames, all for a great price at launch and especially a banger price nowadays that it gets more discounts.

Content
The collection is simply stacked. We have a whopping 13 games included, taken from the entire history of the turtles in videogame format across the big platforms, from the arcades to the snes. Those games are the two arcade games, the NES trilogy, the GB trilogy, all three tournament fighters ports, as well as the legendary snes version of turtles in time and genesis’s hyperstone heist. But of course, that clearly isn’t enough, so the collection also goes the extra mile of including all the covers and manuals to inspect (and even the fucking game magazines and strategy guides that were made for the games), all the soundtracks to enjoy separately on the cassette player (they appear as cassettes in-game), all the concept arts for each of the games, the comic book covers for the comic serials of the era up to the IDW stints and even…screenshots of EACH EPISODE of EACH SEASON of EACH CARTOON, from the classic 80s cartoon to the recent rise of tmnt. It probably also includes more deepcut stuff that I have either forgotten or not seen, but STACKED is putting it very lightly. It is a whole ass fucking museum of videogame goodness for the turtles, all preserved in one blu-ray disc for the player to consume on their console with their cash. Just by content alone, it more than justifies the price, but of course, how does the execution fare?

Performance
This section details how the games perform here. Firstly, they’re all emulated. This is to be expected, since they’re being mass-released to platforms that were never built to authentically run these games, which were built on 30+ year old chips. However, is said emulation good? Well…yea it is…for the most part. They did well with the emulation, the games all look faithful and run at 60fps. Some games lag here and there due to the overabundance of in-game effects, but it is consistently smooth performance over all (and the lag tends to be from the game itself, rather than the emulation). Each of the games also get QoL additions and enhancements, courtesy of the emulation method. You can choose between 4:3 aspect ratio, go full (which is still 4:3, but a big more magnified and still clear quality) or lose respect for yourself and go STRETCHY mode. You can enable the custom borders (which all look great btw) or disable them, as well as enable scan lines from CRT or not, if you want to be faithful. There is also the ability to save state for each game, which becomes a godsend for some games that were specifically designed to pad themselves with sheer bullshit (it is morally right to spam save state your way through TMNT 1 NES). You even have the option to toggle what region version you want to play for each game (whether it be JP, NA or PAL mode), which is a great extra detail (The covers also change to their respective region covers, nice touch). Each game also has a specific enhancement toggle in the options menu, which exists solely to address one specific aspect in each game that can become an annoyance later, (one such instance is a toggle to turn off the ability for the enemies to come out of nowhere and toss bombs at you in the first arcade game) or to immediately unlock a in-game feature that otherwise needs you to progress in the game to unlock it (one example here is a toggle to immediately unlock desperation moves for use in the story mode of tournament fighters). The games also have strategy guides, containing helpful tips or information about enemies and levels, which are very useful and helpful for certain games (the strategy guide of Radical Rescue has the entire map in detail and with markers, which is insanely helpful since that game is a metroidlike game) Hell, you have a fucking watch mode that contains a playthrough of each game, with the option to immediately jump into playing at any point of the playthrough. The sheer amount of enhancements, little features and QoL improvements with each of this games, all in the name of making the games as accessible as possible for everyone to even dig into the deepcut contents of each game and play as they please, is absolutely great! Some games also have online multiplayer…but the execution is rather sloppy. I’m not sure how it performs now, but when I played it, the online was simply inconsistent and all over the place, regarding connection and lag, which is quite a huge shame. Speaking of lag, this collection unfortunately also suffers from a common issue regarding these konami collections…noticeable input lag. The patches thankfully have fixed it (because it used to be even worse), but I could still notice some very minor input lag, which varied between games. These two main flaws are something to consider, but outside of them, the games’s emulation and their new features are absolutely great to have!

Presentation
This section regards how all of this content is presented to the player. After all, it wouldn’t be as enjoyable or interesting to browse through the contents, if the menu was a lazy unity or unreal engine default setting UI or some shit like that. And i’m glad to say the presentation is catchy! Right from the get-go, the collection opens with that iconic ninja turtles opening, recreated with new animations and vocals and it is just amazing! You are then greeted with a banger title screen with new artwork of the cast, all while the background music is the rocking sewer music of the 2003 tmnt game on ps2! It’s a stellar first impression of the game, but the best presentation has to go to the turtle’s lair. That’s the menu where you will find all the other contents that aren’t the games themselves, and each of those content is displayed in a recreation of the turtles’s lair, scattered around like adventure trophies or everyday items they use. It is both immersive, making you feel like you’re delving in this den that has seen decades of adventures, as well as a cool and playful way of displaying said contents. Of course, the menu to select them is straightforward down below, so you don’t omit convenience for the sake of the presentation. The same attention is applied to the main game menu, where you can select each game. Each game in the selection screen displays their cover (or even arcade booth), name, platform, the number of players that can play at once, as well as a preview of the game you’re going to select. It perfectly communicates all the necessary information in a quick and catchy way. Attention has been given even to the UI animations, sound effects and typefont for the menus. It all goes to show how much the developers of the collection cared to present all this content in the best and most beloving way possible, without sacrificing the convenience of simple menu selects. It’s top-tier presentation all around!

Final Thoughts
Overall, this collection is simply a must-own. It could very easily be a 9 or a 10/10 with the amount of content present, how great they perform and how said content is presented in a way that catches the eye and doesn’t sacrifice convenience and quick access. However, its two sole flaws (inconsistent online and minor input lag) happen to be glaring ones, so the score will stay where it is….which is to say, it is still a high recommendation! Final verdict: 8/10!

Minor Introduction
And there we are, the finish line! The final game i’m playing from the collection, with only the collection itself and shredder’s revenge remaining for this marathon. Welcome to the thirteenth review of the marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection! And now for the list, it’s the supposed best version of the ninja turtles’s fighting game stint: tournament fighters! Is it gonna be good or underwhelming? Let’s find out!

First Impressions
Finally, after playing two ports of varying degrees of quality, i’m now playing the actual GOOD one! This is such an underrated fighting game. Tournament Fighters doesn’t do anything new, nor does it carve its own path from the competition, but it absolutely works as a spin-off from the usual beat’em’up TMNT games of before and it is really fun on its own! Is it a street fighter 2 clone with a tmnt skin on top? Well yea, but it does more than just be a shameless no-effort street fighter clone.

Gameplay
The actual fighting portion is really good. This is the one part where it might feel a bit more basic than street fighter 2, but that’s not bad by any means. There are still plenty of unique, if a bit tough to execute moves for each of the characters of the roster to go through (whoever came up with the “charging” part for some of the moves, I hope you choked on cereal for breakfast one day…and then recovered of course!) and it is fun to try and string these moves together in a combo, which is also far less clunkier to do. It also helps that the combat is more fast-paced than genesis or nes. The game takes advantage of the snes controller, since this game has more combos and moves present than other ports, allowing for more gameplay variety. The roster is also pretty good. I wouldn’t put it above genesis for the characters (the lack of april and casey jones is very noticeable), but it gets bonus points over the genesis version for a higher character count and a more balanced roster overall…not to say all the characters are fully balanced, some characters are definitely better than others in many regards, but it’s definitely not as broken as genesis or nes which had 1-2 characters that worked stupidly well against everyone. The stage selection also is great, thanks to all the locales being really pretty and distinct from one another (it also does the sf2 thing of adding some background activity and energy, which helps in making the locales feel even more alive). The single player offerings are far better than genesis and nes. There is a story mode, with the usual fights against CPUs as you progress through the story. The CPU during the fights is also much easier than genesis..it will still kick your ass as you go on and it very much is still that 16-bit FG difficulty progression, but it’s more tolerable than the bullshit garbage of genesis. There is also the tournament mode, which has specific character endings for everyone in the roster, as well as a fun little side-story with april narrating the tournament and more over-the-top quips after winning a fight with the character of your choice. It encourages replayability and it is a great mode. Then there are the 1v1s with your friends, which is very fun to play…against your friend of course. And there is also a watch mode, which is basically customized cpu vs cpu fights that you can make (your very own powerscaling simulator!). Great single-player variety all things considered.

Story
The story is less cooler than the genesis’s galaxy trip story, but it is still fun and has the best story presentation of all three ports. Karai kidnaps april and splinter, so the turtles have to fight across the entire US in their turtle blimp, to collect information to finally track them down, save them and defeat Karai. The strongest point of the story is the cutscenes and character exchanges before each fight in the story, which are both very fun to watch, due to the turtles’s RADICAL personalities, and gives instantly quick information about why is the fight even happening. The fact the tournament mode also has its own sidestory and endfight text boxes with over-the-top quips from the character of your choosing is a big plus towards the story side of this game as well. It all combines for a very fun traversal through this straightforward story and I just simply loved it!

Presentation
The presentation is top-notch. The sprites are great, both for the characters and especially the background work (with all their details and background interactions, taken from sf2), the animation is energetic and snappy for all the movement options, the colorful artstyle is pretty and vibrant, and the music is great. It just checks all the boxes and doesn’t skip a beat, it is honestly amongst the prettiest TMNT games up to that point and it still looks great today!

Negatives
My main flaw rather stem with how it compares to other fighting games…in that it really doesn’t. Its mechanics are not as fleshed out as the flagship FGs of the era, so it doesn’t make for a proper substitution or competition to an actual FG. You aren’t playing this game for its mechanics, you’re playing it cuz it’s an FG with the ninja turtles and that’s a big distinction. The feeling of it copying many aspects of street fighter 2 as a foundation are also still present. It manages to get away from that, cuz it goes beyond just a tmnt coat of paint, but its fleshing out of the mechanics never goes above just the vibe of the devs working with it being a spin-off first and foremost, rather than its own amazing game, which is somewhat of a shame, but understandable.

Final thoughts
Don’t let that distract you from the fact that this game is still worthy of your time and an overall great spinoff in this series. It’s easily the best of the three ports and it’s not even close. I wouldn’t play or prefer it over something like a mortal kombat or street fighter of its time, but I also wouldn’t mind and even have a lot of fun if I was playing this game instead. Comes highly recommended for any tmnt fan and I will even suggest it to FG fans! Final verdict: 8/10!

Minor Introduction
Uhhhh do I have to? Do I have to play this? Why am I even asking, I already played it if I’m reviewing it here. Welp, here we are. Welcome to the twelfth review of the marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection! And for this review, we have…this monstrosity. I am genuinely not looking forward to it, since I have heard nothing but bad things about it, so let’s just wrap it up quickly.

First Impressions
What the fuck is this? No seriously, what the actual fuck is this? You would think that for a 16-bit system, the game would at the very least be better than the goddamn 8-bit NES version, but no this is actually WORSE than that! How do you even manage to fuck this up?!?! There are some mild praises to be had here and there, but it is genuinely as bad as you’ve heard, with its only salvageable praising mark being “atleast it’s not NES TMNT 1!” …let’s just mention what makes this game stick the landing in a pile of shit head-on. Considering I have way more criticism than words of praise, the dedicated flaws section will be omitted from this review.

Gameplay
I want to start first with what I think are the things this game either does right or better than NES version. The roster is honestly the best of all three games, by actually having most of the recognizable tmnt characters (the usual four turtles, april and casey jones) alongside one less-known cut (Ray Fillet) and a fully original character for this version (Sisyphus)…tho this all comes with the omission of shredder who appears in snes and nes version. The stage selection is also very good, featuring some distinct locales and settings (taking full advantage of the galaxy trip story of this game), albeit not as pretty or unique as snes, but far better than nes selection. I…uhhh…have nothing else to praise about the gameplay here. The actual core fighting is really clunky. Gone is the fast pacing and more natural combo stringing of snes and even nes to a degree, and instead we have this slow and janky combat, where stringing combos together is rather rough to do (as if doing the combo on its own isn’t already bad enough here), even with the speed and power settings turned to max. The controls are also…not much of an improvement over nes. You would think that the addition of one button would at the very least guarantee a better combo system, as there are better opportunities to implement an additional attack or new combos, but instead that’s used for taunting…which basically does nothing….yay. Ok that’s not completely true, you can use taunt in conjunction with the d-pad to perform a powerful special attack that can only be enabled when you’re close to dying…but also couldn’t they just implemented that with a two-button combination NES style and used the third button for other intricate combos? Oh yea, the special attack taunt combo is also never once mentioned to you, neither by the game nor the manual, so you have to find it in a stroke of luck…absolutely brilliant. In a console that’s already known for not being a good platform for fighting games due to its base controller, this is just rubbing salt on the wound. The single-player offering is also underwhelming. The tournament mode is fucking useless, as it omits the character-specific endings entirely from snes, so it’s just a 1 vs CPU mode without any fancy bells or reason to go for it. The actual story mode is also an extra bullshit tier usual than most FGs of the era. The CPUs are peak arcade mentality, spamming their cheapest moves and stringing impossible combos to take you down…and that’s from the very first opponent, who is as difficult as most later-game CPUs in other FGs. This does balance itself in a weird way, as their AI is rather braindead when you decide to cheap yourself through the game with April and spam her Blanka rip-off move. The balancing is simply all over the place. It all combines for a gameplay experience that is simply tolerable at best, unbearable at worst and just “not fun” most of the time.

Story
The actual story this time is a lot more sensible than nes’s “shredder just asks for a raw fist fight” and more in-line with the story in the snes version…despite having its own tweaks. Splinter gets kidnapped by turtle clones sent by Krang, so the turtles and their allies have to fight ACROSS THE GALAXY to defeat them and save Splinter…oh right and Karai is the true mastermind (there is your accuracy cue!). The story concept sounds sick as fuck and the presentation is also given more attention, with an opening cutscenes and intermission cutscenes after the clone fights that progress the story, featuring the usual interactions and fun dialogues that you would expect. If the gameplay was good, i’m sure I would have a lot of fun traversing through this story, cuz it’s clear they put some effort in this one and tried to make the most RADICAL tmnt adventure. Really really cool stuff here.

Presentation
The presentation is fine. The character sprites are good, the backgrounds are very good and distinct, the character animation is decent enough, the artstyle’s more muted colors fits the genesis attitude and still looks good and it all runs at a consistent smooth framerate…but in comparison to tournament fighters snes or even other genesis games of the same period this came out, it feels rather lacking…all except for one area. The music SLAPS! The ost of this game is the one aspect I will absolutely give to the genesis version over any of the other tournament fighters ports, it’s absolutely great work! Even this game follows the genesis badge loyally with its soundtrack being top-tier. Why is it that the ass games have the most slapping songs?

Final Thoughts
So yea, this is as close as you’ll get to another tmnt game being as bad as the infamous first nes game, because even though the fighting is clunky, there is fun to be found in 1v1 against a friend or hearing the music in the game. Otherwise, stay the fuck away from this. Final verdict: 4/10!

Minor Introduction
And we are close to the finish line! After wrapping up the GB trilogy, it’s time to rewind back to our beloved main consoles with a trilogy of strangely different ports of the same game. Curious how that will go. Welcome to the eleventh review of this marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection! Next for the list, the NES port of the franchise’s stint into fighting games: Tournament Fighters. How did they execute this on an 8-bit console with only a d-pad and two buttons on its controller? Let’s find out!

First Impressions
It’s a fighting game on an 8-bit system with only a d-pad and two buttons…I feel you know where i’m going with this one. Despite the shortcomings this game has due to the limitations of the platform and its controller, it still manages to be an okay experience…I dare say the gameplay is even enjoyable too.

Gameplay
It sure is a fighting game alright. The core gameplay of a fighting game is exactly that…the fighting. And with the devs being limited to a dpad and two buttons, the mechanics and combos are understandably basic and simple enough that even a baby can learn them. Nevertheless, they still managed to atleast make the fighters somewhat unique, by essentially going the tmnt 3 route of giving each of them one special move of their own, while their combos are also tweaked to match their fighting styles in the cartoons with their own advantages and disadvantages, which leads to the roster still being distinct, rather than just sprite changes and nothing more. The gameplay and movement is also fast-paced, which masks some of the clunkiness present within it. Combined together, it leads to the general gameplay still being enjoyable and surprisingly okay. The content present is also small, whether it be the roster, stages and gamemodes, which is understandable, considering the storage within an NES cartridge. It does make its small selection count where necessary though, with the roster of seven characters, six of which are a must (the turtles, shredder and casey jones) and the other…sure exists (hothead). While April or Splinter not being in this roster is rather odd, the other selections do make it a very decent overall roster. As for stages, it’s the environments the turtles have gone to, so they get the job done. For gameplay modes, we have only three modes: a story mode, a versus mode and a tournament mode. The story mode is exactly that: you pick a turtle, go through a wave of vs cpu fights, fight shredder as final boss and then cue credits. The actual fights are meh, with the CPU’s difficulty being rather inconsistent (ranging from a joke to fuck you), but it’s still an enjoyable mode. The versus mode exists there solely to fight with your friends or against cpu…if I guess you really enjoyed one particular stage or character. Tournament mode is the same as story mode, except you have the full roster and the story isn’t there. Soooo yea, very straightforward gamemodes with not much differences between them. Despite the limitations and flaws in the overall gameplay package, it’s still a genuinely tolerable and okay experience and I dare say it’s probably amongst the better offerings of the fighting game genre from the NES (which there are like 7 FGs).

Story
The story definitely exists alright. Shredder challenges the turtles to a brawl…literally no world domination plot or anything, just a raw fist fight, and the turtles fight…amongst themselves and their allies to decide who is worthy of fighting shredder…I never knew such a simple request could be an effective way of breaking the alliance from inside. But uhhh yea that’s it. It’s cool that there is an opening cutscenes, but it feels rather half-assed and just there to fill the quota. Then there is one cutscene at the end of the story and that’s it, no funny dialogue exchange before fights or intermission cutscenes and over-the-top quips. It just exists…moving on.

Presentation
The game actually looks pretty decent. Very solid spritework and animation (which is kinda a necessity to get right in a FG and they got it right here, with each fighter having their own animations for their attacks and combos that fit them), good background work and good music too. The artstyle is also solid and about on-par with tmnt 3, except the colors are just a bit more muted than that game. The most impressive part to me is how it runs at a consistently smooth framerate, which when paired with the fast pacing of the gameplay, manages to hide (for the most part) the basic and clunky nature of the gameplay. Overall, the game’s presentation is just a little below tmnt 3’s, which I’ll take it, since that game is the best looking NES TMNT game, and the fact it manages favorably against that is a mark on this game’s side.

Negatives
Obviously there are flaws here, some of which I’ve already mentioned above and are justified for the most part. The combos are very basic, the fighting has some clunkiness to it (despite the game’s best and mostly successful efforts at masking it with fast pacing and smooth framerate), the gameplay, roster and stage select is small, the cpu difficulty can be inconsistent. What I did not mention is how unbalanced the roster is as well. You may want to go the Casey Jones or Shredder route if they’re your favourite characters, but then all those preferable options go immediately out the window once you enter the ring with Raph and spam his bite or use the classic “slide kick+throw” spam combo with Leo and easily cheese through all the CPU bosses…which means you can fire back at their difficulty with your own share of cheese.

Final Thoughts
Nevertheless, it is a very competent and okay experience for a fighting game on NES and I didn’t regret going through it. Most of its flaws stem from the platform it’s present on, but this game manages to do well enough with those flaws present. And it certainly is better than the fucking sega genesis version (ooooh I am gonna get to that review). Final verdict: 5.5-6/10 review, give it a shot if you are reaaaally curious about it.

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.

Minor Introduction
Now we’re talking! Welcome to the ninth review of this TMNT marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection! For this review, we’re checking out the second TMNT game on the gameboy, which happens to be in the same vein of the first game: a platformer. The first game was rather basic, but still an ok time that I didn’t regret, so it should be easy for this game to build upon that and improve. So did it do just that or is it worse somehow? Let’s find out!

First Impressions
Ok wow this is leaps better than the first game. It really makes the first gameboy game look like an unfinished prototype game and this instead is the final product. Basically every single aspect sees a drastic improvement, making for a game that is very good from start to finish…mostly.

Gameplay
The controls remain the same: a jump, an attack and movement, with the same jump attack combo, but they feel a bit faster here. The real highlight is how everything AROUND it has been improved. The level design is significantly better, with more unique environmental hazards each stage and a focus on verticality for the platforming, as well as generally varied design, from simple left to right, to vertical platforming, to jumping over boulders, it is surprisingly great stuff and I really enjoyed the levels here. The bosses are also significantly improved, as they pose an actual challenge here, while still having understandable patterns that make it really good to learn them and beat them. You now also have the option to pick a new turtle each stage, allowing you some element of strategy to conserve health for everyone else, and the minigame to get them back is also more challenging. The difficulty in general is back to how it’s supposed to be and i’m really glad for that, while naturally increasing so the challenge remains consistently tense throughout. The enemy variety is also a lot more distinct. There are flaws, but the sheer amount of improvements on the gameplay front in comparison to the first gameboy game is nothing to scoff at. This is what understanding the hardware and actual effort looks like.

Story
Someone at Konami actually cared to make a fucking opening cutscene for this game and holy shit I’m impressed they even pulled this off, considering it is gameboy. Though this could also serve as a compensation for the fact they don’t even really tell you what the plot is. However, judging by the progression and environments, it is probably the same old plot that merely serves as an excuse for this game’s existence. The fact they decided to not even mention what it is in-game should probably say a lot, so let’s just move on.

Presentation
The game looks sooo much better in every regard in comparison to the first gameboy game. I feel I need to mention again, but it has a goddamn opening cutscene that also LOOKS GOOD. The character sprites and animation look very good for that gameboy era (the animations in particular being a highlight, as there is a lot of them and makes the game so much more expressive than the “robotic at times”-feeling original), the backgrounds also look great and the skateboard level even makes use of the scrolling effect, which also looks good! The music is also good and the game runs at a mostly consistent framerate. It just is very good presentation work all around, especially when you put into context how impressive it looks for GAMEBOY!

Negatives
The game ain’t without its negatives. While I did mention the difficulty is more natural and also progresses smoothly, what I didn’t mention is how it unfortunately maintains the cheapness that plagued NES TMNT games. It’s still not near the original arcade game level of bullshit, but it becomes more noticeable in the final two levels. It also doesn’t help that the enemies respawn infinitely, so that becomes annoying too. They are less intrusive cuz the unlimited continues are here and they get you back to where you were, as opposed to starting all the way from the beginning, but this is still a glaring flaw worth mentioning and a big reason for the score.

Final Thoughts
Despite the inconsistent difficulty complaint, I still really enjoyed my time through this game. It takes the blueprint of the first gameboy game and actually turns it into a final product, where every single aspect of it has been improved to a ridiculous degree for a game that is very fun to go through from start to finish. Never would have thought I would be sitting here and tell you this game is better than the actual original arcade game and its NES port, yet here we are. Final Rating: 7.5/10.

Minor Introduction
Well we are starting off on a rather simple note. Welcome to the eighth review of the TMNT marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection. Now we are onto the gameboy trilogy, a strangely interesting trilogy of games, tackling the formula in their own distinct way…with none of them even being a beat’em’up. I’m more interested in the second and third game, but of course we have to do the first game, so what does it have in store for us? Let’s find out!

First Impressions
I am surprised. I was expecting this little game to just be a poor attempt at a TMNT game on an handheld, but what I got is a surprisingly competent installment instead. It doesn’t do anything remarkably well, but it executes them decently enough that I really didn’t regret checking it out. Due to how short and simple the game is, this review’s length will probably reflect that as well.

Gameplay
The gameplay is less a beat’em’up and more of a basic platformer, since every enemy dies in one-shot, minus the bosses. The controls are painfully basic…which is to be expected from a gameboy game. You have a jump, an attack and movement…that’s pretty much it. The only combination you have is a jump attack and that’s about it. In order to compensate for all the enemies dying in one shot and basic controls, the level design is different to reflect the platformer mindset…and is also pretty decent (and a lot more engaging than the usual beat’em’up level). Each level has their unique environment obstacles to jump through and tackle and the boss fights are also pretty decent. The playtime is the shortest of the games so far, not even clocking 25 minutes on my playthrough, so it doesn’t even overstay its welcome. Overall, decent stuff.

Story
The plot is very run-of-the-mill. April kidnapped, turtles rush to rescue her, the usual environments, technodrome climax, krang and shredder beaten, congratulations! Nothing remarkable and it exists solely as an excuse for the game’s existence and nothing else, moving on.

Presentation
The presentation is about what you would expect from a gameboy game of this era. The sprites are decent for the characters and enemies, the animations are basic but good enough to communicate what is happening. Really the most impressive part have to be the background, which actually look pretty good for the era this game was released in. The performance is also smooth and the soundtrack is okay enough. Good job on the presentation side.

Negatives
They all center on three core things: the difficulty, the runtime and…how unremarkable it is. The difficulty doesn’t exist, it is easily the easiest tmnt game and the runtime is ridiculously short. It can combine to make a highly replayable game, but due to how unremarkable it is, I can’t say it will inspire multiple playthroughs.

Final Thoughts
Overall, it is a surprisingly okay installment. Nice level design, gameplay, decent but basic controls, okay bosses, short and sweet playtime. It is very easy though. Pretty impressive for early gameboy, but nothing remarkable outside of that. And I think that “unremarkable” part, in junction with the difficulty and playtime, is why it won’t inspire me to play it more than once. However, due to the playtime, it is atleast worth killing 30 minutes for a quick beat just to get it out of the way. Final rating: 6/10.

Minor Introduction
And we are here! Welcome to the seventh review of the marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection! Next on the list is a game I have been so SO excited to check out: the SNES version of turtles in time. Considered by many to be the best TMNT game and one of the best beat’em’ups ever, it certainly has a lot to live up too, especially since I consider the arcade version to be pretty great already. So what does this game do that makes it better than the arcade version…and most importantly, does it live up to the hype? Let’s find out!

First Impressions
Ok yea it does live up to the hype, it is the best TMNT game. Would I call it one of the best beat’em’ups ever? Mmmm probably all things considered. The SNES version takes the arcade version, faithfully ports 85% of it, while changing or adding 15% FOR THE BETTER in every way, including new bosses, level changes, difficulty changes and even a new level entirely!

Gameplay
My praises about the gameplay and combat remain largely the same as what I gave to the arcade version…which is a good thing, cuz it means the snes version remains faithful to the arcade version in that regard. It maintains the great controls that are better than previous games, maintains the new satisfying moves and combos (like the run and iconic “throwing enemies at the screen” moves), the bosses are great, the difficulty is fair, the pacing is better and the environmental variety for the levels are at their best. The turtle stats are more distinguishable now and the enemy variety has increased, while remaining fair. I basically just copy pasted my thoughts from the arcade version, so let’s talk about the changes and additions. Firstly, two levels have been changed in terms of play: those being the sewer level with the uhhh…pizza xenomorphs and the night riders future level. The sewer level is expanded even further, with the pizza xenomorphs section being turned into a bonus level to gain lives, ending with a brand-new boss fight against Rat King that is also a very good one. The night riders future level is also now a bonus level, with one more cool trick…it utilizes the mode-7 from SNES, meaning the level is now semi-3D as opposed to side-scrolling, which makes it so SO much more fun and distinct…it also still ends with the same Krang boss. There are also boss fight changes, with Bebop and Rocksteady being the bosses of the pirate level, also sporting their very own drippy pirate attires, and this is honestly a great change in my eyes. Slash is also a boss in the prehistoric level, as opposed to Cement Man, with his boss being significantly tougher and more satisfying to beat than Cement Man…AKA it’s another good change, but easily the best change has to be the final shredder fight being Super Shredder in SNES version, who ends up being a much MUCH fairer and still well-done fight than the crackhead of the arcade version. The final and most noticeable additions come in the form of the new technodrome stage and its new shredder boss fight. Due to story changes, the turtles don’t time travel as soon as the sewer, but instead tackle the technodrome before the time travel. The new technodrome level is a great addition, with the new shredder boss being amongst my favourites in the game, specifically cuz it utilizes the “throw enemies at the screen” gimmick, which makes it so much more fun to me, since I love using that move. There are also two new gameplay modes: time trial and versus, with time trial being just that…a time trial of four levels from the game, and versus being a 1v1 mode. They’re mostly there as distraction gamemodes, but they’re still fun and a cool distraction. Overall, basically all the additions and changes are better than its arcade version, which combined with how faithfully the strong aspects of said version have been ported, make for a stupidly fun and “improved across the board” playthrough, even in solo.

Story
The story remains the same as the arcade counterpart…which happens to have the best tmnt plot of the games so far. The story has seen a very minor rewrite to accommodate the new technodrome lev and new shredder boss, but the rest remains the same. Shredder interrupts april’s broadcast (he seriously needs to stop this, he has to realize by now how doing that has been detrimental in the long-run, just conquer the world from the shadows damn), steals the fucking statue of liberty and the turtle have to beat his ass…with time-travel thrown in. The time-travel aspect makes the plot progression so much more fun and unique, allowing for its best environments for the levels in a TMNT game. It basically feels like one of the better specials, as opposed to “another episode”. The SNES version also has a brand new opening compared to arcade, and it still kicks ass! The cutscenes and VAing have also been ported, but they sound worse cuz of course they do…but i’ll be damned if that crusty voice sound doesn’t add to the charm and cheesy vibe of it.

Presentation
The game looks beautiful on the SNES and its presentation is very faithful to the arcade. Great artstyle, great character sprites and animation (each turtle having distinct animations is a big plus), great background work. This is the game with THE tmnt soundtrack and holy shit it slaps HARD. So many of the iconic tmnt videogame tracks are present here in their 16-bit ported glory! The sound design is also great! It all combines for a very energetic and vibrant vibe to the game that I absolutely dig, while remaining at a consistent smooth framerate. It’s amazing presentation work that manages to remain faithful to the arcade, while adding its own charms with the 16-bit soundtrack and sound design.

Negatives
…do I even have any? The complaints in my arcade review were about the inconsistent difficulty design and Shredder final boss, but they’ve been rectified for the most part here. Krang still remains a relative joke before the Super Shredder fight, and I guess the Stone Warriors and Pizza Xenomorphs can still be mildly annoying, but they have changes in them that make it more tolerable. The coin-munching cheap tricks have also been severely reduced…but there are some minor cases here and there, where they’re still present. Uhhhh yea I can’t think much beyond that, I’m sorry lol. Maybe Slash is too much of a pain sometimes? Yup I have nothing besides those.

Final Thoughts
Best TMNT game, bar fucking none, I absolutely adore SNES Turtles In Time. Taking what already worked from the arcade game and just piling even more quality on top of it and you have a recipe for a damn good time! This is an absolute must-play of the SNES library IN GENERAL, let alone a beat’em’up or a TMNT game! Please do yourself a favor and check it out, please PLEASE! Final verdict: 9/10 both solo and with friends! With that, this marks my venture with the two best TMNT games ever, next time i’ll check out…probably the most experimental trilogy of TMNT games…which happen to be on the gameboy of all platforms. See ya there!

Minor Introduction
Finally, I am now here. I am ready to tackle the two highest acclaimed TMNT games of all time and I am so fucking excited! First for the list, it’s the sega genesis game: The Hyperstone Heist. Welcome to the sixth review of the marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection. Let’s get this shit started, cuz I am so hyped!

First Impressions
Oooooh yea baby, that’s what I’m talking about! This is pure quality right here! What we have is a partial reskin of turtles in time, one with many changed aspects and honestly…I think it is great! It has very very minor shortcomings, but it is a damn good time throughout and i’m genuinely so happy we’re back to the turtles in time formula, and it’s executed so well in this semi-port on the genesis!

Gameplay
The combat is exactly like turtles in time and oh my god it feels so goooood!! It is fast, it is fluid, it has more fun and satisfying combos than NES, combining for a gameplay loop that feels so much better to go through than previous games! The special attacks are nerfed a lot in terms of usefulness, but I don’t personally mind. There are also other factors that contribute to the fun gameplay, like the fair enemy designs and the energetic presentation! The bosses are the best so far (even if they’re mostly rehashed from turtles in time) with clear patterns, fair attacks and understandable attack windows that doesn’t feel at any point like the game cheaps out on killing you. The biggest QoL addition has gotta be a health bar system for the bosses, making it so much easier to keep track of how close you are to finishing the boss and plan out your moves. The level variety remains largely the same as other tmnt games, with a surfing level, two sewer levels, two cave levels, a level on the streets and the technodrome, but there are some highlights due to the omission of time travel from the story, such as a ghost ship level and shredder’s hideout, which serve as welcome additions and are visually very distinct from previous level designs in the series. The number of levels is reduced from turtles in time, but the present levels are extended just enough that they never feel like they drag at any point, which is a fair compromise. Plus they all look good on genesis hardware.

Story
The story concept is a lot of fun. Once again, Strangely More Muscular Than Usual Shredder interrupts April’s broadcast, except instead of kidnapping April…he decides to shrink Manhattan as a weird flex of the hyperstone that he possesses. The turtles have to show him why constantly interrupting april’s broadcasts may not be such a good business and world domination choice in the long-run and beat him to save manhattan and the world. The presence of cutscenes and “text cards” for intermissions is still welcome and the story and its usual progression allows for the two interesting environments I mentioned above (the ghost ship and shredder’s hideout). It’s yet another standard tmnt plot that is a very enjoyable addition.

Presentation
The presentation in general is top-notch and surprisingly faithful to the arcade (specifically in spritework and animation), but with a slightly darker artstyle to fit with the genesis market that still looks great. The spritework and animation for the characters and enemies is amazing, the backgrounds are great, the sound effects are kickass and the soundtrack is also what you would expect from a genesis game: freaking awesome! It combines for one of the best looking TMNT games and it still looks great even today, with smooth performance to boot! Long live 16-bit sprites I suppose.

Negatives
My only complaints are that the game is amongst the easiest of all tmnt games, even on its hardest difficulty…basically the entire way through. It’s in large part due to the predictable patterns of the bosses and the small number in enemies. It tries to compensate by making them hit like trucks whenever they strike you…but it also happens that I wasn’t hit as often. The game is also strangely shorter than I expected, as I managed to clock in 45-50 minutes to beat it (most of the others took me 1 hour or above to beat). I don’t personally mind it, since it makes it highly replayable to me, but something to keep in mind. But those are my sole complaints.

Final Thoughts
Overall, I absolutely fucking loved my time with this game! It’s a great “remix” of turtles in times that makes itself just distinct enough that it is worth experiencing on its own. It’s better than the manhattan project, but falls slightly lower to snes turtles in time. Still, this comes highly recommended, it is just so much fun for the many reasons I mentioned above! Final rating: 8.5/10, please check it out!

Minor Introduction
Well this review took a lot longer to drop, but here we are! Welcome to the fifth installment of this marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection! And finally, we are here, the final mainline NES TMNT game! Let’s see what this has to offer.

First Impressions
It’s the best NES game hands down, no questions asked. Taking the good elements of the previous NES installments, ironing out the kinks and making it a more faithful formula to the arcade beat’em’ups, The Manhattan Project ends up achieving the NES TMNT game I would gladly recommend. There are still issues present, but it’s one of the better tmmt games…it just doesn’t compare to hyperstone heist and turtles in time (reviews coming soon wink wink)

Gameplay
The combat is about what you would expect from an NES TMNT game…pretty basic lol. While it remains basic, it does a good job at keeping itself as a consistent fun loop, thanks to good enemy design that is more fair than previous NES TMNT games, varied locations for the levels (they even experiment a bit with some of the designs, there is a surfing level, a level with holes that you can hang on to and then surprise ambush, a sewer level with high and low ground, with each level also having different environmental obstacles to contend with, and it makes for a nice change of pace and good level design, despite remaining the same battle grounds at their core) and the special attacks for the turtles. They’re particularly a great introduction here, offering a “high risk, high reward” aspect to the gameplay, where you can choose to deal high damage to enemies at the cost of your hp, with each one also being distinct for each turtle and having their own specific attribute outside of just high damage. It can break bosses if used right, but due to the risk element, the tension and difficulty of the bosses is never removed. Speaking of, the bosses are designed well…for the most part, with understandable patterns and more tolerable with their counterattacks.

Story
Yet again there isn’t much to say in this section, but I do respect how the developers tried to make the story a little more exciting. Once again, Shredder interrupts an April broadcast and kidnaps her, except now he decides to…and I kid you not…turn the entirety of Manhattan into a floating island for himself! Now it’s up to the turtles to save April and Manhattan by beating Shredder to kingdom come again. It’s a fun concept that progresses as you would expect from a TMNT plot, but the road to get there is rather fun. There are also intermission cutscenes and “text cards” between levels to progress the story and they’re appreciated.

Presentation
It is the best looking NES TMNT game, simple as that. It looks as you would expect from a late NES game (hardware that the devs understand to its full capabilities). The game delivers some good spritework for characters and animation, but the highlight has gotta be the background and scrolling work, they look great! The scrolling effect looks particularly great during the surfing level. The artstyle is also a lot more colorful, detailed and popping, with a smooth framerate on top of it, and it’s all backed by the usual great music that you would expect from a TMNT game.

Negatives
The game is obviously without its flaws. The difficulty still remains rather inconsistent at times, in large part to a noticeable lack of pizzas across levels and also the presence of the usual cheap hit traps scattered around. Two bosses were rather mediocre and two levels overstayed their welcome in terms of length, especially since they weren’t even at the end of the game, where the length is more justified.

Final Thoughts
Overall, I still enjoyed my time with this game. It is the best NES TMNT game and I can totally see why it’s praised a lot. The game is still flawed at this point, but with each game slowly becoming better and better, i’m glad that the franchise ended its stint in the NES with a game I can definitely recommend wholeheartedly. This was quite a rollercoaster ride through the NES trilogy, for better and for worse. Final rating: 8/10

Minor Introduction
Welcome to uhhhh…what is it…the fourth installment of this mini-marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection! This time, it’s our first port review, with the NES port of the original arcade game! Interested to see how they were able to do it, so let’s get started!

First Impressions
Consider me impressed. This is quite a faithful and commendable port of the arcade game, with NEW CONTENT on top of it all, while having its difficulty tweaked to not be as hard. It’s still very hard don’t get me wrong, but it’s not the level of the actual arcade game.

Gameplay
The gameplay has basically been carried over one-to-one. Basic combat, basic and not many combos. The only difference is that instead of a dedicated special button, you now have to press a+b to perform the special attack and the coop has been reduced to just two players (probably because the console would kill itself with more than two players at once). The main additions are in the form of two actually decent levels and three new bosses, with tora, shogun and a new baxter form, which are appreciated additions. The best change is that the difficulty has been tweaked to make it a bit easier than the original arcade game, which helps a lot. Otherwise, the praises and complaints remain. The combat has a decent loop while playing coop, but can get repetitive. The game controls well and the hitboxes are good and in general, the gameplay is as you would expect from a faithful port, now in NES format.

Story
The story is the same outline as the arcade title, just changed somewhat to accommodate the new levels and bosses. Shredder kidnaps april, the turtles go out and save her and then defeat him in the technodrome. I sound like a broken record repeating the same story, so I won’t dive much into it. Just an excuse for level transitions and nothing more. It’s faithful to the arcade game’s story and accomplishes its job.

Presentation
Obviously the presentation is bound to be worse than the arcade game, but it’s actually pretty good for NES standards. The voice lines and dialogue didn’t make the cut (to be expected), but the rest are still here. The spritework and animation is good for NES standards, the music is actually great, comprised of really good 8-bit compositions of the arcade music, while also featuring two brand new original tracks for the sewer and cheapstake stages (which also sound great) and the sound design is the same 8-bit crunchy goodness you would expect. Great presentation work all around.

Negatives
Unfortunately, the negatives remain the same as well…mostly. While the difficulty has been toned down, it is still hard as shit and some tricks of the arcade game remain there, so you better have lives cheat codes on the ready if you ain’t patient. The bosses are also the same type of game design…brick walls with counters. They’re more tolerable here, but the general bad design still remains.

Final Thoughts
It is the arcade game on NES with more content added, most of which is good, while also being a faithful port at the same time. That alone actually makes it a bit better than the arcade game and since I played that on two-people coop, the coop here being reduced to two people only did zero damage to me. So yea, take the score i gave to the arcade version and add one more score to it here (3.5/5 coop and 2.5/5 solo)

Minor Introduction
Welcome yet again to another installment of my little tmnt marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection! This time, we’re taking a tour around the mainline nes installments. I am…interested to say the least, as the only one i’m properly aware as being good is tmnt3: the manhattan project, while the first game has been shrouded in infamy and the second one is a bit of a mystery to me. So let’s get started!

First Impressions
Yea this game is dogshit. Cue credits! Seriously though, I was expecting this game to be bad, but I wasn’t expecting just how much of a wasted opportunity it is. This game contains an actually decent formula for a tmnt game, but it is just absolutely squandered by every cheap difficulty trick in the book.

Gameplay
In a change of pace, this game isn’t a beat’em’up, but rather a sidescrolling action-platformer, in a similar vein to the first castlevania game. It’s a welcome change, but one that is completely wasted here. The gameplay is straightforward: you have a series of levels, connected together by an overworld of sorts, that you have to traverse as one of the four turtles of your choice. Each have a short and long jump and can attack in four directions or do a jumpkick. There are 6 overworld levels, split up into shorter sidescrolling levels. Believe it or not, there is a small number of positives to be found here when you ignore literally 80% of the rest of the game. The level design for the most part is actually okay and I like the overworld approach. There is even some nonlinearity present as a result of the overworld, which gives the player a small degree of freedom on how to approach the levels. It’s a decent concept. Of course, there is a ton of other stuff that ultimately makes this concept not fun, but we’ll go through them in the negatives section.

Story
It’s a straightforward story. Shredder does bad stuff, turtles go out to save the day, ending in them taking down the technodrome and shredder himself. It’s fine, each plot development serves as merely an excuse and transition towards the next overworld aesthetic, which aren’t anything mindblowing by tmnt standards. The presence of short cutscenes is honestly impressive and they look good, but overall it’s a NES story: merely there to serve its job as level intermissions.

Presentation
This is the one department where I can give props at. The spritework and animations are good, the music is good, the sound design is good. It’s not the best i’ve seen from the NES (and honestly, future tmnt games on this platform have even better presentation), but it still looks good even now. The cutscenes have the best presentation of the entire game though.

Negatives
Oooooooooh boy, where do I even start? The difficulty is absolutely horrendous and it basically comprises the one thing that completely destroys every facet of this game. Enemy placement is dogshit and overkill FOR THE DIFFICULTY, the bosses are generally badly designed, either being too easy or bullshit FOR THE DIFFICULTY, the controls are janky as shit FOR THE DIFFICULTY, the recovery time is painfully low FOR THE DIFFICULTY and it has the worst water level in a videogame…FOR THE DIFFICULTY!!! Oh and did I mention how the ninja turtles and powerups are poorly balanced, with Donatello and the boomerang powerup being clearly superior to everything else, while the rest is either useless or not as effective in the end. Just aaaaah man, there is so much wrong with this game! But hey, there is atleast unlimited continues right…riiiiight????

Final Thoughts
What we have here is at the very least a 6/10 game concept being reduced to a 3-4/10 with its bad execution. Everything you have heard about this game is absolutely correct. Bad difficulty, bad bosses, bad controls, bad enemy placement, bad recovery time, dogshit water level, unbalanced characters and powerups. I would be curious as to how this game would have turned out if they actually designed the difficulty to be fair, but there is no point in that, since just like how konami and the fanbase have left this behind, I should also leave it behind as just a weird bump in the road for this franchise. Overall: 4/10 (2/5 stars)

Minor Introduction
Welcome to the next installment of my tmnt marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection! Next on the list is…the next arcade game and the most recognizable tmnt game, turtles in time! I have high expectations for this one, since the original arcade game did set a decent blueprint that can turn out a great installment with enough improvements to it.

First Impressions
YEAAAAAAA THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT! Turtles in time takes the first arcade game and improves on literally everything on it, all the while ironing out the negatives present in said first game. There are still some negatives present, but this is definitely a far FAR better title and an absolute blast to play through!

Gameplay
The gameplay is still the same beat’em’up loop from the first game, but taken to the next level. No more does it feel basic or get repetitive later on. What we have here instead is a game that controls better, has more moves and combos (like the run and iconic “throwing enemies at the screen” moves), has actually good bosses, a fair difficulty, better gameplay pacing and more unique environment variety. Each turtle’s stats are now more distinguishable through their moves. The enemy variety has also seen an increase and most of them remain fair for the entire way through. It’s just an insane improvement across the board that it is so fun even on a solo playthrough.

Story
Even the usual tmnt story formula has a fresh time-travel spin to it. This spin allows for the locales of the levels to be more distinct and add to the fun and adventure factor of it. So yea, the story is even more fun before and it plays like a very memorable episode of the cartoon this time around, as opposed to merely “another episode of the cartoon”. The new opening kicks ass, and also the voice-acting present is better and adds to the vibe of it all.

Presentation
Even the fucking presentation has improvements. While the artstyle remains the same with some minor tweaks, the sprites, animation and music are still amazing here. Due to the addition of new distinct animations for each turtle and a more energetic soundtrack and sound design, the game feels even more vibrant and energetic to play through. Stellar presentation across the board.

Negatives
The negatives this time around are fewer than before. This is still an arcade game, so as a result, the game tends to throw cheapshots at you. It’s not for the entirety of it like previously, but they’re still present here (in the form of the Pizza Monsters and Stone Warriors, which are the enemy variants that play more like enemies from the first arcade game). There is also an inconsistent boss difficulty balance towards the end, with Krang being easy and Shredder being…just what the actual fuck (fun fact, I accidentally stunlocked him on my first playthrough, turning the fight into a cakewalk. I of course replayed it proper and realized just how insanely lucky I was to stunlock him). That’s pretty much it for the negatives.

Final Thoughts
Overall, Turtles In Time is an amazing sequel to the first arcade, improving upon the initial formula in just about every department. While I felt the need to emphasize how the first arcade game got better with friends, I don’t need to do so here, as it is just as fun solo or with friends. I can see the hype behind it, this was a total blast from start to end! Final score: 4/5 both solo and friends.

Minor Introduction
Ah, teenage mutant ninja turtles. A franchise I used to watch a lot during my childhood (specifically the 2003 cartoon, which remains the best tmnt cartoon, fight me). Nowadays you can call me a casual fan rather than the hardcore one I was as a kid, but nevertheless it’s a franchise very fond to me. I recently happened to pick up the new cowabunga collection, which contains basically the most played tmnt games released during the arcade to snes era (for better and for worse). As a result of that, I have decided to dedicate a little marathon of sorts, starting with the original arcade game and ending with the recent tmnt game, shredder’s revenge. Soooo let’s get started!

First Impressions
Where it all started! The original tmnt arcade game is very much a standard beat’em’up game…one which hasn’t quite aged as well with time for multiple reasons. I still had a fun time with it…specifically because I was playing co-op with my little sister, so this score reflects that. It may be a different story if I played alone.

Gameplay
The obvious attraction to a beat’em’up is obviously its gameplay…and it is the aspect where this game hasn’t aged as well, and also disappointing in how little I can talk about it. The actual combat is surprisingly basic, coupled with the limited combos. You have a punch button, a jump button and a special attack button for each turtle, with very limited possibilities to take advantage of them. As a result, while the loop remains fun in coop (beating up baddies is still fun), it can get repetitive as a result due to this basic mentality. The turtles themselves aren’t much distinguishable in combat, outside of their attack animations and iconic designs. The game does control well though and the hitboxes from my experience worked well too. There are some other cons that I will mention later on, but the gameplay is above average.

Story
Well ok let’s make this quick. The stories in tmnt games never were the attraction and this is one of them. It’s the usual “shredder does something bad or kidnaps april, turtles to the rescue, they beat krang and shredder at the technodrome, cue credits” deal. It’s not much, but it’s a fun story and the level environments (coupled with the gameplay) do make it feel like you’re playing the usual episode of the cartoon (the original 80s cartoon at that time).

Presentation
This is one aspect where the game has aged beautifully. The spritework, animation and music remain great and the general sound design is really good. They all work together to give the turtles and this game a sense of energy to them.

Negatives
That’s about where my positives end for the most part. Outside of the basic feeling of the gameplay that I already talked about above, my two main complaints are with the difficulty and bosses…they’re just bad. This is definitely an arcade game alright, as it’s not ashamed to throw cheap bullshit at your face to eat up quarters for the entire way through. The bosses are a major contributor to the bad difficulty as well…by being badly designed themselves lol. They’re just brick walls that counter your every attack without being stunned, forcing you into essentially an endurance contest against them. There is some pattern to be learned, but you have to be damn committed, perfect and insanely patient to execute a no-damage run on these bosses.

Final thoughts
This review really makes it sound like a bad game, worthy of a 2 or 2.5 stars (or even lower)…so why the forgiving 3 stars? Well, I played in coop. No exaggeration when I say that playing with friends helps remove the sting a little, as the bad bosses and difficulty is made more tolerable when you’re playing with them and having a fun time joking around and beating up baddies in an interactive tmnt episode. So yea, just for nailing that vibe with other people and also serving as a blueprint for the best tmnt games to evolve from, I am willing to be more merciful towards it with this score. If you’re playing alone however…yea take 1 star off of this score. Final Rating: 3/5 with friends, 2/5 alone.

Where have I been?
Well it has been a bit since I last reviewed a game on this site, so what better way to return than review a game like Metroid Dread! I’ll be honest, it’s been months since I finished it, just been too lazy to review anything on this site, but I now plan on fixing some of that. Without further ado, let’s get into it! Also I want to try a cleaner formatting format, hope you like it!

First Impressions
Metroid Dread lived up to my expectations when I first finished it September of 2022. It is a very easy contender for best 2D Metroid game and even a contender for best Metroid game PERIOD, but some minor flaws and this site’s arbitrary rating system don’t quite get it to 10/10 territory. For the record, I have only beaten this game once in a 100% item run on normal difficulty with just four minutes above the 10 hour mark :sob: and I am also a very average metroid player, so don’t expect a review from some demon who can beat the game in 2 hours on the hardest difficulty. It’s also been months since I last played it, so my memory may be a bit fuzzy.

Gameplay
Let’s talk about the gameplay and honestly, it’s the most refined 2D metroid yet. Samus once again returns to kick ass in more mazes with all her moves from the previous games, plus more. As its usual, she loses everyone of those moves in the beginning, forcing you to gain them back as you progress through the game. The main thing you’ll notice is how much more fast-paced the gameplay is this time. The returning abilities get polished more specifically to accommodate this aspect, which is very important. 2D Metroid games tended to have random moments where gameplay and movement pacing would drop as a result of movesets, so it’s nice to see the returning abilities get updated to better suit the faster gameplay (especially the counter from samus returns, it needed that update). On top of that, the new abilities introduced also serve as very needed QoL updates to the gameplay, making metroid dread both the most complex and at the same time newcomer-friendly installment from a gameplay standpoint. A lot of abilities were introduced (All of which are great), so instead I want to talk about the two most important ones to me: Sliding and Pulse Radar. Sliding is exactly as it sounds, it allows Samus to slide through one-block gaps (so long as they’re not raised above the ground) that would otherwise need the morph ball upgrade to go through. It’s an amazing addition to her arsenal, as it allows the gameplay to flow even faster than before and for the level design to get creative with the routes right from the get-go. You will be using it quite often in this game and it’s fun to use all the time when you need to do so. The pulse radar comes in combination with some QoL improvements to the mini-map system to fix the biggest problem in metroid games since the original: the “where the fuck do I go now?” problem. The pulse radar allows you to send one…uhhh…”shockwave? radio wave?” to the entire zone where you’re now and it will show you hidden paths and breakable blocks for samus to find items or progress through the story. It is an insane godsend as it pretty much fixes 95% of the metroid™️ problems with its maze design, combined with the addition of waypoints, icons that showcase when an item has already been picked up or not and hidden item hints in the minimap. All of these abilities, polish and QoL improvements come in together to make for the most satisfying combat experience in a 2D metroid game. Encountering enemies and defeating them as quickly without breaking the pace has never felt this satisfying before, combined with some really good bosses to boot (each with their own patterns to learn and runs to optimize) and the great movement of samus. It’s just an amazing gameplay loop that makes me understand why there is an active speedrunning community for this game. Of course, the gameplay loop wouldn’t be nowhere near as fun if the level design sucks and i’m happy to say that the level design goes hard. There are 9 total areas in the game, but really there are 6 areas, while the other 3 are linear story-progressing areas. I absolutely loved going through all these areas (even the linear ones) and exploring them for every item I could attain with the abilities I had at the moment. All the mazes are designed for you to use your abilities to their fullest extent, filled with great platforming, running sections and even little ability puzzles (shinespark puzzles) in order to obtain more items and upgrades. Those puzzles were honestly my favourite part, it was so fun trying to figure out the perfect route to beat them all…well ok I am lying, those are not my favourite parts of the level design. Instead, that honor goes to the EMMI parts of the levels. The EMMI are a new “mini-boss” type enemy in Dread that are basically unbeatable until certain points in the story that requires you to beat them one by one. Before those points though, there will be several moments where you have to go through their “lairs” to progress in a certain level. Those moments are my favourite in the game, as they are the points where the “horror” aspect of metroid really cranks up to 11, as you are forced to sneak and avoid these unbeatable monsters with the abilities you have at hand and the knowledge of the level. It’s like being thrown in the wolf’s den with a map, a stick and a flashlight. The terror is at an all-time high, the environment and sound design really immersing you and selling you into this creepy environment and it is genuinely reliving when you successfully bypass the EMMI section or absolutely terrifying when said EMMI proceeds to chase you. Such an amazing addition to the levels. Sooo yeah you can say the gameplay is phenomenal and the highlight of the game, just standard metroid fares.

Story
I won’t dedicate much to it, as I don’t have much to say and I am not as completely immersed in the metroid lore as other people, but I will say the story is good. In a nutshell, it’s another “samus goes to a desolate planet, finds out there is something darker lurking underneath, loses her powers, slowly gains them back and more as she progresses, she faces the big bad of said evil, defeats it, races back to spaceship and exit planet” fare. And yet again it’s another fun story, with more metroid lore to consume and it handles the mystery of the narrative really well. Samus is kickass as usual. The climax goes hard. The buildup to the narrative and lore drops also goes hard. Yea uhhh that’s really all I can say as it’s not as complex or “main focus” as other games I review. It’s a story that’s gonna satisfy metroid fans craving for lore.

Presentation
Goddamn does the game look gorgeous. It’s honestly amongst the most beautiful games the switch has to offer, as well as the best-looking metroid game. The effects, the design, the little details, the textures, the models, the lighting, everything comes together to make this game as immersive as it can be. And it’s all topped by a constant 60fps performance that never drops. Special shoutout to the sound design of the game. The soundtrack is really great and complements the settings, on top of the other sound effects helping you immerse even more in the experience. Truly an underrated aspect of videogame development and one that is necessary to get right in a metroid game…and thankfully dread gets it more than “just right”.

Negatives
While i have been singing the praises, I did still find some little flaws here and there. The environmental design do tend to blend with each other a little, making it a bit confusing while traveling, if you don’t resort to the minimap. Also, while I said that 95% of the metroid™️ problems are fixed, there is still a present 5% that not even the new additions manage to catch, so you still have to result in the classic “bomb the entire room” tactic…or in this case “pulse radar the entire room” tactic. The game also doesn’t tell you of some movement tips that are an actual must-know for some shinespark puzzle, making the player figure out through sheer dumb luck or the internet. The bosses also tend to be pretty easy once the pattern is figured out (as tends to be the rest of the game, I have no idea where the “hardest metroid game” reviews come from). You can make the argument of “boohoo normal mode or skill issue” at me, but yet again these are flaws that I personally encountered on my playthrough of it. Good for you if you don’t encounter them. Nevertheless, they are minor flaws in the grand scheme of things.

Finale
Overall, I loved playing through this game. It’s the most polished and fast-paced metroid game and it does a great job at immersing you in the environment and having an addicting gameplay loop throughout its 10 hour minimum worth of playtime (if you’re going for 100% items like me). The new additions and QoL improvements are very welcome, as are the changes to existing design to better suit the fast-paced gameplay. The flaws listed above matter little when compared to just how much right this game does. While backloggd only allows me to give it scores without .5 at the end, my personal rating for metroid dread would be a 9-9.5/10 (4.5/5 for arbitrary backloggd rating moment), must-play for anyone. Good to be back to reviewing again!