Beating my first video game

Post 00048 | Januar 28th 2024

Last month while browsing a second hand shop, I stumbled across a few copies of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Hero Turtles comics. A steal at less than a euro a piece. When I got them home, I noticed two of them had Nintendo ads on the back; One for newly launched Game Boy while the other advertised the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles for the NES. That sent me on quite a nostalgia trip as that game was the first video game I owned which got me thinking: I never beat that game, did I?

It wasn't for lack trying though. Not only was it my first game, it was my only game for ages. Games definitely cost a pretty penny back then so when you got one, you tried to get your money's worth. I remember getting to the Technodrome once in what must've been my hundredth attempt.

I know the game was a killer app for Nintendo at the time - at least here in Europe. My local game rental had more copies of this game than any other and considering I found the aforementioned full-page ad in a October 1991 issue - a full year after the game was released - you'd think they would at least mention the just released Super Mario Bros. 3? However, I also know the game has a bad rap these days. For instance, it was featured in episode six of the Angry Video Game Nerd YouTube series where he called the game "as appealing as a fucking ooze-infested dirty sewer rat shit" and "inside-out asshole regurgitated purtid anal fecal matter". That's why I have been wondering if I blinded by rose-coloured nostalgia or does it hold up today?

The first level starts off with a top-down perspective. You have the choice between following the pavement around a building or going down a manhole into the sewers which plays like a 2D platformer. Staying above ground is by far the fastest route, but you have to watch out for a steamroller which will kill your turtle on contact - a definite cause of frustration to any new players. You still have three turtles at your disposal, but I would reset and start over, at this point if I were you. Speaking of turtles, you can switch between them at any time using the pause menu. They each have their own health bar and weapons. Donatello's staff is definitely the best as it does the most damage and has the longest reach. You'll definitely want to keep him alive for special occasions.

As an somewhat odd design choice, there are multiple dead-end places to enter that only offers minuscule rewards for your efforts - There's a building that offers half a pizza to restore some of the health you lost by reaching it, while a manhole will lead you to a invincibility power-up that only lasts about half-way back from whence you came. Both instances offers little more than a risk if losing health. This is most likely added for filler, to make the game last longer for new players. When you find the right path you get to fight Bebop as a mid-level boss and Rocksteady at the end of the level.

Somewhat anti-climatically, Donatello's can reach Rocksteady with his staff from on top of the crates.

Level two is a lot more linear compared to the first. The first part takes It takes place inside a dam. Your job is to get on top. It is a fairly uneventful trip, with only the odd mouser or foot clan soldier being recognisable enemies. When you get to the top, you get to jump off through a hole in the railing to the other side of the dam. Apparently, the dam is about to blow up and you only have a couple of minutes to disarm the bombs. This is by far some of the most frustrating the game has offered up to this point. The swimming mechanics are kind of wonky and it can be easy to miss a bomb which results in a game over. Also, there are a few obstacles in your way: There's electricity which somehow doesn't conduct in water (I guess this is one of the advantages of New York pollution?), some pits that causes instant death, as well as some seaweed that damages you if you touch it - And by touch it, I mean look at it the wrong way. The hit boxes are humorously bad. Halfway though the course there's a narrow path filled with seaweed you have to navigate that feels like playing Operation while you're going through withdrawals.

This is what gamer cred looks like. Not shown: The ten times before this where I utterly failed.

After disarming the bombs there's a pretty cool cut-scene. You return home to see your place ravaged. Turns out the bombs were merely a distraction to get you out of the sewers so that Shredder could kidnap Master Splinter!

Third level, and my favourite growing up: We are back to the top-down perspective, with a big city to explore. Luckily we have the turtle van at our disposal. The steamrollers are back but the van can easily shoot them with bullets or missiles, the latter being a power-up you find in one of the many buildings in town. The missiles are required to shoot down the many barricades that has been set up. There are also foot clan soldiers on the street that can simply be run over. There a little explosions when you run them over. 8-bit games are wild. I remember the maze being a massive maze, but somehow I manged to drive straight to the end of the level with minimal detours. I made sure to pick up some grappling hooks to be able to cross rooftops, but it turns out it wasn't required after all.

Much like the first level there are buildings and sewers to explore. This time the sewers have streams of running water that will carry you outside if you fall in (it is common knowledge that turtles can't swim even though they swam in the previous level). After navigating the labyrinth of the big city, eventually you will stumble upon the level boss: An evil robot version of Leonardo who is significantly harder, as you actually need to fight him and not just poke him with a stick from a safe distance. After being defeated he pulls a morphs into his final form which is a kind of other flying robot that shoots rockets. Beat him to rescue Splinter who instructs you to go fetch your blimp to chase Shredder who's escaping in a helicopter.

Level four, the airport level. This time its a full on maze. Most of the over-world is blocked meaning you primarily have to travel through the sewers and with lots of split paths it is pretty easy to get lost. Once again, I mange to find my way without too much trouble. I can't tell you what I had for dinner last night, but I can find my way around in a video game I haven't played for decades. They were kind enough to number the different sewers, so as long as the sewer number is increasing, you know you're on the right path. In this level you also find magnets which pulls turtles towards them as well as conveyor belts to further complicate platforming. When you reach the end of the maze there's a new boss, a giant Mouser. Somehow they managed to make him even more pathetic than Rocksteady. Stand directly under him as Donatello had repeatedly mash up+A to smash him with his staff. He'll either fire lasers at your, which will miss, or drop a small Mouser towards you which will be caught in the cross-fire. After a minute of button-mashing the Mouser breaks down and you retrieve your Blimp

I'm not that deep in my Ninja Turtles lore, but I seem to recall them doing their hardest to not seem out-of-place towards civilians to avoid trouble. Is there a better way to move stealthily through New York than by flying through arguably the busiest airspace in the world in a giant inflated ballon with your logo written on it? You might think airships are pretty slow, but they thought of that and placed jet engines inside the balloon because everybody knows that airships are improved with open flames.

Level five, and they're doubling down on the maze portion. This level takes place inside the Foot Clan's secret military base. There are propeller planes scouting the over-world if they see you, a couple of foot soldiers appear although they are easily wiped out, should it happen There are four manholes, each with a 25% chance of encountering the Technodrome after a some lengthy underground platforming. The Technodrome location is picked at random, meaning there's a 75% chance you reach a dead-end, meaning you have to backtrack all the way back to the over-world and try another manhole. The underground portion also has new enemies to deal with. There are hedgehogs that shoot their pins at you, some Metroid-looking jellyfish that float about, pins at you and an armadillo that can curl into a ball and roll and jump about - not unlike Samus Aran. The enemies deal a lot more damage and have a lot more health compared to previous enemies, making this a lot tougher level; I can't rely on my childhood memories for shortcuts due to the random location of the boss and if I picked the wrong manhole, it was a challenge to get back. Thankfully there are are a few buildings in the level as well. The northwestern building has a ninja scroll and boomerang pickups - two of the most powerful weapons in the game - while the building in the center has multiple pizzas to restore your health. My first two manholes were dead-ends, so it I made sure to stop at the "pizza hut" to regain the health I lost.

I found the Technodrome on my third try. I always loved the its menacing entrance. It's definitely one of the tougher bosses, but also my favourite. You need to take out its eye, but it has multiple defense systems you'd want to take out first. It has electrocuting forks on its front and rear, two guns on its side and a hatch where foot soldiers jump out from. You'll definitely want save power-ups for this boss fight as ranged attacks makes it more manageable. Alternatively you'll have to try to get on top of the caterpillar tracks. The eye breaks if you poke it enough, letting you enter through the hatch the foot soldiers came from.

Right, the final level! Level six takes place inside the Technodrome. It feels pretty vast, but seems pretty straight forward as there aren't many branching paths. The challenge comes from the new enemies that have even more health and deal even more damage. The hovering astronaut that shoots lasers is the most memorable, removing almost a third of your health bar every time you get hit. You will meet this enemy a lot in this level.

This is how far I got as a child in the game. This is the last bit before Shredder. There's no way you'd survive if you actually tried to fight the astronauts, but somewhat pathetically, they fly back and disappear after shooting their gun. In the later levels, it became more of a strategy to avoid enemies and hope they'd fly out of view rather than to attack them head-on.

After a long trek, you finally reach the final boss: Shredder. Sadly he is also one of the underwhelming bosses. He's one of the few bosses I've ever encountered who gets knocked back when hit. However, if you try to just pummel with your default weapon, he will find the time to shoot his de-mutation gun that instantly kills your turtle and kicks you back to the start of the level. This is also the case if you touch him. I lost Donatello this way but thankfully you can find him captured inside the Technodrome. It isn't much a detour to bring him back on the team. On my second attempt at Shredder I played it safe and took him down with ranged attacks. He never stood a chance.

After beating Shredder, you leave Technodrome and Splinter returns to his human form (I assume they used Shredders de-mutation gun) and April o'Neal suggest they celebrate with a pizza. I'm not sure this is completely canon, but never mind.

Having beat the game, what do I think of it? I have definitely played worse games, especially considering it was licensed game. It was definitely by a team who knew the NES well and had a lot of ideas for the game. That said, the gameplay itself could do with some polish. Too many times they set you up for tight jump, only to hurl enemies towards you mid-jump. With little time to react, you get knocked back into the pit you were just trying to cross. That said, on several occasions the lack of polish could work to the players advantage. Not only could you get some cheap shots on lots of enemies and bosses and if you were patient, enemies would would often exit the screen and disappear on their own accord, meaning you'd avoid a confrontation.

Speaking of enemies, while I appreciate that they created lots of new enemies rather than just letting you fight hordes of foot soldiers and mousers, I wouldn't necessarily say the enemies really fit in the Turtles universe. There's a man made of lava, an eye with spider legs, and topless men with either a chainsaw or a boomerang. Series staples such as Krang or Baxtor are nowhere to be seen in the game which is a bit of a shame.

I absolutely love the soundtrack though. It has that characteristic Konami sound from the era. Somewhat annoyingly, the ending wasn't followed by a credit roll, but according to the Video Game Music Preservation Foundation Wiki, it was composed by Jun Funahashi and Hidenori Maezawa, with the composer of some of the tracks being listed as unknown. While it wasn't unusual at the time, it's a shame that staff isn't able to get the recognition they deserve for their work.

All in all, I liked the game despite its flaws. The game wasn't as hard as I remember, thought that might be because I had the most optimal routes memoriesed from back then. It's not a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't think it's sewer rat fecal matter either.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was developed by Konami and published under their Ultra Games shell company in 1989. It can be found on the 2022 Cowabunga Collection, available for PC as well as current and last-gen consoles. It was also made available on the now closed down Wii Virtual Console in 2007.

Finally, there were ports for most contemporary home computers from the time, although these were developed by third parties with varying degrees of quality.