Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Being the first of any long-standing series on the Nintendo Entertainment System, you always have to start somewhere, and with some sort of basis to run other games off of. The Ninja Turtles are a rather old and well remembered set of characters that first appeared in little known comics, and ended up becoming something of a world wide craze!

This was also the first game I can remember that had really gratuitous product placement in the form a Pizza Hut billboards.  The only problem is that the billboards have an unwanted side effect of killing you…great product placement guys.

Featuring the likes of Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo, you take control of one of four mutated turtles and face off against the series protagonist, the Shredder. Through several stages of side scrolling platform action, you’ll be charged with having to save the turtles mentor, Splinter and their long time friend April through thumb numbing battle and otherwise.

You’ll find that each of the turtles has their own weapon but there really isn’t much difference between who you use and how you don’t. With different game play options available, you may find that this is one game series that needs to be taken with a slight grain of salt, and be played for what it really is.

The game play is basically centered around going from stage to stage and defeating a room full of enemies that range from the stupid foot soldiers right into the mechanical mousers. All of these enemies that you face, will lead you into a boss battle, in which you take on a progressively more difficult stage boss in order to proceed to other parts of the game.

Now, where the difficulty really comes in, is with the amount of jumping and timing that you need to complete certain stages of the game, especially later on in the game when jumping is key and if you screw up, it’ll cost you a member of your team! When I say that the game takes on some difficulty, you’ll find that if you lose a member of your team, finding and releasing him from different areas of the game can recollect him.

This can either make or break your liking of the game, in which you have to perform in such a way, that recollecting your character is not worth the trouble it takes to get him! Through all of the different stages, you’ll go through your standard side scrolling, to a little bit of underwater and driving stages, none of which are difficult to get through. Considering that this is a one-player game only, you may find yourself lulling into boredom until you get into the second portion of the game, where the enemies become infinitely harder.