TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA
TURTLES II: THE ARCADE GAME
As a kid, being around 9
years
of age at the time, I certainly can remember vividly the few occasions
in which I was able to visit the local arcade. The machines were
so huge, and had all
the cool sounds coming out of them, and there were so many teenagers
and older people there that were into the games like i was( which my
parents were not into -btw ) that it had this overwhelming feeling of
coolness that was indescribable by words. There was Gauntlet,
Terminator 2
, Super-Off road, amongst others, but the one that stands out in
my head as being the coolest of the cool at the time was Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles. Of course , I was really into the cartoons, as
were many boys in the early ninties, and when this game came out it
had people waiting in lines at our arcade to play it. I was one
of those waiting in line. I loved that game. Although I was
only able to visit that beloved childhood place about once every 2 to 4
months or so, I would be at home playing my NES thinking bout the next
time id
be able to go to the arcade again to play TMNT.
Then, I heard the buzz one day
going
around school. "My friend just got the new ninja turtles game,
and its so fun! " I passed it off as maybe they were a bit late
on playing the original TMNT on the NES,
which at the time had been out for at least a couple of years, I
think. Then I'd hear someone else talking bout it. "Yeah,
my dad and I played it last night and beat it. He knows a special
code that gives you extra lives!" I was getting suspicious at
this
point. I had not seen any commercials for such a game, as was the
case for games at the time then, especially when we only had an
antennae that recieved
about four channels. I started talking about it to my parents ,
who seemed indifferent to such chatter. I talked about how much I
wished they would make that game I played in the arcade into a nintendo
game.
Shortly after, my 10th birthday
came about and low and behold , what did I recieve?? My very own
shiny grey copy of TMNT:THE ARCADE GAME. It might as well have been a
brick of gold or a huge
diamond. I was on top of the world. This turned out
to be my absolute FAVORITE game at that time, and I played it way too
much. I would venture to say I have beaten , with my brother and
friends, this game
probably about 100 times if not more. It only took a week or two
until I learned how to execute the cheat at the beginning of the game
to give you
several more lives and to access a stage select to any level in the
game..
So much for my childhood
recollections. Now lets get to business. The plot is rather
simple. April is kidnapped by the Shredder and its up to the
turtles to save her. In their quest to find their
friend, they must defeat a number of bosses who had major roles in the
cartoon series. Unlike the first NES turtles game, of which only
Bebop ,
Rocksteady , and Shredder could be fought amidst a slew of weird,
non-memorable, generic flying heads, on-fire men, baloons, etc., TMNT 2
had Baxter stockman ( human and fly form ), Bebop, Rocksteady, Krang,
the rock monsters,
mousers, tons of foot soldiers of various abilities, and of course,
Shredder. Also , there were 2 other levels added to the NES game
that were not included in the original arcade version. There was
a snow level where you had to end up fighting a Wolf -man creature who
threw
rocks at you , and a Japanese-style house stage where you
confront a difficult ancient Shogun at the end.
The gameplay is very simple, you
can
slash slash slash contantly, jump, jump kick, and perform a special
cleaving move in which you press the A+B buttons simultaneously.
The action is non stop,
although monotonous. At
most times, there is no less than 4 enemies on the screen at one time,
all after you, of course. As soon as you drop one, another is
usually
there instantly to take his place. Essentially the game is a
basic side scrolling hack and slash, but in one level , you take to the
streets on a
skateboard while battling skate boarding foot soldiers and
helicopters. There are certain objects that you can
interact with as well that can be used
to help battle the foot, including manhole covers, tires, traffic
cones, road signs, and exploding barrels. Also there are a few (
maybe 3 the entire game
) pizza slices you can get that will max out your life, although with
the extra lives
and continues this is pretty much unnecessary.
As far as the difficutly in TMNT2
is
concerned, the constant barrage of foot soldiers, robots, mousers, and
so forth present next to no challenge, and all can be defeated back to
back rather flawlessly, but
the real challenge lies in the boss fights. Although some of the
bosses, in particular Baxter Stockman's fly form and the Wolf-Man are
very
easily dispatched due to very simple and avoidable attack patterns,
most of the bosses put up quite a fight and can make playing solo very
tiresome. 2-player action is definately the way to go in this
game to get the most from it. Of course, if you use the awesome
Konami Code this
game is a cinch. Even if you manage to lose all nine lives you
will continue with a fresh nine at whatever level you left off. Pretty
sweet.
The final battles involve you
fight it out with
Krang and Shredder. Krang is pretty difficult to beat due to his
annoying eye lasers, long reaching kicks, and rocket hands, but after
learning his pattern you can breeze through
him and proceed to shred
head. He is a real doozie however, splitting in half at the
onset of the battle, one of which being the real shredder and one being
a clone. The
clone can only hurt you with melee damage, which is bad enough, but the
real shredder will stop from time to time to blast you with a beam
which ,
if it connects , will turn you into a baby turtle thus instantly
killing off one of your lives. The shredder clones have much
lower hit points than
the real one, and when you hit the clones enough their helmets will pop
off, revealing the true shred, still wearing his mask. If you
refrain from killing
the unmasked one, this battle can by ended fairly quickly by centering
your attacks on the concealed one, but if you manage to kill the clone
( easily done,sadly
) shredder will split into 2 helmed versions of himself again and you
are back to square one. However, even if you are forced to face
Shredder's ten or so clones,
eventually he will stop dividing and you can finish off the real one.
(you dont wanna be here
)
( sigh , got one shotted
)
Dont look for a spectacular ending to this
game. Thats for sure, unless you picture a cheesy explosion with
4 turtles jumping out of it an ending. I never really payed
attention to the crappy ending though, i was always
like "yeah, i beat it! again!"
As an adult this game has
much less
appeal to me than when i was younger, because i get bored easily with
it now, but times dont change much, as my 5 year old daughter loves
this game and has beat it with me, her
with a controller and me with a powerglove. It is still fun to
play. The soundtrack, although repeating the classic TMNT theme
repeatedly is
rather good. There was no other NES game I enjoyed playing more
with a friend than this game.
DIFFICULTY With cheat :VERY
EASY Without cheat: AVERAGE
GRAPHICS
9
SOUND
8
GAMEPLAY 9
FUN
8
OVERALL
9
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