The turtles boom of the late 80s, early 90s was pretty strong with kids and teens.  I was one of those kids.  TMNT started out with the highly popular cartoons on television, then there were the comic books, the multitude of turtle toys, and of course, the hit movie.  It was only natural that we had to have a nintendo game of  the Turtles too.  At the time my parents bought me this cartridge, I only had a couple of games for the NES, the standard Mario/Duck Hunt and Galaga:  Demons of Death.  Mario was just an awesome game, period, but Duck Hunt and Galaga didn't get played very much due to the fact that they really couldn't be beaten; I didn't feel like they were worth playing, and I've never much cared for the Atari-type game play ( never ending level-after-level monotony until I am thankfully game over, or just quit and turn off the game in disgust ).   Then I received TMNT for a birthday present, and this one was different.  I personally had a lot of love / hate feelings towards this particularly difficult game.  I had to love it because, come on, I was playing  ninja turtles, and there was just a certain coolness about that, but shortly after those easy first couple of stages,  the anger and frustration and sheer hatred always set in.

    The game play shifts constantly between both an overhead world view, and the typical side-scroller view.  In both of them you can swap out your active turtle at any given time.  For the most part, unlike TMNT 2 and 3, the enemies in this game have pretty much nothing to do with the TV show or the movie.  There are a few familiars ( a few foot soldiers and mousers, Bebop, Rocksteady and the Shredder ) but aside from these there are a vast array of generic, weird enemies that you fight for the whole game, and they have absolutely nothing to do with the turtles franchise.  There are fire men that walk around releasing tiny versions of themselves which bounce around and try to hit you, robot men with heads that come off and fly around once struck, balloons which drop bombs, dive bombing parrots ( some kinda birds, anyway ), chainsaw wielding fat men, and a bunch of other weird non-turtles related baddies.  Sorry to get off on that tangent, but why make a game based off of a kids TV show with a ton of  beloved characters to use and instead make up your own cheap creations. 

    There is a certain way that the over world maps are layed out that makes you feel as if you are in a maze while you play.  You walk around in the overhead view looking for sewer holes and open doors to enter and either you end up at a dead end, or you exit the stage via a ladder or door on the opposite side and pop out in a different place on the over world.  It takes some trial and error to find the right holes/ doors to enter, and many areas can be skipped completely.  Each progressive stage gets more complex, as generally each level is a little bigger than the last, and there are more manholes and buildings to explore.  There are a couple of exceptions though, as in both the dam and technodrome levels there is little or no over world interaction, but instead the same maze element is incorporated into the side scroller sections, which, in conjunction with the life stealing obstacles and enemies around every wrong turn, makes these the most difficult and tantrum inducing, controller slinging levels in the game.

    The first level is really simple, as long as the steam-rollers are completely avoided, as they kill you instantly if touched.  You fight both Bebop and Rocksteady here, and, as with pretty much the rest of the game Donatello is the best turtle for the battle.  Not only is his bo staff the most powerful weapon of the four, it also has the longest reach by far.  Bebop will always get in a few hits on you. It is nearly impossible to avoid him because he suddenly appears and charges from mid screen, trapping you in a corner with a ledge overhead and you just can't get out quick enough to completely avoid damage, but after getting out of that trap, its a breeze, simply jumping his charges and staffing away.  Rocksteady is the main boss and is holding April hostage, and he is one of the two ridiculously easy bosses in the game.  By standing on top of the crates in the right hand corner and striking downward with your staff, he just relentlessly charges the crates and you take him out without a scratch.

    
             Come on...this is lame

    The second level was the last level many NES gamers saw.  In this stage you have two parts.  The first has you fight your way from the bottom of a dam to the top, and aside from one tricky jump at the end, its pretty much a breeze.  There are four or five floors to go through and plenty of pizzas to grab to refill your health bars, which is nice.  After making that carefully placed jump at the end , you enter a door and appear on top of the dam. From there, you have to jump off into the water below to enter the second part of the level.  This was the end of the game for many kids, including myself for the longest time.  There are several bombs placed throughout a maze of electric seaweed,  instant death ( if touched ) seaweed, tons of laser beams, and a couple of giant whirrling blades.  What makes this level near impossible though is the fact that you are on a three minute timer, and all of the laser beams are on a timer of a few seconds, forcing you to either wait until they turn off or swim through them and take damage. Then, in the middle of the level, there is one long and narrow tunnel that you must pass through which has electric seaweed lining both the top and bottom.  I am convinced that you can NOT make it through this section without switching turtles, even at full health upon entering.  The seaweed is impossible to avoid in such cramped quarters and it pulses off and on every second, draining your entire life bar within 3 or 4 seconds.  I always use the two most combat useless turtles for this level, Michaelangelo and Raphael.  I swim through as Raph until I get to the midway tunnel of death and switch out to Mike.  I let his poor soul go through until he is just about dead, and swap back to Raphael for the rest of the level.  If one ( or both ) of them gets killed, its not a big loss, because, due to the small size and extreme weakness of their main weapons ( takes 2-3 hits to drop most enemies ), it doesn't make much sense to use them for fighting, thus they are expendable.  I know thats cruel, but its the truth. Hey, Raph is my favorite turtle, but they sure gimped him up on this game. However, if you play this level with Donny and he croaks you are pretty much screwed,  unless you can survive long enough to rescue him later.  What about Leo, you may ask?  Well, Leonardo is somewhat useful due to his mid range reach, but like Mike and Raph, his damage is sub par, so once again Donny is the pick of the litter for 90% of the game.  Actually its a lot like the NES game Friday the 13th.  Mark and Crissy are by far the best counselors on that game, but God forbid you get stuck with George!!   Anyways, thats for a later review.

    
                                                                      Get hurt coming in AND out of here.

    
                 Tunnel of Death

    After disarming the last bomb, you go to the turtle van level.  In this one, the overhead map is very large and, yes, you get to control the turtle van and strike back at those damn steam rollers without fear of instant death.  It has a gun with unlimited ammo, which is rather weak, but you can ( and must ) get a hold of some missiles which instantly take out foot soldiers, steam rollers, and barrier obstacles that block your path.  This stage has several entrances/exits and can be very confusing, but most of the sections can be avoided completely.  This map is an excellent recharging station to prepare for the final three levels.  At the first building you start in front of, there is a 1/4 pizza and a whole pizza, as well as a stack of missiles at the top of the stage. (NOTE:  To get the missiles at the end, DO NOT attempt to jump over the little hole that stands in your way, but simply walk over it. Its one of a few tricks the designers threw into the game)  You only really need about 10 missiles or so to destroy all the barricades that will block your path, but I really enjoy blasting those steam rollers, so, it never hurts to grab the pizzas and the missiles, exit the level, reenter and run back through it a couple more times just to be on the safe side.  This will have your turtles back to full health, and have you fully stocked with artillery for the party wagon.  There is another hot spot along the way ( if you take the time to reenter it multiple times like before ) that really, really helps out with the last level.  From the starting point of this level, you head to the far west and then down taking out a barrier or two, and then as far east as you can go, and then down, where there will be a  building entrance and a bridge to the right.  Enter the door closest to the water ( there are actually two doors ).  After heading up, up, west, and down, you enter a room that contains the most powerful secondary weapon in the game, the scythe ( I guess thats what they are ).  One of these, when thrown, will take out everything in its path, and they are very useful against the bosses.  You get twenty of them upon pickup.  After collecting the scythes, you go down another ladder and can pick up some ropes, which you will need in the next level.  Grab these, and simply jump into the water, and, since the turtles cannot swim ( go figure ), you'll take slight damage and reappear outside the building.  Then you can simply reenter the same way, and collect 20 more scythes.  I personally get 20 for each of the turtles, just in case I mess up and accidentally acquire a different, weaker, secondary weapon (i.e the shurikens ).  Nothing is worse than collecting 60 scythes with Donny, feeling pumped up and ready to go, and then killing an enemy, walking on, and then ( since some enemies randomly drop a secondary here and there a second or so after they die ) running into a ninja star, and having traded you 60 nukes for 20 bbs.  This does happen, I promise.  By the way, if you happen to have let one of your turtles die, you can reacquire him in this stage, as he will be tied to a chair.  Anyways, after stocking up on scythes, you simply need to get back into the turtle van, head as far east as possible, crossing the bridge and blowing up the barriers, going to the far north, and then back to the West.  There you will enter a building and at the end of it fight the evil Leonardo.  It looks just like Leo, swinging the sword the same way and all, and he jumps around making it hard to hit him.  However, with a few bo strikes and special weapons launched his way, he dies quickly and then transforms into a flying mech turtle.   The same strategy goes for it, bo strikes and special weapons to take him out as fast as possible, before he can get you into a corner.

    
                  You better run!                        Grab plenty of these, best powerup in game

    
                        Help!        
                                                   
    Since this was not actually meant to be a walk through and simply a thorough review, I won't go into the exact instructions on the pathing through the airport level, since there are a bunch of dead ends and routes to make it to the end.  However, it is a fairly easy level to pass through , with a lot of pizzas to pick up along the way.  Most of the time you come out of one hole and have a choice of two entrances, one of which being the path to the next area and the other leading to a dead end.  Memorization is the only key here.  There are a lot of booby traps in this level, with you having to avoid spikes on the floor, spikes on the walls, conveyor belts, laser shooting + signs ( seriously!), deadly fire pits, and in one section the holy grail of booby traps.  You head downward into an empty room with a hole in the bottom floor and upon falling through, you enter a similar room much like the previous, where you have to work your way down and fall through to the next area.  However, there are these huge moving spiked walls that rapidly close in on you from either side of the screen, and one touch of these is an instant dead turtle.  This is the only thing I find thats difficult about the airport, these trap rooms. It requires perfect timing to get to the bottom and fall through before the walls kill you, and then you fall into yet another one of these rooms and again have to rush to the bottom.  The boss to the level is a joke, just like Rocksteady was.  You fight a giant, stationary mouser, and all you have to do is stand directly under him and bo staff straight up into his mouth.  He will drop little mousers on you, but they are no threat. It will also, from time to time, attempt to shoot down at you with its laser-eyes, but as long as you are standing in the very middle of the screen, they cannot hit you.  After taking the mouser's life bar down, its head cracks and explodes, then the turtles enter their blimp and proceed off to the next level.

    
                                                                         One of many dead ends.

    
           Uh Oh...This isn't good.                                  Sorriest boss ever

    
                           Nice!                                     Teenage Mutant Midget Turtles


    I believe this stage is entitled the Bronx.  All and all, up to this point in the game, I find ( as I did as a youngster ) that TMNT is pretty fun.  There is definitely enough of a challenge to keep you on your toes, but you can reliably do everything you need to and still feel confident about being able to make it through.  However, from the Bronx onward, the s*** really hits the fan.  The difficulty from this point onward makes a big turn from hard to the extreme.  In the over world of the Bronx, you are in what looks to me like a lumber yard at night, and of course, everything is dark and ugly.  There are these machines that fly around with spotlights, and, if you hit the light, they will drop foot soldiers on you.  These are easily avoided however.  There is actually not a whole lot to the over world of this level, and its the last one in the game.  There are two buildings you can enter that are essentially dead ends, but, if you need the health and are desperately in need of scythes ( you should have plenty though from the third level ) you can get both by paying them a visit.  I do mean desperately, by the way, because they are heavily guarded by these spider things that crawl the walls all around the scythes power up.  One hit from them and you fall all the way back down to the screen below and have to climb all the way back up again.  There are three manholes you can enter, and all three are very difficult to get through.   You have to play guessing game on which one to enter because one of them will have the boss and the other two will be dead ends.  The enemies here are really nasty, particularly the porcupines that shoot spines and the rolling guys.  Both are super quick and if given the opportunity, will drop your turtle in a heartbeat.  Of course, in a few parts, they are together, and in numbers, making this a real pain.  After finally picking the right manhole, you will fight your way through the tough baddies,  enter the door at the end and find the boss of the level, the technodrome.  In my opinion, this is the most difficult boss of the game.  It has several sections to it that have to be destroyed individually before you can begin to take out the eyeball on top, which controls its life bar.  It rolls towards you, and then away, shooting out foot soldiers and radiating electricity towards you from its giant swords, as well as shooting at you from one cannon in the middle.  You have to first fire away with your scythes, taking out the swords ( one in the front and one in the back ) and the cannon, and then start staffing up to take out the apparatus that is shooting out the foot soldiers.  This is easier said than done though, because you are standing on the moving treads of the technodrome, and if you manage to fall off and it runs you over, you lose a lot of valuable Donatello health.  After the foot shooter is destroyed, this boss is defenseless and you can then take out the eyeball on top.  This destroys the boss, and allows you entrance to the final level.  Its a good idea to switch to Mike or Graph before getting in the final hit on the eyeball.  After it is destroyed, the game takes control of your selected turtle, and proceeds to run him off the edge of the forward tread causing four bars of damage before jumping him into the technodrome.  I have not been able to find a way around this awful bug.

    
                                                                                    What do I do now??

    



    Now, you are a REAL gamer if you can beat this last level.  I don't want to spoil the surprise for anyone who doesn't already know, but Its not because of the boss, by any means.  There are a lot of difficult enemies in this long ass maze, but there is one particular type of enemy that you see way too much of, and just one of them can take out a turtle singlehandedly.  They are the jet pack men, and boy do I hate these bastards.  I just want to throw my TMNT cartridge out the window, along with my NES, every time I come across one.  Really though, I mean, just one of these guys would make a harder boss than both Rocksteady and the Mouser combined.  Just one of them takes Donny about 3 or 4 staff hits to kill, and 2 or 3 scythes.  However, 90% of the time, they come at you in pairs, flying high enough that you can't jump over them and low enough that they will either 1) hit you if you duck, or 2) blast you with their bad ass laser cannons.  They each fire a blast roughly every second, often staggering their shots ( one shoots, the other shoots, repeat ) have deadly pinpoint accuracy, and each shot takes off a lot of health.  Also keep in mind the fact that they don't stop firing as they are closing in on you, thus battering you around as you try to stand your ground and counterattack.  Many times, though, you must backtrack to gain some ground on them, so that you can finish them off with a few scythes and if you must do this and finally manage to take them out, guess what happens when you proceed forward again?  Yep, the game spawns the same pair back at you!  Take into account also, that there are about 20 or so of these dreadful things in the level, not counting the re spawns gained from running away from them, or having to go back through them if you run into one of the many dead ends the technodrome has to offer!  There are levels in Silver Surfer much easier than this stage, I promise.  Aside from these most deadly rocketeers, you also fight off foot soldiers, gun turrets, and more indescribable, weird looking machines.  There are three sections to the technodrome, and none are easy.  There is a lot of skill as well as some luck to fend off the attacking jet men, but if you can hang out to the end, you come face to face with the final boss.


        CHEAP!  This is Bull S***

    You would think that with such a hard ass, impossible final level, that the end boss would be so hard that you wouldn't get a lick in on him.  Sadly, ol' Shredder ranks up there with a couple of his buddies you kill before, Rocksteady and the broke down giant mouser.  If you have at least one turtle left with roughly five scythes remaining on him, you can breath a sigh of relief  as you watch Shredder materialize at the top of the screen in an awesome bolt of lightning.  All you do is stand still, make sure your scythes are active, wait for him to jump down in front of you, and blast away.  He'll burn up in a roaring fire in two or three seconds, before he ever gets a hit on you.  Thats all there is to the final boss.  Wow.  Actually, its very important to have the scythes for this battle to win, because without them he is pretty damn hard.  He jumps around the screen shooting these harmless looking bubbles at you, which, when they strike gold, turn you into a baby turtle, forcing you to fight your way through that hell again to get back to him for a second chance. 

    
      Uh oh, I'm gonna get it now...                     Wait, what tha...? Is he gonna try?


??? um...YAAAAYYY. That was really a close one!

    The ending is bad.  What else can I say.  Take a look at the screen shots and you'll see.  Splinter turns into a human, which is supposedly his "real" form, Splinter and April thank you for it, then the game ends.  Human form? Thats not right ... what the hell is this??  Who came up with this terrible ending??? Had they ever watched ninja turtles before?  If Splinter had been transformed back to his original form, he'd have become a common sewer rat again. That screw up behind me, take a look at how ugly the human Splinter is!  He'd probably have been able to pick up some chicks had he stayed the rat.  He looked kinda cool that way, kinda vicious, at least. Wow.  He's really ugly. Really...ugly.  Poor guy, and he's thanking you for it.

    
                            ???                                 Damn, Splinter, put a bag over your head, please.
                                                                   Even Michael Jackson had a better transformation.


              Nice Bu font



    Ugly Splinter ending aside, the graphics in TMNT are fairly descent.  The detail of the turtles and most of the bad guys were also well done, and the backgrounds are pretty nice.  The soundtrack is catchy and memorable as well, although never once mentioning the slightest hint of the classic TMNT theme.  The controls are ok, but could have been a lot better.  Landing precise jumps in a few of the sewer stages is pretty tedious. It is actually rather fun to play until the final two levels.  Due to the extremely ridiculous difficultly of a few stages, combined with a few terribly easy and poorly programmed bosses, some bad glitches         ( including the game slowing down in a lot of spots because there is too many enemies on the screen at one time ) this game gets a low score from me, but its at least fun for a little while...just do yourselves a favor if you try it out and quit after completing the fourth stage.( Once you can pass the underwater level, of course ).  Its just not worth the hassle to go further.

Pros:  Nice Graphics
           Cool Soundtrack
           Some Characters from the TMNT franchise included
           First few levels are pretty fun to play

Cons:  Difficulty is excessive and very frustrating in last two levels
            Bad game glitches
            Turtles can't swim
            Retarted ending
            
            

DIFFICULTY     HARD TO NEAR IMPOSSIBLE
GRAPHICS               7          
SOUND                     7               
CONTROLS              5                   
FUN                          5
OVERALL                 5


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