TMNT was the game that made me want to own a NES, far more than Mario ever did, and I didn't even know about Zelda. It even had a bundle set here in the UK, the only third party game to be bundled with a NES.
It had more depth and exploration than a majority of NES games. It had character selection. The graphics were also really good at the time. Japan got GetsuFumaDen which is also a fantastic game. This game is like a total conversion of that game. I would easily consider both of those titles as a couple of the best games for the NES. The sewer jump or even the water level made too many people give up on this game. Tap the A button instead of pressing on it for the sewer jump. Problem solved. This is a great game.
Your speech about how most kids weren't worried about actually beating video games was 100% my own experience. I was born in the first half of the 1980's, had this game on NES, never beat it, none of my friends ever beat it, and we ALL still considered it to be a game we liked. Actually BEATING a video game on the NES, Game Boy, or Genesis made you a top tier gamer. It was rare. I think that's a big part of why most of us got Game Genies.
I did not "beat" console games on a regular basis unto the PS1 unless they had a battery backed up save system. I did not finish SMB3, one of my most played NES games, from start to finish into the early 2000's on an emulator because the game takes roughly 5-6 hours to finish without warping and if you do the majority of the stages.
I think a lot of it came out of the arcade mindset. "Beating" a game meant that you had mastered it. That was the only way to actually be able to complete a game where difficulty filled out how it had a total play time of 30 minutes. It wouldn't be until more adventure-focused games came along like Zelda and Metroid that the idea of having a lot of content would be what filled out a game. Even most early RPGs tended to rely heavily on grinding and obscure secrets. Beating a game wasn't about sticking it out, it was closer to having a perfect run.
Agreedo, you really could write a significant portion of NES games off as “Nintendo hard” (despite that not being a term used back then) and nobody would give you guff for it. Once the SNES was introduced, then people could give you the side eye a little more often; nowadays you’ll deservedly be laughed out of the room in most cases-save for Souls-like titles, among a few others, in which you have to Git Gud™️.
@@Belgandman, even a password or battery backup system can’t make those earlier first-party games any easier. I tried to play through the first Zelda for the first time a few months ago (it really was an inexplicable blind spot for me until relatively recently) and when I learned that you restart with three lousy hearts no matter what, requiring you to farm your way back up to full strength, I had to peace out, I don’t have time for that, yo. Same goes for Metroid, I loved that game as a kid,* and I didn’t finish it until about fifteen or twenty years later through emulation, because damn, and even then, I could only do it exactly _once._ That last corridor in Tourian is no joke, and the Mother Brain’s teeth have been filed down _pret-ty_ substantially for Super Metroid, which I beat at least a dozen times on the original equipment back in the day, even as a middle-of-the-road player. *I’m one of prob. half a dozen people who prefers it to the remake, despite the expansion Zero Mission gave us-no hand-holding, no mercy, more eerily atmospheric, more appropriate (and atmospheric) musical arrangements, just classic design, warts and all
true. I remember lucking out, checking out a rental copy of SMB3 basically immediately upon release, playing it for a week or so and completing it, and having several kids not believe me at all when I told them (even though it was at summer camp later in the same year, so several months later). but turtles and ninja gaiden were not games most people, including myself, had finished. it was always a story about someone's older brother having beaten it, if that.
This entire channel is like a video game version of Rick Steve's Europe. It's just pure nostalgic comfort food. It has all the chops to be a television series and I love it.
@@eelobrian6727I’ll raise a glass to that; Jeremy’s content, and Mat’s from Techmoan, remind me of late Sunday afternoon PBS programming, like something I’d watch along with Newton’s Apple or The New Yankee Workshop. Watching these videos, I get this pang of nostalgia for a Friday night with HBO, Pizza Hut, and a rented Nintendo game, two-thirds of which I never even experienced, not because I wasn’t there but more because I grew up pretty poor, but I still feel it, it’s visceral. I could almost reprogram my memories, it’s so vivid.
I remember renting this game from the grocery store (yes that was a thing), playing it on Saturday morning, in my TMNT pajama's, eating my TMNT cereal, out of my TMNT Leonardo bowl. I didn't notice how difficult it was or care, it was amazing to me. 🍕🐢🐢🐢🐢
We rented the original Terminator from a store called A&P in mid 92 (after my uncle/mom had rented T2 earlier that year to boot), so I believe it. Shockingly good movie, as well as surprisingly scary considering how much the sequel naturally informs you what happens during the earlier film.
Whether the arcade game was already out or not, my friends and I would have been too young to have known about its existence. Just having ※anything※ Turtles available on the NES was a godsend for our entire school, even if the limitations of the game were pretty obvious as soon as you played.
I vividly remember going to a friends house to play this game since I was a huge fan of the Ninja Turtles. It was the first time my young mind experienced the idea of "being disappointed by a video game." I just thought all video games were good before that.
Yeah I was too young to realize there was an arcade game. I just remembered loving the game up until I quit at the dam level. It was a few years later before I saw an arcade version at a grocery store.
A testament to the influence of this game is that 35 years later, whenever I see half a pizza, I think to myself "That's half a health bar right there."
I suspect it's because of the leap in game design that happened in the 16bit era making so many NES games difficult to go back to. People don't necessarily think of "good game" as a moving target, one which is dictated by the expectations set by other games.
Super Mario Bros. 2 was also another example of this, which bore little to no resemblance to the other traditional Mario game, but was still well received despite that though.
You put so much love and care into these, thanks so much for doing them. Been a fan of yours since the ToastyFrog days, keep on doing what you're doing.
@@JeremyParish I was around in '89(I remember the First Release of SMB 3. in November 1989) and I fondly remember renting TMNT from Blockbuster that year. You are correct that there was ZERO backlash against TMNT for the NES. That's mainly because in 1989, People saw Video Gaming as a "Toy Hobby" Not as Entertainment or Mainstream and back in the Really small Usenet Pre WWW Era, Gaming relied on Word-of-Mouth. Gamers simply took Video Games at Face Value. It was the Wild Wild West Era of Video Game Quality awareness. Game Reviewing was almost non existent and Magazines like EGM and GamePro were BRAND NEW. You simply brought or rented what you could find. A Game could be Utterly Terrible(Super Pitfall and Ghostbusters as well as most LJN releases) but there was no WAY for anyone to review it in advance or for you to grasp a poorly designed concept unless you played it yourself. Also, Nintendo Power NEVER gave negative reviews at that time. They were designed to Sell and promote NES games that were LICENSED regardless of the quality. Minoru Arikawa FORBADE any Staff from giving negative reviews creating the narrative that Publishers could get away with Lying about the Quality of a title. That's why a Year later in '90, there was so much hoopla around EGM PANNING and Blasting the Total Recall Game and Acclaim and Interplay threatening a C&D towards them for doing so. Acclaim even tried to SUE EGM, but in this battle, EGM WON and paved the way for Game Journalism. I NEVER beat TMNT NES btw. Gave up on the 4th Level. I do agree with you that TMNT NES is stand alone and was one of the final "Wild Wild West" 8-bit Side Scrollers that were so prevalent in the mid and latter 80s. Back during that time, Games especially Japanese developed ones had notoriously HIGH difficulty for their Western Counterparts. And that's because Japan had banned Game Rentals at the time and Developers believed that programming Difficult Games kept the Shelf Life much pliable. That's why Arikawa was so Angry at Blockbuster and tried to Get Game Rental in America Banned as well.
Displaced Gamers did a few really good videos about how this game was coded and why it's so frustrating; they're really worth checking out even if you don't know anything about programming. He gets into the details of all the weird coding quirks (inclulding a whole video on the water level).
Can confirm, Displaced Gamers is a great channel. You might find yourself a bit lost by the midpoint of some of his "code walks", but stick with it. He has a way of making it all come together and make sense in the end, even for non programmers. If you're interested in the inner workings of NES games or have ever asked yourself "WHY is this game so wonky?!" he's the guy you wanna ask.
The Mirage comics were awesome. I was given one secondhand in the early 90s and it was really interesting to me. There was a mature, gritty character to them that the more comical Archie ones didn't have, though I enjoyed both.
Excellent coverage as always Jeremy. Small note; season 2 TMNT ended half a year before Nintendo Power put out issue 6 (dec 88, vs the may/june 89 issue with the coverage). It hadn't 'just wrapped', it was half-way until season 3 was going to air.
I'd never heard of this revisionist take, but thank you for so thoroughly debunking it with solid references. It's absolutely not how it was received at the time. We all remember it being brutally, unfairly difficult, but it was also incredibly popular and came out at the peak of TMNT's early success.
I don't think it's revisionist as much as it's an exaggeration. My siblings and I were huge TMNT fans and were smitten when the Arcade machine showed up at Showbiz Pizza. We then saw this game in the local shopping ads and thought it would be an NES version of the Aracde machine. We pooled our allowance money and were... a bit disappointed. The game _was_ a mess. Foot soldiers looked weird, many of the enemies were strange, and it didn't have the vibe of the TV show. With that said, Jeremy is correct that we were happy to just consume TMNT anything. So we played it and we enjoyed it. Even if it felt a bit... off. Konami clearly rushed the NES release of TMNT 2: The Arcade Game to the market in an effort to capture the love for the machine. And so they were able to get us twice. Still, once we had TMNT 2, we mostly forgot about the first game and happily played the unique levels of the home release while continuing to plunk tokens into the arcade machine.
@@thewiirocks I think another factor here may be that while he's right that there were months between arcade release and the NES game release... how many og us back in those olden days actually bought games day one and apread news of EVERYTHING in it day one? You got games for Christmas and birthdays back then, unless you rented of course, but you were honestly more likely to go out to an arcade and see a new game, than you were to buy the NES game day one because you had been following the "coming soon" sections of Nintendo Power. I think a substantial amount of players DID encounter the arcade first just by virtue of what habits were like back then, and then wishing for the home game come Christmas and walking away with a VERY different experience.
As a child this game took on a kind of mythic quality among kids in my school. Discussing weird theories and imagined solutions to it's bizzare mechanics. This was fostered by the fact that none of us owned the game, and only experienced it a day or two at a time via rental. This sort of hazy, ephemeral experience with the game added a lot to its appeal back then. It felt like anything was possible and the game was endless.
No, WDNPS has shown up early on a few episodes. Sometimes Nintendo's promotion is a key element of a game's legacy that merits discussion rather than a quick footnote.
The first video game I ever completed, playing on my mum's chonky 1970s black and white television, and only because I covertly kept the game on pause overnight. That last corridor gauntlet is the true final boss of the game.
That last corridor always got the best of me, I didn't learn about the secret technique to avoid damage until a couple decades later when I was so rusty I was lucky if I even made it to the Technodrome at all.
I owned this game as a kid. I remember picking it out through the glass at the store. But I just realized after watching this video that I never beat the game. I dont think I ever made it past the level after the water level. I know I beat the water level a few times, but none of those later levels look familiar.
I’ll give a little context, even if I was 9 years old when this game was unleashed. It was a massive hit. Everyone on my block either had a copy or would bother you to borrow it. Me and my friends played the ever loving out of it, to the point where I recognize every screen displayed in this video, along with my personal strategy for getting past it. That said, with months and months of grinding, my brother and I only made it to the Technodrome less than five times, and by that point your team was so depleted, we wouldn’t make it far inside. I’d never personally made it to Shredder, nor did I know anyone that did. You have to remember that TMNT Fever was sweeping its way through America at the time of this game’s release. The toys, the TV show, the arcade game, not really the comic even though it spawned all this madness. There was one Christmas where all my brother and I got were TMNT related toys and clothes lol. These dudes were my jam. That said, TMNT 2 is a vastly more fun experience, and every gamer needs to try their hand at the OG arcade port.
I was in 5th grade when I got this game, and I vividly remember standing in line to take the bus home. I couldn't wait to get home and play this game. I loved it
So cool to see someone else highlight the Getsu Fuma Den connection. I played through both for the first time in August 2017 (GFD first) and felt it immediately.
"It allowed kids to play all four of the eponymous terrapin warriors, each with their trademark weapons." An incredible line. Thanks for making me look up what eponymous means today, Jeremy.
That Nintendo Power page pic shows them referring to the publisher as "Ultra/Konami" which seems to pretty plainly reveal that whatever business deal allowed Ultra to exist was not only not a secret to Nintendo, but openly messaged to players by its own magazine.
I'm sure most in the US branch felt the restriction was absurd and unnecessary by this point in the NES's success but we're unable to do anything about it under NOJ leadership.
Nintendo was aware of what they were doing, and apparently fine with it. There were ways around the game limitations, but lazy and cash strapped developers wouldn't bother.
Setting up a whole new business and brand was not easy. So there were still practical limits and incentives for companies to spend time on ensuring a good quality release. Nintendo probably figured that as long as they were getting good quality content at a sustainable rate, their system was working. And giving a larger share of that pie to their reliable publishers was not a bad thing.
I was Nintendo own idea to large companys have a around the contract to create pararel companies so they can publish more than 5 games a year, mostly because they know they make good game so it will bring good reputation to the console and at the same time , giving more time to the company to create their own AAA. The contract wasn made for good games to not be publish but to evade the game console crash once more, and succed very well.
@@MxMaker yes but that decision was likely made a few years before tmnt and by then the game industry had rebounded so significantly and demand was higher than ever. So especially for a top tier publisher with a proven release of hits like Konami and a license like the ninja turtles, the limitation was a mere formality by this time.
I still feel this tmnt game is a diamond in the rough. A sequel in this style couldve ironed out all the faults, cause there is something special here.
I remember the NES game coming out before the arcade game. The arcade game got a lot of my quarters. I now have the Arcade 1up in my kitchen, as well as the Cowabunga Collection. The development team had no idea what game they were making with the NES original, and the lead designer only had the comic books to go by. I rage quit so many times in the dam level till I realized I need to keep a fresh turtle for that narrow passage. Still, electrified seaweed?
Oh, that dam level. Took me forever to memorize when I was a kid. I remember beating it early one morning before school. Best feeling ever. Then I never got past the spike walls level where they would close on you. Couldn’t drop fast enough into those small floor gaps.
This game was responsible for making little kid me think that Master Splinter was a liar. Every time he'd appear on screen to tell me that one of my turtles (usually Mikey, who I tended to use first because he was my favorite!) had been "caught," I would experience white hot small child nerd rage, because I had CLEARLY just watched my turtle die a brutal death at the hands of some guy made out of fire, or some variety of robot bug. Nowadays, I think of it as Master Splinter trying to put on a brave face for my benefit after watching my incompetence get one of his children murdered. What's that, you say? You can find and rescue your fallen turtles? Well, that would require you to survive in the game long enough to do so, which was not a skill that little kid me possessed. That damned dam.
Was just watching this for fun as I was 'treated' to this game as a child and noticed you used (and credited) a video from my channel! I've been a fan of your work for many years so it was sweet I could be of some assistance.
This is one of five NES games I had in childhood. We played it so many times and never got past the party wagon levels (stage 2?) Brutally difficult and often a joyless slog, but we kept coming back to it because it's such a beautiful game with great music.
In Europe, the NES game DID come out after the arcade game, but at that time I would never have expected Konami to try and port that spectacle of a game to the humble 8-bit hitter, so it was all good.
Just realized through your video that the release of the NES port of the Arcade Game coincided with the move of the TV series to CBS, also in 1990, which gave the show so much more notoriety and exposure. Before, in syndication, the show was on mostly independent stations and FOX affiliates, which many smaller markets didn't have. MOST markets, though, DID have a CBS affiliate at that point (this was before that entire mess that happened because of the NFL moving in 1994), and they made a huge deal out of it with it being a full hour, two back to back episodes, and a new intro, and it was a huge ratings win for CBS's schedule. So TMNT had a TON more exposure at that point, and thus, more could watch the show and some could even discover what the show was all about. This made the interest in the games that much larger. Makes me wonder if they tried to shop it to a major network prior to that big move and if Konami had any idea that was going to happen and planned that accordingly to when they ported the arcade game to console.
That is some very handy context I actually didn't know until now- here in Sweden the state-sponsored TV available to anyone who owned a TV didn't air TMHT, but the Archie comics, toys and games were still big, and it was ALWAYS a popular rental at the video stores. I suppose that advertisements and reputation spread wouod have made it big anyways, but if it was also aired on the channels everyone had... can imagine that really helped the spread.
I finished it back in the day a couple of times, but man, I do NOT have the patience for its B.S. nowadays. I made use of level select cheats to get this footage. And even then I didn't feel like dealing with the Technodrome over and over again and just used VHS footage of the final boss. I have too much going on in my life to wade through this game's nonsense as an adult.
I was 13 in 1989 and I find these latest vids, esp this one, conjure so many memories. But, I'll resist the compulsion to start my memoirs here in these comments lol. One thing though; the tips page shown from NP reminded me this was probably the year I started sending in tips to magazines and thinking of myself as 'good at games.' Keep an eye out for Agent 414 and 514 (one of those was me miscounting the month I was born in.)
In line with pretty much everything said in this video: my cousin and I played the HELL out of this game back in the day, and I myself have never seen beyond the opening minutes of Stage 4. TMNT is for me the quintessential example of how a game can be deeply flawed but still, somehow, totally awesome. I feel like I would have loved it even if I'd never heard of Ninja Turtles before. You can do it!
I wasn't even really a fan of TMNT, but I loved the gameplay. I think the stage after the dam where you get the car and can expore a whole section of the city was awesome conceptually, and I wish it hadn't been so hard for me to reach it when I was younger. Banging soundtrack too.
This episode wonderfully displays everything great about this series. Thank you for describing so much context about the inspirations and culture surrounding the release! You're my biggest inspiration for taking night classes on journalism and learning to better my writing. P.S. I think the titles for the clips you're sourcing (in the red boxes by the corner) are missing
Yes! Thank you for correcting the narrative on this one. It's not a perfect game, but we all loved it when it came out, and it's much better than the current narrative would have you believe. They could have made a cheap, copy-pasted cash grab of a game, but they tried something much more ambitious. It was flawed, but I love what they tried to do.
I've never heard anyone describe so accurately how much of a massive event it was to have this first Ninja Turtles game on NES back when it released. It was beloved by so many kids- just running through the maze-like structure of the game with all the turtles and trying to get a little further each time. Thanks for setting the record straight.
Quick fix would be different attacks instead of lengths.. Ralph could do 3x damage (for bosses) Mike could have a continuous nun-chuck spin attack (by rapidly pressing attack button) Leo could have a dual attack with swords (being the most balanced) Don is fine as is (already was the most used one due to reach)
I can confirm two things, having grown up during peak TurtleMania: Kids preferred the Arcade Game, but absolutely did not care that the NES title was different at the time; we wanted anything with the Turtles! Also, the lack of popularity (or rather, any knowledge of their existence) in Japan: My old man ended up working in Hokkaido for a month or two in the early Nineties, and having come from the Midwest he couldn't believe that none of the kids there were into The Turtles given how popular they were at home! None of the engineers he worked with over there had ever even heard of them!
It really was a great game for its time, but the difficulty just killed 8 year old me. But, as one who grew up 10 minutes from the spot the Turtles were created (and now live down the street), Turtle fever hit me quite hard in my youth.
I remember playing it an being very impressed, especially taking into account the strategic value of using each turtle's specific abilities and its power-ups...and the music rocked!
You know even back in the day I thought it was really strange that the Turtles couldn't swim nearly as well as Mario can! I mean, didn't Donatello say in that one episode that water is their natural habitat?
There is so much to love about this game. It represents that nebulous phase of the TMNT IP in the late '80s when marketing was catering to both the comic books and the cartoon series. As a result, we got a lot of merch that had the primordial TMNT design of the early comics, starting with the Playmates toys (though, technically, it began with RPG books, Darkhorse miniatures, and iron-on t-shirts). The '90s changed that when it went full in on the cartoon (and the new movies); phasing out representation of the Mirage books.
I never made it past the Dam level, and if I hadn't just seen video footage of levels afterward I would not have believed that anyone else ever did either.
A genuine thank you for producing these great videos. I was too young to experience the NES in its prime (although I still got to enjoy lots of its treasures a little later on thanks to my parents hitting up yard sales in the mid 90s), so the historical / cultural aspect of these documentaries is fascinating and very much appreciated.
I loved the NES TMNT game when it came out and it's still one of my favorite games on the system. Once I learned you have to walk over the gap to get the missiles for the van instead of jump, I was able to beat the game pretty quickly. I never thought it was very hard.
I think it’s telling that when the Cowabunga Collection came out, this game literally has a rewind feature to make certain sections less rage inducing.
Great extended coverage and background on this one. I never played this game; but of course I saw all of the coverage in Nintendo Power, which just fed my own Turtle and ninja manias. When Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ruled the Earth! What a time it was!
I truly appreciate this nuanced and thorough retrospective! So much internet content about this game is negative, focusing on how hard and unforgiving it is. As 7/8 year olds, my friends and I loved this game and played it all the time, even though I don't think I ever made it beyond the airport stage. We were used to hard, weird games, and our parents didn't mind us devoting an entire Saturday to our Nintendos, so it hit us where we were. We were all obsessed with the Ninja Turtles so there was pretty much nothing else we wanted to be doing. Did I wish that it were the arcade game? Of course. But like you said, it had all of the elements we needed. Joyriding around in the Turtle Van shooting foot soldiers was awesome.
It took me many years to finish this game as a kid. Got stuck on the dam for sooo long. And then that final gauntlet in the Technodrome, what were the game designers smoking, for real?
"Kids have tons of free time to beat it, and if we make it too easy they'll finish it in a few hours and feel like it wasn't worth the money" probably.
Loved this game as a kid but never got anywhere near finishing it. I was a huge Turtles fan and my parents marriage was falling apart so they weren't talking to each other, so for my birthday I got this game twice, once for NES and once for PC. Luckily I picked the correct one to give back! I also loved the arcade game but really wouldn't have expected or wanted this to be that. It's not the same if you're not standing up in the middle of a pizza parlor, losing quarters by the bucketload.
I was right in the strike zone for TMNT, we all loved the game even though it was hard and only a scant few of us got past the underwater level let alone actually beat it.
While 'TMNT' for the NES has A reputation for it's difficulty, kids were still captivated by it since it was released at A time when the original cartoon, and toy line were 'the new hotness'. We, as kids, wanted to play our favorite turtles, and that game held us over unto the arcade game was released, and blew us away. Also, while The Turtles had very little presence in Japan, the first five episodes were animated by Toei for Murakami Wolf Swenson.
I don’t know how I beat it as a kid. I never really went back to it, and wondered why so many people complained about the difficulty… but by my next encounter with the game, my mystic ability was gone, and I quickly empathized.
This was one of my most played games as a kid; not the NES version but the Amiga port. The game was massive in the UK, being packed in with the NES and propelling the Nintendo machine to sales numbers it had never seen in the territory (though ultimately it remained well behind the Master System) and when it was ported to the Amiga virtually every retailer began bundling the game with new Amigas that Christmas even though Commodore missed a trick by never officially making it a pack-in. It came out on all the UK home micros that were still commercially viable by the early 90s and shot straight to the top of the sales charts for all of them. Is it a good game? Not really, but it's a cultural touchstone for kids of the 80s and 90s all over the world, and that's got to be worth something.
I loved this game as a kid and probably love it even more now. Very good episode of NES Works, as usual, and I'm a big enough Works fan to know how much you actually dislike this game, but you remained mostly fair in your criticism, which I appreciate.
Really fantastic video, the context here is so nice to see. I was born in 88, growing up in the very recent shadow of Turtle-mania but was still totally hooked on all things TMNT. I missed all the pieces being set for this franchise so it's really cool to see it all come together. Oh, and for what it's worth I was still renting this game into the 90's when other Turtle options existed. I never made it very far into the game but I still had a good time.
This game had enough good qualities that as a kid when you couldn't beat it, you didn't blame the game, you just assumed you weren't good enough at video games to beat it yet and you needed more practice.
Played this as a kid. I think I only made it to the 3rd level once or twice. The dam level was a big brick wall for me. Mikey was my favorite turtle. And the regular viewers are not ready for next week's episode and it's glorious climax.
See I had the Amiga port and I never understood everyone's issue with the dam level... until I finally bought a NES and a copy of the game. The difficulty of that level was definitely nerfed for the microcomputer ports because as a kid I don't remember ever having much trouble with it but when I played it on NES I don't think I ever managed to get past it.
@@craigcharlesworth1538 I can't remember where I saw it, but there was an analysis a few years ago that showed that there were small bugs in the handling of the swimming physics of the NES version. Those bugs caused unexpected movement that unintentionally drove players into the dangers, making the game a lot harder than intended.
@@thewiirocksThere's a video on TH-cam showcasing the game's hitboxes and the ones for the various damn hazards are particularly messed up. It's no wonder we kept getting hit when we felt like we should have been safe.
I love how Nintendo Power literally just gives away the fact that Ultra & Konami were the same company at 5:03, so it's likely that Nintendo of America really didn't care if companies subverted its restrictions, just as long as they weren't actively BREAKING them.
I am glad that you touched on the revisionist history regarding this game's reputation. Upon release, this game was indeed a very popular game. To be honest, I would say that it wasn't until the AVGN episode came out that this game was considered to be "bad". I gave this game a play last summer for about the first time in twenty years, and, despite its flaws, I still like it. I am not sure if you would ever cover it, but I feel like the G.I. Joe games for the NES feature a better take on the gameplay style of the first TMNT game.
i always liked this game despite its modern kusoge status and obvious jankiness, there's just something so mysterious and oblique and alien about its whole vibe didn't know getsu fuuma den was the precursor to it (along with konami wai wai world) though, it looks pretty sick and i don't remember tmnt arcade being a thing until well after tmnt nes
My recollection definitely matches yours. I saw this game at a friend's house well before encountering it in the arcade, and while the game was punishing and frequently unfair we had a good time playing as our favorite turtles. So naturally when they did finally release the arcade game to NES it was a must-have for me.
The definitive retrospective of TMNT for NES that actually addresses the revisionism, praises the game for what it does right, and addresses the flaws. Even as a casual TMNT fan (watched a couple of episodes and recent movie, and I love the concept even if I've seen like 10 episodes and a movie), I appreciate it. I also love to see how TMNT fits into this era, and it was interesting to see it take influence from Japanese exclusive games. I wonder if TMNT would be in Wai Wai World 2 if it wasn't such a huge franchise. Also very interesting to see you as one of the few gamers back then to finish games. Because even as a person who's not that great at video games, I can comfortably beat stuff like Mega Man 2-4 and Castlevania in a couple of days my first run through, but I guess kids aren't known for being good at video games. It seems natural for gamers now to finish games, but back then rentals were big and kids will be kids and find something else to do after a couple of hours playing video games. Although, What made you specifically into completing games, I wonder. I also wonder if the fact that most Japanese players revere Final Fantasy III because they never got to the end game that was brutally difficult so only really remember the easy bits beforehand.
That’s my experience, anyway. Very few of my friends made an effort to finish NES games, though I had one friend who could crush even the games I couldn’t beat. Everyone else would get exasperated and call it quits with most games.
@@JeremyParish Yeah, I see a lot of TH-camrs say the same thing of "I wasn't able to beat it as a kid" so I don't think it was just your friends who gave up quickly. It's just funny that as a 21st Century boy I just buy these retro collections then beat all of the games within it in a month not using save states, aside from saving my game between game sessions, as I somehow have discipline not to use it, so it's pretty odd to me. I guess that is part of it being able to save between play sessions, so I guess it's more understandable. Although I still have not beaten Super Mario Bros 3 funnily enough despite the fact that it was the first retro game I played on the Wii virtual console
I got Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for my birthday in February of I think 1990, along with Dragon Warrior. I do not think I knew of the game beforehand. I have a vague memory of thinking it would be the arcade game. I ended up loving it. Made it to the Technodrome as a kid, but never beat it until adulthood.
OMG, I'm so old lol when you showed the VHS footage that was warped I immediately thought, "oh man, my tape is messed up" and then was like, "oh yeah I'm watching TH-cam" 😂
As a kid during peak-late stage turtles era, I played this one first with no knowledge of the arcade game and enjoyed it, but never made it past the dam section. This was when my dad would get a lot of games from the pawn shop. Games like this, Castlevania 2, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Golgo 13/Mafat Conspiracy, and Robocop ... I think there may have been a reason we had all of those games second hand. Of course, I had TMNT 2 The Arcade Game a bit later and loved it, again, with no knowledge of the actual arcade game (which I wouldn't play until Ubisoft released it on the Xbox 360) Our "arcade" was the local Wal-Mart, which strangely got games like Darkstalkers, Simpsons, and Sunset Riders. Is it bad that my first thought is "Gee, it would be cool if someone like WayForward revisited this game's ideas with some friendlier design"? I love the almost Zelda-esque overworld/dungeon exploration and turtle management, but the enemy layouts feel even less fair than Ninja Gaiden respawns. I understand the dislike of Konami's heavy focus on licenses, but they still put out an impressive level of bangers and let a guy like Kojima do damn near anything he wanted later on. You could at least feel pretty safe if the logo had the Konami image instead of the LJN rainbow.
I really appreciate all of the extra context in this video! I played this TMNT game before I played the arcade game and if it hadn't been for the bit of jank with the play control and the punishing difficult, the TMNT NES game would have probably been a top 10 game for me at the time. However, months later plunking down a few quarters in the arcade game at a local Aladdin's Castle. Along with plunking down a LOT more quarters at the local roller rink at a school sponsored roller skating party (we did those in the Midwest back then!) and completing the arcade game with 3 other friends. My view of the NES game did change. The TMNT NES game is not an objectionably bad game, even with it's flaws. It's just that the arcade game was darn near perfect to then pre-teen me and everyone else around my age at the time! Also, I would not be surprised if the developers of the NES game truly did not know about the arcade game. It seems like a lot of Japanese developers had clear separations between arcade and home console development teams back then. The same is true within a lot of corporations even today!
The dude vs vehicle stages makes me think of it as a reverse Blaster Master. Great game, loved replaying it on the Switch, still difficult but the gameplay, graphics, and especially the sound all seem to hold up well.
Thank you for reminding the internet that those of us who grew up with this game actually liked it. Yes, it was extremely difficult....but we still loved it.
That last little tirade hit right in the feels. Remember when Konami was good, and not the malicious, corrupt, greedy, blitheringly idiotic and rankly incompetent shell of a company they are today? Tragic.
You make a very good point about revisionist history. I enjoyed the game as a kid, and though rarely, if ever, made it past the swimming level, didn’t have the rage that lives on the internet. I was just happy to have the turtles.
TMNT was the game that made me want to own a NES, far more than Mario ever did, and I didn't even know about Zelda.
It even had a bundle set here in the UK, the only third party game to be bundled with a NES.
It had more depth and exploration than a majority of NES games. It had character selection. The graphics were also really good at the time. Japan got GetsuFumaDen which is also a fantastic game. This game is like a total conversion of that game. I would easily consider both of those titles as a couple of the best games for the NES. The sewer jump or even the water level made too many people give up on this game. Tap the A button instead of pressing on it for the sewer jump. Problem solved. This is a great game.
Your speech about how most kids weren't worried about actually beating video games was 100% my own experience. I was born in the first half of the 1980's, had this game on NES, never beat it, none of my friends ever beat it, and we ALL still considered it to be a game we liked. Actually BEATING a video game on the NES, Game Boy, or Genesis made you a top tier gamer. It was rare. I think that's a big part of why most of us got Game Genies.
I did not "beat" console games on a regular basis unto the PS1 unless they had a battery backed up save system. I did not finish SMB3, one of my most played NES games, from start to finish into the early 2000's on an emulator because the game takes roughly 5-6 hours to finish without warping and if you do the majority of the stages.
I think a lot of it came out of the arcade mindset. "Beating" a game meant that you had mastered it. That was the only way to actually be able to complete a game where difficulty filled out how it had a total play time of 30 minutes. It wouldn't be until more adventure-focused games came along like Zelda and Metroid that the idea of having a lot of content would be what filled out a game. Even most early RPGs tended to rely heavily on grinding and obscure secrets. Beating a game wasn't about sticking it out, it was closer to having a perfect run.
Agreedo, you really could write a significant portion of NES games off as “Nintendo hard” (despite that not being a term used back then) and nobody would give you guff for it. Once the SNES was introduced, then people could give you the side eye a little more often; nowadays you’ll deservedly be laughed out of the room in most cases-save for Souls-like titles, among a few others, in which you have to Git Gud™️.
@@Belgandman, even a password or battery backup system can’t make those earlier first-party games any easier. I tried to play through the first Zelda for the first time a few months ago (it really was an inexplicable blind spot for me until relatively recently) and when I learned that you restart with three lousy hearts no matter what, requiring you to farm your way back up to full strength, I had to peace out, I don’t have time for that, yo. Same goes for Metroid, I loved that game as a kid,* and I didn’t finish it until about fifteen or twenty years later through emulation, because damn, and even then, I could only do it exactly _once._ That last corridor in Tourian is no joke, and the Mother Brain’s teeth have been filed down _pret-ty_ substantially for Super Metroid, which I beat at least a dozen times on the original equipment back in the day, even as a middle-of-the-road player.
*I’m one of prob. half a dozen people who prefers it to the remake, despite the expansion Zero Mission gave us-no hand-holding, no mercy, more eerily atmospheric, more appropriate (and atmospheric) musical arrangements, just classic design, warts and all
true. I remember lucking out, checking out a rental copy of SMB3 basically immediately upon release, playing it for a week or so and completing it, and having several kids not believe me at all when I told them (even though it was at summer camp later in the same year, so several months later). but turtles and ninja gaiden were not games most people, including myself, had finished. it was always a story about someone's older brother having beaten it, if that.
This entire channel is like a video game version of Rick Steve's Europe.
It's just pure nostalgic comfort food. It has all the chops to be a television series and I love it.
I'll go a step further and say this should be a PBS show.
@@eelobrian6727I’ll raise a glass to that; Jeremy’s content, and Mat’s from Techmoan, remind me of late Sunday afternoon PBS programming, like something I’d watch along with Newton’s Apple or The New Yankee Workshop.
Watching these videos, I get this pang of nostalgia for a Friday night with HBO, Pizza Hut, and a rented Nintendo game, two-thirds of which I never even experienced, not because I wasn’t there but more because I grew up pretty poor, but I still feel it, it’s visceral. I could almost reprogram my memories, it’s so vivid.
"Sunday afternoon PBS programming" is the standard I never realized I secretly aspire to, but... yes
I remember renting this game from the grocery store (yes that was a thing), playing it on Saturday morning, in my TMNT pajama's, eating my TMNT cereal, out of my TMNT Leonardo bowl. I didn't notice how difficult it was or care, it was amazing to me. 🍕🐢🐢🐢🐢
We rented the original Terminator from a store called A&P in mid 92 (after my uncle/mom had rented T2 earlier that year to boot), so I believe it.
Shockingly good movie, as well as surprisingly scary considering how much the sequel naturally informs you what happens during the earlier film.
Whether the arcade game was already out or not, my friends and I would have been too young to have known about its existence. Just having ※anything※ Turtles available on the NES was a godsend for our entire school, even if the limitations of the game were pretty obvious as soon as you played.
I vividly remember going to a friends house to play this game since I was a huge fan of the Ninja Turtles. It was the first time my young mind experienced the idea of "being disappointed by a video game." I just thought all video games were good before that.
My brood played the sequel first. I distinctly remember the disappointment upon finally playing this game. @@felixl.l.2060
Yeah I was too young to realize there was an arcade game. I just remembered loving the game up until I quit at the dam level. It was a few years later before I saw an arcade version at a grocery store.
You’re lucky as shit. I was very much aware of the arcade game, but not the nes game. I was sorely disappointed when I got this version instead.
A testament to the influence of this game is that 35 years later, whenever I see half a pizza, I think to myself "That's half a health bar right there."
I flinched when I heard the low energy beeps. So many hours I put into this game as a kid.
I heard a few notes of the underwater stage and felt my stress levels rising. 😂
How you don't have at least 1 million TH-cam subscribers remains one of life's true mysteries.
Oh he could easily achieve that if he resorted to clickbait titles and the usual "shocked-youtuber-face" thumbnails.
@@reyvgm"I BEAT AN IMPOSSIBLE 30 YEAR OLD GAME??!! 😱"
So glad he doesn't do that.
@@ROMBomb001 "I PLAYED THIS OBSCURE SANSOFT GAME! 🤯"
It's Spy Hunter. He's playing Spy Hunter.
@@reyvgmTop Ten Secrets of Turtles on NES lol
So many supposed "black sheep" NES games were very much liked back in the day. This game, Zelda 2 and lots of others.
I suspect it's because of the leap in game design that happened in the 16bit era making so many NES games difficult to go back to. People don't necessarily think of "good game" as a moving target, one which is dictated by the expectations set by other games.
@@SnakebitSTI What are those game design leap, making characters clunky to control?
They were liked because they were all we had if we happened to buy them.
Super Mario Bros. 2 was also another example of this, which bore little to no resemblance to the other traditional Mario game, but was still well received despite that though.
@@freakyfornash sure, but it was similar enough compared to Zelda II which pulled a Xanadu and played nothing like it's predecessor.
You put so much love and care into these, thanks so much for doing them. Been a fan of yours since the ToastyFrog days, keep on doing what you're doing.
Your entire career has been building toward this
God I hope there’s something better in the future to look forward to
@@JeremyParishI dunno, looks pretty bleak, you said it yourself with that fortune-telling game a few episodes back. Big yikes.
@@JeremyParish I was around in '89(I remember the First Release of SMB 3. in November 1989) and I fondly remember renting TMNT from Blockbuster that year. You are correct that there was ZERO backlash against TMNT for the NES. That's mainly because in 1989, People saw Video Gaming as a "Toy Hobby" Not as Entertainment or Mainstream and back in the Really small Usenet Pre WWW Era, Gaming relied on Word-of-Mouth. Gamers simply took Video Games at Face Value. It was the Wild Wild West Era of Video Game Quality awareness. Game Reviewing was almost non existent and Magazines like EGM and GamePro were BRAND NEW. You simply brought or rented what you could find. A Game could be Utterly Terrible(Super Pitfall and Ghostbusters as well as most LJN releases) but there was no WAY for anyone to review it in advance or for you to grasp a poorly designed concept unless you played it yourself. Also, Nintendo Power NEVER gave negative reviews at that time. They were designed to Sell and promote NES games that were LICENSED regardless of the quality. Minoru Arikawa FORBADE any Staff from giving negative reviews creating the narrative that Publishers could get away with Lying about the Quality of a title. That's why a Year later in '90, there was so much hoopla around EGM PANNING and Blasting the Total Recall Game and Acclaim and Interplay threatening a C&D towards them for doing so. Acclaim even tried to SUE EGM, but in this battle, EGM WON and paved the way for Game Journalism.
I NEVER beat TMNT NES btw. Gave up on the 4th Level.
I do agree with you that TMNT NES is stand alone and was one of the final "Wild Wild West" 8-bit Side Scrollers that were so prevalent in the mid and latter 80s. Back during that time, Games especially Japanese developed ones had notoriously HIGH difficulty for their Western Counterparts. And that's because Japan had banned Game Rentals at the time and Developers believed that programming Difficult Games kept the Shelf Life much pliable. That's why Arikawa was so Angry at Blockbuster and tried to Get Game Rental in America Banned as well.
Displaced Gamers did a few really good videos about how this game was coded and why it's so frustrating; they're really worth checking out even if you don't know anything about programming. He gets into the details of all the weird coding quirks (inclulding a whole video on the water level).
Can confirm, Displaced Gamers is a great channel. You might find yourself a bit lost by the midpoint of some of his "code walks", but stick with it. He has a way of making it all come together and make sense in the end, even for non programmers. If you're interested in the inner workings of NES games or have ever asked yourself "WHY is this game so wonky?!" he's the guy you wanna ask.
as a programmer, they're especially interesting :D
The Mirage comics were awesome. I was given one secondhand in the early 90s and it was really interesting to me. There was a mature, gritty character to them that the more comical Archie ones didn't have, though I enjoyed both.
Excellent coverage as always Jeremy. Small note; season 2 TMNT ended half a year before Nintendo Power put out issue 6 (dec 88, vs the may/june 89 issue with the coverage). It hadn't 'just wrapped', it was half-way until season 3 was going to air.
I'd never heard of this revisionist take, but thank you for so thoroughly debunking it with solid references. It's absolutely not how it was received at the time. We all remember it being brutally, unfairly difficult, but it was also incredibly popular and came out at the peak of TMNT's early success.
I don't think it's revisionist as much as it's an exaggeration. My siblings and I were huge TMNT fans and were smitten when the Arcade machine showed up at Showbiz Pizza. We then saw this game in the local shopping ads and thought it would be an NES version of the Aracde machine. We pooled our allowance money and were... a bit disappointed. The game _was_ a mess. Foot soldiers looked weird, many of the enemies were strange, and it didn't have the vibe of the TV show.
With that said, Jeremy is correct that we were happy to just consume TMNT anything. So we played it and we enjoyed it. Even if it felt a bit... off. Konami clearly rushed the NES release of TMNT 2: The Arcade Game to the market in an effort to capture the love for the machine. And so they were able to get us twice.
Still, once we had TMNT 2, we mostly forgot about the first game and happily played the unique levels of the home release while continuing to plunk tokens into the arcade machine.
@@thewiirocks I think another factor here may be that while he's right that there were months between arcade release and the NES game release... how many og us back in those olden days actually bought games day one and apread news of EVERYTHING in it day one? You got games for Christmas and birthdays back then, unless you rented of course, but you were honestly more likely to go out to an arcade and see a new game, than you were to buy the NES game day one because you had been following the "coming soon" sections of Nintendo Power. I think a substantial amount of players DID encounter the arcade first just by virtue of what habits were like back then, and then wishing for the home game come Christmas and walking away with a VERY different experience.
As a child this game took on a kind of mythic quality among kids in my school. Discussing weird theories and imagined solutions to it's bizzare mechanics. This was fostered by the fact that none of us owned the game, and only experienced it a day or two at a time via rental. This sort of hazy, ephemeral experience with the game added a lot to its appeal back then.
It felt like anything was possible and the game was endless.
Same here.
When the "What did Nintendo Power say?" section came up, I HONESTLY thought "My god, that was a short episode."
I'm an idiot, see.
I did the same thing literally while reading this comment oops
LOL same
It isn't the first time it's positioned at the start of an episode though, is it?
No, WDNPS has shown up early on a few episodes. Sometimes Nintendo's promotion is a key element of a game's legacy that merits discussion rather than a quick footnote.
“Why can’t a turtle swim? Why can’t I land the plane? Why don’t the weapons do anything??”
Better yet: why can't my turtles swim here, but they can in the dam level?
The hardest turtles property for me, outside of trying to get a betamax tmnt compilation tape to play on my VHS player. Thanks grandma
The first video game I ever completed, playing on my mum's chonky 1970s black and white television, and only because I covertly kept the game on pause overnight. That last corridor gauntlet is the true final boss of the game.
That last corridor always got the best of me, I didn't learn about the secret technique to avoid damage until a couple decades later when I was so rusty I was lucky if I even made it to the Technodrome at all.
got this game in 1989. I just found out you can rescue a turtle. its 2024. Fuckin hell...
Right?! TIL
I was gonna chalk it up to not owning the game myself, but if you didn’t know, then yeah, damn
I owned this game as a kid. I remember picking it out through the glass at the store.
But I just realized after watching this video that I never beat the game. I dont think I ever made it past the level after the water level.
I know I beat the water level a few times, but none of those later levels look familiar.
I’ll give a little context, even if I was 9 years old when this game was unleashed. It was a massive hit. Everyone on my block either had a copy or would bother you to borrow it. Me and my friends played the ever loving out of it, to the point where I recognize every screen displayed in this video, along with my personal strategy for getting past it. That said, with months and months of grinding, my brother and I only made it to the Technodrome less than five times, and by that point your team was so depleted, we wouldn’t make it far inside. I’d never personally made it to Shredder, nor did I know anyone that did.
You have to remember that TMNT Fever was sweeping its way through America at the time of this game’s release. The toys, the TV show, the arcade game, not really the comic even though it spawned all this madness. There was one Christmas where all my brother and I got were TMNT related toys and clothes lol. These dudes were my jam. That said, TMNT 2 is a vastly more fun experience, and every gamer needs to try their hand at the OG arcade port.
Anyone born in the early 80's still has PTSD from the dam sequence and at least 1 broken controller.
I was in 5th grade when I got this game, and I vividly remember standing in line to take the bus home.
I couldn't wait to get home and play this game.
I loved it
So cool to see someone else highlight the Getsu Fuma Den connection. I played through both for the first time in August 2017 (GFD first) and felt it immediately.
"It allowed kids to play all four of the eponymous terrapin warriors, each with their trademark weapons."
An incredible line. Thanks for making me look up what eponymous means today, Jeremy.
That Nintendo Power page pic shows them referring to the publisher as "Ultra/Konami" which seems to pretty plainly reveal that whatever business deal allowed Ultra to exist was not only not a secret to Nintendo, but openly messaged to players by its own magazine.
I'm sure most in the US branch felt the restriction was absurd and unnecessary by this point in the NES's success but we're unable to do anything about it under NOJ leadership.
Nintendo was aware of what they were doing, and apparently fine with it.
There were ways around the game limitations, but lazy and cash strapped developers wouldn't bother.
Setting up a whole new business and brand was not easy. So there were still practical limits and incentives for companies to spend time on ensuring a good quality release. Nintendo probably figured that as long as they were getting good quality content at a sustainable rate, their system was working. And giving a larger share of that pie to their reliable publishers was not a bad thing.
I was Nintendo own idea to large companys have a around the contract to create pararel companies so they can publish more than 5 games a year, mostly because they know they make good game so it will bring good reputation to the console and at the same time , giving more time to the company to create their own AAA.
The contract wasn made for good games to not be publish but to evade the game console crash once more, and succed very well.
@@MxMaker yes but that decision was likely made a few years before tmnt and by then the game industry had rebounded so significantly and demand was higher than ever. So especially for a top tier publisher with a proven release of hits like Konami and a license like the ninja turtles, the limitation was a mere formality by this time.
I still feel this tmnt game is a diamond in the rough. A sequel in this style couldve ironed out all the faults, cause there is something special here.
I remember the NES game coming out before the arcade game. The arcade game got a lot of my quarters. I now have the Arcade 1up in my kitchen, as well as the Cowabunga Collection.
The development team had no idea what game they were making with the NES original, and the lead designer only had the comic books to go by.
I rage quit so many times in the dam level till I realized I need to keep a fresh turtle for that narrow passage. Still, electrified seaweed?
I also remember the nes game coming out bf the arcade one
Oh, that dam level. Took me forever to memorize when I was a kid. I remember beating it early one morning before school. Best feeling ever. Then I never got past the spike walls level where they would close on you. Couldn’t drop fast enough into those small floor gaps.
This game was responsible for making little kid me think that Master Splinter was a liar. Every time he'd appear on screen to tell me that one of my turtles (usually Mikey, who I tended to use first because he was my favorite!) had been "caught," I would experience white hot small child nerd rage, because I had CLEARLY just watched my turtle die a brutal death at the hands of some guy made out of fire, or some variety of robot bug.
Nowadays, I think of it as Master Splinter trying to put on a brave face for my benefit after watching my incompetence get one of his children murdered.
What's that, you say? You can find and rescue your fallen turtles? Well, that would require you to survive in the game long enough to do so, which was not a skill that little kid me possessed. That damned dam.
Not to mention, going out of your way to rescue a turtle meant endangering the other 3. 😂
Another great episode and incredibly fitting for this year, the 40th anniversary of the property.
I remember playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on The NES when I was a kid and it's still awesome today.😀👍🐢🎮
Was just watching this for fun as I was 'treated' to this game as a child and noticed you used (and credited) a video from my channel! I've been a fan of your work for many years so it was sweet I could be of some assistance.
This is one of five NES games I had in childhood. We played it so many times and never got past the party wagon levels (stage 2?) Brutally difficult and often a joyless slog, but we kept coming back to it because it's such a beautiful game with great music.
I was 42 years old when I learned Leo got a desperation state damage buff. I just knew Donny had the greatest damage.
I was 35 when I learned that. I remember it like it was yesterday... but it was actually today... when I watched this video.
Ditto today and 39. That's amazing.
In Europe, the NES game DID come out after the arcade game, but at that time I would never have expected Konami to try and port that spectacle of a game to the humble 8-bit hitter, so it was all good.
Just realized through your video that the release of the NES port of the Arcade Game coincided with the move of the TV series to CBS, also in 1990, which gave the show so much more notoriety and exposure. Before, in syndication, the show was on mostly independent stations and FOX affiliates, which many smaller markets didn't have. MOST markets, though, DID have a CBS affiliate at that point (this was before that entire mess that happened because of the NFL moving in 1994), and they made a huge deal out of it with it being a full hour, two back to back episodes, and a new intro, and it was a huge ratings win for CBS's schedule. So TMNT had a TON more exposure at that point, and thus, more could watch the show and some could even discover what the show was all about. This made the interest in the games that much larger. Makes me wonder if they tried to shop it to a major network prior to that big move and if Konami had any idea that was going to happen and planned that accordingly to when they ported the arcade game to console.
That is some very handy context I actually didn't know until now- here in Sweden the state-sponsored TV available to anyone who owned a TV didn't air TMHT, but the Archie comics, toys and games were still big, and it was ALWAYS a popular rental at the video stores. I suppose that advertisements and reputation spread wouod have made it big anyways, but if it was also aired on the channels everyone had... can imagine that really helped the spread.
I admit I cheated by using rewind in the cowabunga collection, but I don’t think I could have beaten the game otherwise.
I finished it back in the day a couple of times, but man, I do NOT have the patience for its B.S. nowadays. I made use of level select cheats to get this footage. And even then I didn't feel like dealing with the Technodrome over and over again and just used VHS footage of the final boss. I have too much going on in my life to wade through this game's nonsense as an adult.
i'm jaded w/ rewind, lol. I instructively try to use it on games I know that don't.
This really made me appreciate TMNT 1 more.
It really is a shame how Konami has changed over the years.
I don't know how many times I rented this and tried to jump across that one gap, only to discover MUCH later that you just walk over it.
i haven't gotten past the part that required the rope, that was as far as i could get back then!
I was 13 in 1989 and I find these latest vids, esp this one, conjure so many memories. But, I'll resist the compulsion to start my memoirs here in these comments lol.
One thing though; the tips page shown from NP reminded me this was probably the year I started sending in tips to magazines and thinking of myself as 'good at games.' Keep an eye out for Agent 414 and 514 (one of those was me miscounting the month I was born in.)
In line with pretty much everything said in this video: my cousin and I played the HELL out of this game back in the day, and I myself have never seen beyond the opening minutes of Stage 4. TMNT is for me the quintessential example of how a game can be deeply flawed but still, somehow, totally awesome. I feel like I would have loved it even if I'd never heard of Ninja Turtles before. You can do it!
I wasn't even really a fan of TMNT, but I loved the gameplay. I think the stage after the dam where you get the car and can expore a whole section of the city was awesome conceptually, and I wish it hadn't been so hard for me to reach it when I was younger.
Banging soundtrack too.
nailed it, revisionist history indeed. This game ruled back then.
This episode wonderfully displays everything great about this series. Thank you for describing so much context about the inspirations and culture surrounding the release! You're my biggest inspiration for taking night classes on journalism and learning to better my writing.
P.S. I think the titles for the clips you're sourcing (in the red boxes by the corner) are missing
Yes! Thank you for correcting the narrative on this one. It's not a perfect game, but we all loved it when it came out, and it's much better than the current narrative would have you believe.
They could have made a cheap, copy-pasted cash grab of a game, but they tried something much more ambitious. It was flawed, but I love what they tried to do.
It's Punk Rock MBA! Love your stuff.
I've never heard anyone describe so accurately how much of a massive event it was to have this first Ninja Turtles game on NES back when it released. It was beloved by so many kids- just running through the maze-like structure of the game with all the turtles and trying to get a little further each time. Thanks for setting the record straight.
Quick fix would be different attacks instead of lengths..
Ralph could do 3x damage (for bosses)
Mike could have a continuous nun-chuck spin attack (by rapidly pressing attack button)
Leo could have a dual attack with swords (being the most balanced)
Don is fine as is (already was the most used one due to reach)
I can confirm two things, having grown up during peak TurtleMania: Kids preferred the Arcade Game, but absolutely did not care that the NES title was different at the time; we wanted anything with the Turtles!
Also, the lack of popularity (or rather, any knowledge of their existence) in Japan: My old man ended up working in Hokkaido for a month or two in the early Nineties, and having come from the Midwest he couldn't believe that none of the kids there were into The Turtles given how popular they were at home! None of the engineers he worked with over there had ever even heard of them!
It really was a great game for its time, but the difficulty just killed 8 year old me.
But, as one who grew up 10 minutes from the spot the Turtles were created (and now live down the street), Turtle fever hit me quite hard in my youth.
I remember playing it an being very impressed, especially taking into account the strategic value of using each turtle's specific abilities and its power-ups...and the music rocked!
I received TMNT with a NES for Christmas 1989. Really wasn't my jam, but the Playmates action figures were banging.
You know even back in the day I thought it was really strange that the Turtles couldn't swim nearly as well as Mario can! I mean, didn't Donatello say in that one episode that water is their natural habitat?
There is so much to love about this game. It represents that nebulous phase of the TMNT IP in the late '80s when marketing was catering to both the comic books and the cartoon series. As a result, we got a lot of merch that had the primordial TMNT design of the early comics, starting with the Playmates toys (though, technically, it began with RPG books, Darkhorse miniatures, and iron-on t-shirts).
The '90s changed that when it went full in on the cartoon (and the new movies); phasing out representation of the Mirage books.
I never made it past the Dam level, and if I hadn't just seen video footage of levels afterward I would not have believed that anyone else ever did either.
I never got past the dam... it blew up in my face every time, but we tried it over and over and over again regardless
A genuine thank you for producing these great videos. I was too young to experience the NES in its prime (although I still got to enjoy lots of its treasures a little later on thanks to my parents hitting up yard sales in the mid 90s), so the historical / cultural aspect of these documentaries is fascinating and very much appreciated.
I loved the NES TMNT game when it came out and it's still one of my favorite games on the system. Once I learned you have to walk over the gap to get the missiles for the van instead of jump, I was able to beat the game pretty quickly. I never thought it was very hard.
Getting to play the arcade game as a 5 year old on release is a treasured memory.
I love that 'grunge' art style of the first TMNT comix.
I think it’s telling that when the Cowabunga Collection came out, this game literally has a rewind feature to make certain sections less rage inducing.
Don't they all have rewind?
Great extended coverage and background on this one. I never played this game; but of course I saw all of the coverage in Nintendo Power, which just fed my own Turtle and ninja manias. When Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ruled the Earth! What a time it was!
I truly appreciate this nuanced and thorough retrospective! So much internet content about this game is negative, focusing on how hard and unforgiving it is. As 7/8 year olds, my friends and I loved this game and played it all the time, even though I don't think I ever made it beyond the airport stage. We were used to hard, weird games, and our parents didn't mind us devoting an entire Saturday to our Nintendos, so it hit us where we were. We were all obsessed with the Ninja Turtles so there was pretty much nothing else we wanted to be doing.
Did I wish that it were the arcade game? Of course. But like you said, it had all of the elements we needed. Joyriding around in the Turtle Van shooting foot soldiers was awesome.
Great video. Fun game. Very flawed. But overall worth checking out.
It took me many years to finish this game as a kid. Got stuck on the dam for sooo long. And then that final gauntlet in the Technodrome, what were the game designers smoking, for real?
"Kids have tons of free time to beat it, and if we make it too easy they'll finish it in a few hours and feel like it wasn't worth the money" probably.
It teaches you to practice... the art of fighting without fighting.
that opening jingle on the first stage definitely made its mark
Took me 30 years to beat this one, but I always had a soft spot for it. I used to get my brother to do the water level for me
I'm here from RedCow. Love your stuff already.
Loved this game as a kid but never got anywhere near finishing it.
I was a huge Turtles fan and my parents marriage was falling apart so they weren't talking to each other, so for my birthday I got this game twice, once for NES and once for PC. Luckily I picked the correct one to give back!
I also loved the arcade game but really wouldn't have expected or wanted this to be that. It's not the same if you're not standing up in the middle of a pizza parlor, losing quarters by the bucketload.
I was right in the strike zone for TMNT, we all loved the game even though it was hard and only a scant few of us got past the underwater level let alone actually beat it.
While 'TMNT' for the NES has A reputation for it's difficulty, kids were still captivated by it since it was released at A time when the original cartoon, and toy line were 'the new hotness'. We, as kids, wanted to play our favorite turtles, and that game held us over unto the arcade game was released, and blew us away. Also, while The Turtles had very little presence in Japan, the first five episodes were animated by Toei for Murakami Wolf Swenson.
I don’t know how I beat it as a kid. I never really went back to it, and wondered why so many people complained about the difficulty… but by my next encounter with the game, my mystic ability was gone, and I quickly empathized.
Jeremy, you are hands-down the best at what you do. Love your work ❤
This was one of my most played games as a kid; not the NES version but the Amiga port. The game was massive in the UK, being packed in with the NES and propelling the Nintendo machine to sales numbers it had never seen in the territory (though ultimately it remained well behind the Master System) and when it was ported to the Amiga virtually every retailer began bundling the game with new Amigas that Christmas even though Commodore missed a trick by never officially making it a pack-in. It came out on all the UK home micros that were still commercially viable by the early 90s and shot straight to the top of the sales charts for all of them.
Is it a good game? Not really, but it's a cultural touchstone for kids of the 80s and 90s all over the world, and that's got to be worth something.
One of my favorite games as a kid, I still sometimes play it. Still hard as fuck.
Brilliant work as always, Jeremy. I would love to see a physical release of the Works series. I would totally buy a blu-ray set of it.
I loved this game as a kid and probably love it even more now. Very good episode of NES Works, as usual, and I'm a big enough Works fan to know how much you actually dislike this game, but you remained mostly fair in your criticism, which I appreciate.
Really fantastic video, the context here is so nice to see. I was born in 88, growing up in the very recent shadow of Turtle-mania but was still totally hooked on all things TMNT. I missed all the pieces being set for this franchise so it's really cool to see it all come together.
Oh, and for what it's worth I was still renting this game into the 90's when other Turtle options existed. I never made it very far into the game but I still had a good time.
This game had enough good qualities that as a kid when you couldn't beat it, you didn't blame the game, you just assumed you weren't good enough at video games to beat it yet and you needed more practice.
Played this as a kid. I think I only made it to the 3rd level once or twice. The dam level was a big brick wall for me. Mikey was my favorite turtle. And the regular viewers are not ready for next week's episode and it's glorious climax.
See I had the Amiga port and I never understood everyone's issue with the dam level... until I finally bought a NES and a copy of the game. The difficulty of that level was definitely nerfed for the microcomputer ports because as a kid I don't remember ever having much trouble with it but when I played it on NES I don't think I ever managed to get past it.
@@craigcharlesworth1538 I can't remember where I saw it, but there was an analysis a few years ago that showed that there were small bugs in the handling of the swimming physics of the NES version. Those bugs caused unexpected movement that unintentionally drove players into the dangers, making the game a lot harder than intended.
@@thewiirocksThere's a video on TH-cam showcasing the game's hitboxes and the ones for the various damn hazards are particularly messed up. It's no wonder we kept getting hit when we felt like we should have been safe.
I love how Nintendo Power literally just gives away the fact that Ultra & Konami were the same company at 5:03, so it's likely that Nintendo of America really didn't care if companies subverted its restrictions, just as long as they weren't actively BREAKING them.
Ultra’s games usually had a Konami copyright on their title screen, so there was clearly a connection regardless.
I am glad that you touched on the revisionist history regarding this game's reputation. Upon release, this game was indeed a very popular game. To be honest, I would say that it wasn't until the AVGN episode came out that this game was considered to be "bad". I gave this game a play last summer for about the first time in twenty years, and, despite its flaws, I still like it.
I am not sure if you would ever cover it, but I feel like the G.I. Joe games for the NES feature a better take on the gameplay style of the first TMNT game.
All the kids at my school loved the NES game and we had the arcade game at showbiz pizza. What a time to be a kid
i always liked this game despite its modern kusoge status and obvious jankiness, there's just something so mysterious and oblique and alien about its whole vibe
didn't know getsu fuuma den was the precursor to it (along with konami wai wai world) though, it looks pretty sick
and i don't remember tmnt arcade being a thing until well after tmnt nes
I got this for my birthday one year, and it definitely was worth it. Never made it past the robot gauntlet until much later as an adult.
My recollection definitely matches yours. I saw this game at a friend's house well before encountering it in the arcade, and while the game was punishing and frequently unfair we had a good time playing as our favorite turtles.
So naturally when they did finally release the arcade game to NES it was a must-have for me.
The definitive retrospective of TMNT for NES that actually addresses the revisionism, praises the game for what it does right, and addresses the flaws. Even as a casual TMNT fan (watched a couple of episodes and recent movie, and I love the concept even if I've seen like 10 episodes and a movie), I appreciate it. I also love to see how TMNT fits into this era, and it was interesting to see it take influence from Japanese exclusive games. I wonder if TMNT would be in Wai Wai World 2 if it wasn't such a huge franchise.
Also very interesting to see you as one of the few gamers back then to finish games. Because even as a person who's not that great at video games, I can comfortably beat stuff like Mega Man 2-4 and Castlevania in a couple of days my first run through, but I guess kids aren't known for being good at video games. It seems natural for gamers now to finish games, but back then rentals were big and kids will be kids and find something else to do after a couple of hours playing video games. Although, What made you specifically into completing games, I wonder. I also wonder if the fact that most Japanese players revere Final Fantasy III because they never got to the end game that was brutally difficult so only really remember the easy bits beforehand.
That’s my experience, anyway. Very few of my friends made an effort to finish NES games, though I had one friend who could crush even the games I couldn’t beat. Everyone else would get exasperated and call it quits with most games.
@@JeremyParish Yeah, I see a lot of TH-camrs say the same thing of "I wasn't able to beat it as a kid" so I don't think it was just your friends who gave up quickly. It's just funny that as a 21st Century boy I just buy these retro collections then beat all of the games within it in a month not using save states, aside from saving my game between game sessions, as I somehow have discipline not to use it, so it's pretty odd to me. I guess that is part of it being able to save between play sessions, so I guess it's more understandable. Although I still have not beaten Super Mario Bros 3 funnily enough despite the fact that it was the first retro game I played on the Wii virtual console
I got Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for my birthday in February of I think 1990, along with Dragon Warrior. I do not think I knew of the game beforehand. I have a vague memory of thinking it would be the arcade game. I ended up loving it. Made it to the Technodrome as a kid, but never beat it until adulthood.
You mention the comic is reminiscent of Frank Miller. It was actually a parody of Frank Miller's work.
Yes... specifically his run on Daredevil, as mentioned
Thanks for offering a well researched perspective into a game that I already thought everything had been said about. Great stuff as always
OMG, I'm so old lol when you showed the VHS footage that was warped I immediately thought, "oh man, my tape is messed up" and then was like, "oh yeah I'm watching TH-cam" 😂
As a kid during peak-late stage turtles era, I played this one first with no knowledge of the arcade game and enjoyed it, but never made it past the dam section. This was when my dad would get a lot of games from the pawn shop. Games like this, Castlevania 2, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Golgo 13/Mafat Conspiracy, and Robocop ... I think there may have been a reason we had all of those games second hand.
Of course, I had TMNT 2 The Arcade Game a bit later and loved it, again, with no knowledge of the actual arcade game (which I wouldn't play until Ubisoft released it on the Xbox 360) Our "arcade" was the local Wal-Mart, which strangely got games like Darkstalkers, Simpsons, and Sunset Riders.
Is it bad that my first thought is "Gee, it would be cool if someone like WayForward revisited this game's ideas with some friendlier design"? I love the almost Zelda-esque overworld/dungeon exploration and turtle management, but the enemy layouts feel even less fair than Ninja Gaiden respawns. I understand the dislike of Konami's heavy focus on licenses, but they still put out an impressive level of bangers and let a guy like Kojima do damn near anything he wanted later on. You could at least feel pretty safe if the logo had the Konami image instead of the LJN rainbow.
I really appreciate all of the extra context in this video! I played this TMNT game before I played the arcade game and if it hadn't been for the bit of jank with the play control and the punishing difficult, the TMNT NES game would have probably been a top 10 game for me at the time.
However, months later plunking down a few quarters in the arcade game at a local Aladdin's Castle. Along with plunking down a LOT more quarters at the local roller rink at a school sponsored roller skating party (we did those in the Midwest back then!) and completing the arcade game with 3 other friends. My view of the NES game did change.
The TMNT NES game is not an objectionably bad game, even with it's flaws. It's just that the arcade game was darn near perfect to then pre-teen me and everyone else around my age at the time!
Also, I would not be surprised if the developers of the NES game truly did not know about the arcade game. It seems like a lot of Japanese developers had clear separations between arcade and home console development teams back then. The same is true within a lot of corporations even today!
It’s about turtle time for this one!
one of my first NES games I ever got, and I still love it as much as the day I first got it as a kid. Fantastic game.
The dude vs vehicle stages makes me think of it as a reverse Blaster Master. Great game, loved replaying it on the Switch, still difficult but the gameplay, graphics, and especially the sound all seem to hold up well.
Thank you for reminding the internet that those of us who grew up with this game actually liked it. Yes, it was extremely difficult....but we still loved it.
That last little tirade hit right in the feels. Remember when Konami was good, and not the malicious, corrupt, greedy, blitheringly idiotic and rankly incompetent shell of a company they are today? Tragic.
You make a very good point about revisionist history. I enjoyed the game as a kid, and though rarely, if ever, made it past the swimming level, didn’t have the rage that lives on the internet. I was just happy to have the turtles.