Rejoice TMNT fans we have a full gameplay, longplay, playthrough, walkthrough and guide to the iconic 1989 arcade game by Konami, using the version included on the 2022 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection on Xbox Series X. The are few game that lose us for words and this is one of them, while Technos Japan Double Dragon may have helped build the genre. Konami pretty much perfected it with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the game would become one of the highest grossing arcade games in the 1990s.
The timing of the arcade release could not have been better planned with the game releasing just months before Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles turned into the huge crazy of the 90s. The game may have likely helped it as well as the arcade game was just so good. It captured the look of the 1980s cartoon series spot on featuring all the cast and characters. The arcade hardware jumps over the decade meant, by the end of the 80s unlike the NES title, to 80s kids these looked just like the characters they saw in the cartoon series on TV.
Four player support meant all four turtles Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo could be on screen at once. As hundreds of foot soldiers pour at you as you take on the foot clan, Shredder & Krang.
Aside from the superb visual and animation for the time, you had a rocking soundtrack based on the TV series and first class gameplay. The game is fast paced with spot on hit detection, foot soldier are quick to fall, which is what make it work as a scrolling beat'em up. So many poorly designed titles in the genre make the mistake of having enemies taking far to much much damage, before falling. It's also one of the earliest scrolling beat'em ups to give each stage a key theme to play differently from one another.
Interestingly the game draws from both the original comic book and cartoon series, the fire in April's New York apartment occurred in original the comic books from Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird not the 80s TV series. The skateboard stage is the most memorable and perhaps the hardest as well if you don't use the time out trick. Asides from the four turtles and there main villains, April O'Neil & Splinter appear as NPCs with Rocksteady, Bebop, Baxter Stockman, Granitor & Traag filling the remain boss roll. Enjoy the run Riven uses quite a few tricks in it, but is somewhat rusty.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection is largely an untouched port of the game, but doesn't allow access to the the dipswitches, however the option to adjust the difficult had to be patched in as the game didn't include it original, until after we had pointed this out to the developers on twitter. The only change is the intro song has been re-recorded, we can only assume a right issues with the original recording is the problem there. Character profiles and the attract mode are shown at the end of the video.
Also known as: Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (United Kingdom) スーパー亀忍者, ティーンエージ ミュータント ニンジャ タートルズ (Japan)
Release: 2022 (Arcade original 1989)
Developer: Konami (Port by Digital Eclipse)
Publisher: Konami
Genre: Scrolling Beat'em Up
Players: 1 - 4
Version Shown: PAL
Format: Xbox Series X / エックスボックス シリーズ エックス|エス
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade is included in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection on Xbox One & Series, Nintendo Switch, Windows PC & PlayStation 4 & 5. It was available on Xbox 360, but this was delisted some years back. A edited version of the game was included
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Footage is captured directly from a Xbox Series X via HDMI for all games, using an Elgato Pro HD60 capture card. Upscaled to UHD 4K to improve the video bit rate, watch in HD or UHD for best video playback on KZread.
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