Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game Review

Arcades were a big thing in the 1980s, and companies would do just about anything that they thought would attract young children and their quarters. In the late 1980s, this included producing a beat-em-up starring those heroes in a half shell, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When the arcade game was a success, and with the success of the original TMNT game on NES, it was eventually decided to port the arcade game to the NES. The result is a game that, while less creative and diverse than the original NES game, did turn out more fun in some ways than its predecessor.

The graphics on The Arcade Game are not overly detailed and are, in fact, very average for when the game came out. However, everything runs smoothly without slowdown and the attack animations are pretty good for the most part, so although this isn’t the most graphically advanced game on the NES, it is far from being bad.

The music in this game is a lot better than the music in its predecessor was, which isn’t saying much, but the point is that the music in this game is pretty good. It isn’t quite of the caliber of the music in, say, a Megaman game, but it is well worth listening to while you play the game. Besides, if you don’t, you’ll miss the fairly realistic sound of the robots exploding when you kill them. I must admit though that the sounds of attacks hitting aren’t particularly realistic. Overall, the sound is pretty good, but could have been better.

The gameplay of this game is simple enough. You pick a turtle (doesn’t really matter which one) and you go through levels laying waste to foot soldiers. You have a whopping three methods in which to do this. You can press the B button on the ground to do a normal attack, or jump by pressing A then hit B to do a jump kick. These attacks will kill a foot soldier after being done a combination of two times between them. Or, you can hit A and B at the same time and do a slightly more powerful jump attack to take out the foot soldiers in one hit, but there is a slight time lapse if you do this during which you can be attacked. It’s your choice either way, but keep in mind that jump kicks in particular tend to be countered a lot.

So basically the levels consist of you walking through the level laying waste to these foot soldiers, and they basically follow the rule of beat-em-ups that only one will attack you at a time, although there are times when the one attacking you is different than the one you’re attacking. Such is not common though.

The bosses are a different matter. They obviously take more hits to defeat, and they also can deal out damage a lot faster. Although the loads of foot soldiers can take a toll on your health, it is bosses that can kill you quickly if you’re not careful. Still, you hit them enough times and they die so you can go on. I must admit though that the final boss is creative.

Overall, this is a beat-em-up. Even though it may seem slightly repetitive, it is still quite fun to play over and over again, especially if you have two players playing. If you are at all a fan of the TMNT or of beat-em-ups, this game is one to consider getting.