Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time

The Good
The four ninja turtles named after renascentist artists were back for their last, and arguably best, side-scrolling game on a Nintendo console. A Tournament Fighters version (in which the turtles and other creatures fought each other in a Street Fighter styled game) released in 1993 for NES, Super NES and Sega Genesis was not as successful. And the Sega Genesis version (Hyperstone Heist) is very similar to the SNES one.

The game is a faithful conversion of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles 2: Turtles In Time for Arcade (the first Arcade TMNT was released for NES only as TMNT 2: The Arcade Game).

The story is always the same: Shredder has done something wrong and Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Donatello and Raphael have to fight an infinite number of Foot Clan soldiers and other creatures to defeat the big boss. It may sound repetitive, but Double Dragon and Final Fight also are. The news here is that the turtles travel in time, to the past and then to the future.

The graphics are very good. The sprites (moving objects) are beautifully designed, detailed, colorful and cartoon-like. And they also have personality. The bosses are big, just like in the Arcade version. Konami made an ample use of SNES zoom capabilities, as Foot Clan soldiers are thrown towards the screen by the turtles. The backgrounds are nice, but don't quite match the sprites.

The sound is astonishing, featuring the old traditional turtles song (the same from the cartoon) and very good special effects (including digitalised voices, something really rare for the SNES).

The gameplay is one of the nicest ever, following the Arcade versions. The sprites move very quickly (not as much as in the Arcade) and the enemies fill the screen, what may cause some slow motion. The controls are simple and each turtle has a variety of over 20 different moves (some unique ones), all of them very easy to perform. All these elements contribute to make a great game, one which you could finish thousand of times without getting bored.

There's also two different game modes: Time Trial and Versus. In Time Trial, you try to finish the stages as quick as possible, which doesn't add much to the game. Versus mode is a turtle fight in the same way as Street Fighter. The success of this option originated the following turtle game, Tournament Fighter.

It's hard to say if Turtles In Time is the best Ninja Turtles game ever, but it's certainly the best 16-bit console turtle game, since Tournament Fighter (for SNES and Genesis) feels weird and Hyperstone Heist (Genesis version) lacks such quality in graphics, color and gameplay.

The Bad
The game is not perfect, though, and probably concentrates more problems than its two predecessors. Well, I'm not going to blame the game for some slow motion scenes, as it is a result of the SNES relatively slow processor.

First, the game is short. It is probably a consequence of the rapid action, but it is a fact that it takes much less to finish than the two previous games.

Second, the game is too easy. It could be an advantage for the beginners, but people who had already played a bunch of turtles games deserved a little more challenge. Luckily, it is not the kind of game that you put aside once it's finished. You keep playing it because it always provides lots of fun.

Third, some Manhattan backgrounds could be more elaborated and less mechanically designed.

The Bottom Line
TRUE CLASSIC. The best 16-bit TMTN game rivals, and probably beats, Final Fight in the dispute for best fighting side-scrolling for SNES.

The Good
On each level you get to pick one of the four Turtles and kick the shell out of countless badguy's. Each Turtles has way to many attack's to keep track of and each level has tons of cool bad guy's and each level has a boss at the end. The bad guy's include several different colors and types of Foot Soldier's, Roadkill Rodney's, Mouser's, Stone Warrior's, robots, and much, much more. The bosses include Baxter Stockman, Tokka, Rhazar, Krang, Shredder and more! Each level increase in difficulty an appropriate amount. The sound, music and graphics are far beyond this game's time period, and the dialogue is freakin' awesome! This game is Multi-player and there's a vs. mode, too, where you and a friend each pick one of the Turtles and fight each other, as well as a time trial's area.

The Bad
It's a little hard to get used to the control's, at least compared to other games. Each time you play it's the same thing, so it can get boring. if your only going to get one game for SNES don't get this one.

The Bottom Line
Get this game! It rocks!

The Good
The final sidescrolling beat 'em up starring the famous ninja Turtles is arguably the finest title in the series, showcasing the best examples of the kickass gameplay that made the TMNT games such a phenomenon. Beyond being just a port of the arcade title of the same name, the game actually is sort of a hybrid between that one and the Genesis Hyperstone Heist exclusive, which essentially gives you the best of both worlds.

With extremely good graphics and sounds, this is the most authentic-looking TMNT game you could have in your home at the time and a near perfect arcade port of the original, which also includes the largest collection of sprites seen in the series as well as an excellent use of sprite zooming that works whenever you throw a character towards the screen (at you!) and also doubles as an interesting gameplay feature, as in some levels you have to hit enemies that are in the foreground and cannot be reached by normal attacks.

As a nice feature, besides the traditional arcade mode (which can be played solo or with a friend) you have a time trial and vs mode, which pits a turtle against another in a one-on-one match a-la Street Fighter, an idea so good that it got fleshed out into it's own game. All features which add a lot of value to an already good game with lots of moves, large and colorful enemies, nonstop action and lots of Turtle-goodness.

The Bad
The arcade mode is kind of short, specially when compared to the NES's Manhattan Project, which while inferior in quality and gameplay, is about 4 times the size of this one. (It's still longer than the original arcade Turtles in Time tough).

One could also argue that by the time the classic mold of 2D beat 'em ups was getting a little stale, and even the lesser titles out there had started to include multiple endings, branching routes and alternative challenges, stuff that Turtles in Time completely ignores.

The Bottom Line
Before Konami was known for it's superlative Silent Hills and blatantly over-rated Metal Gear Solid sequels, it was known to kids everywhere as THE name (along with Capcom of course) for 2D side-scrolling beat 'em ups, and this title is the perfect example of why they made such a name for themselves. Truly the finest title to bear the TMNT banner and one hell of a good time for fans of fast-paced cartoony action.