Name: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Release Date: May 12, 1989
Game Type: Single Player
Max Players: 1
Developers: Konami
Publishers: Konami, Palcom Software, Ultra Games
Genres: Action, Adventure
Overview: Carnivorous robots chow-down in China Town, while brutal Ninjitsu Warriors, blood descendants of the deadly "Foot" Clan, bust-up bystanders from the Bronx to Broadway. Police SWAT Teams can't stop them, but the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles can! 'Cause, powered by slices of pizza, they're always ready to rumble - with nunchukus, Katana Blades, and a party bus loaded with Anti-Foot Clan Missiles. So team up with the turtles, Raphael, Leonardo, Michaelangelo and Donatello, then switch on the tortoise radar, following your map and sixth sense past savage traps and secret sewage passages. Knock heads with the nasty Ninjitsu and either splatter them senseless or get yourself turned into turtle soup!
I don't think that there is any surprise that we would start with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on the NES. This game is infamous for how weird and not connected to any established canon that anyone knew of at the time. Given that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was created and published in 1989, when the TV show was still in it's early days and the comic books were still in their indie phase (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures by Archie comic came in 1990 and worked with the TV show) so there wasn't much anyone outside Eastman and Laird knew about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe. What we got was a game which had the basics down, but no context as to why anything was happening, especially with that fucking underwater level... Fuck that level.
Name: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue
Platform: Nintendo GameBoy
Release Date: November 25, 1993
Game Type: Single Player
Max Players: 1
Developers: Konami
Publishers: Konami
Genres: Action, Platform
Overview: The whole sewer crew, except Michaelangelo, is captured in a most heinous hideout. Who could be behind this travesty? Who else. Shredder has returned as Cyber Shredder - half-man, half-machine and he‘s created this twisty-turny fun house" of Turtle torture. Use Turtle strategy and all new moves to help Michaelangelo rescue the gang from Cyber Shredder's Fortress.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue is one of those games that should be good on paper, but is frustrating when you have to play it. The idea was that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue was more of a Metroidvania game where you have to find and rescue Donatello, Leonardo, and Raphael as Michelangelo. Some people might find this fun, but as someone who prefers Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games to be Beat'em Up games, playing something where you have to find keys and find the other turtles before you have to take down Shredder and Krang is just trying to extend the gameplay for no reason other than to annoy me. So you can keep the $300+ price point on eBay for this piece of junk game.
Name: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Release Date: February 24, 1994
Game Type: Single Player, Multiplayer
Max Players: 2
Developers: Konami
Publishers: Konami
Genres: Fighting
Overview: THE TURTLES HIT THE STREETS AND POUND MORE THAN PAVEMENT! | Only a hardened new breed of Ninja Turtle could bring fight-to-the-finish Street Fighter II™ combat to 8-bit. Shredder's brutal challenge will finally prove who's the most dangerous Ninja warrior of them all. A grudge as old as rice has exploded into a supreme tournament of torture between the most highly-trained masters of martial arts in the world. If you think you've dealt with intense moves before, this will kick you right in the cowabungas. It's time to get serious. Will it be Leonardo? Michaelangelo? Raphael? Donatello? Casey Jones? Hothead? Or the king of low blows himself, Shredder. Only a colossal clash of lawless street justice will tell.
Out of all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters games that were released at the time, this one was the worst. Having only seven characters on the roster and a very limited control system thanks to the limitation of the NES, this version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters plays just like you thought it would... Shithouse. I only know about this version of the game thanks to Matt McMuscles' video on the topic, and the game didn't see an Australia release. But having given it a try via emulation I can say that this version is 100% avoided at all costs.
Name: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Release Date: February 19, 1992
Game Type: Single Player, Multiplayer
Max Players: 2
Developers: Konami
Publishers: Konami
Genres: Beat 'em Up
Overview: Surf's up, dude! The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles make a little getaway to the Sunshine State. Until Shredder makes a major getaway with the entire island of Manhattan! His power hungry plot gets even more bogus when April O'Neil becomes part of the heist. What a relaxing vacation. Not! Those mondo mutants must make waves to get back home to save April and Manhattan, and send Shredder on a one way trip to geeksville! So unless you want Shredder to ninja-kick sand in your face and make off with your best girl and your hometown, you better get busy. Squashing him once and for all will be no holiday.
You'd think that after 2 games on the NES already that we'd get something excellent for the third Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on the system? Nope! I'm not sure if there was just a "Can't be fucked" attitude when it came to the third Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on Nintendo consoles, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhatten Project is just horrible to play, just like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue was on the GameBoy. While it was more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade-style action, the issues with the hardware limitations of the NES really made it hard to enjoy something that just did the same thing as the previous game but with less effort. I think due to this being in development at the same time as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time on the Super Nintendo, there was less concern about this game having to be any good and it shows.
Name: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Release Date: December 7, 1990
Game Type: Single Player, Multiplayer
Max Players: 2
Developers: Konami
Publishers: Ultra Games
Genres: Beat 'em Up
Overview: Yo! After being treated like garbage by the Ninja Turtles, Shredder has trained a new, more merciless breed of Foot Soldiers to inflict his revenge: A clan of over 700 Taekwondo turtle terminators who have once again captured April O'Neil to use as turtle bait. Fortunately you don't have to face these freaks of torture alone. For the first time ever, two dudes or dudettes can join forces and double-team Shredder, kicking shell while covering each others tails. But to survive you've gotta fight through 8 action-packed arcade levels, including Vinnie's Valet "Stalking" Lot and the Soho Sewer System, plus two new never-before-seen shell-squashing stages! Each of these deathtraps is reinforced by lethal electro zappers, laser beams, freezer burners or enemies such as Scorpion Robots, Stone Warriors and Baxter Stockman. Shredder has also hired the all-powerful Tora and Shogun, two alien bounty hunters who have never known defeat. Even though Master Splinter has prepared the turtles well for battle, teaching them radical new attack moves, it doesn't mean this war to save April and turtlekind will be a piece of cake or even a slice of pizza. Because with the forces of revenge on his side and the bounty boys in town, it's payback time for Shredder!
Woah man, did this game feels like a cheap cash-in...Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game did what it could with the hardware available. While the Arcade version is one of the best Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games to be made, the NES version does an... ok-ish job at doing a low-end version when it comes to the conversion. While it would have been worth waiting till the Super Nintendo era before tackling something of this magnitude, Konami made the choice to cave to fan pressure and create an NES version of the popular Arcade game. So while we got most of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game from the arcade, we also got some additional levels included featuring more boss characters that we haven't had heard of. We also got some controversial promotional content from Pizza Hut thanks to a crossover deal that placed the Pizza Hut logo on some levels in exchange for the inclusion of a free pizza coupon (in the North American version) per unit sold. At least this was a step up from the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on the NES.
Name: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters
Platform: Sega Genesis
Release Date: December 2, 1993
Game Type: Single Player, Multiplayer
Max Players: 2
Developers: Konami
Publishers: Konami
Genres: Fighting
Overview: Trash the surf board and heave the 'za. It's a whole new breed of Turtles and they're fixated on fighting. We're dead serious, Tournament Fighters takes dude-on-dude demolition to new heights of intensity with 4 modes of pain-producing battles, deadly warriors, secret arenas, astounding graphics and sound effects that'll make you cringe! Clash with Krang-created clones of the Turtles, Casey Jones, April O'Neil, Ray Filet and Sisyphus, plus bosses Triceraton, Krang's Android and Karai. There's flying body presses, knee drops, head butts, rocket punches, elbow smashes, somersault throws, you'll feel and inflict them all. And the settings include Magma Ocean Planet, Jungle Planet, and every other bizarre corner of Dimension X!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters on the SEGA Genesis is a halfway decent port of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters series of games. It plays, looks, and sounds better than the NES version, but it is a far cry from being on the same level as the Super Nintendo version. The Genesis version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters changes the story slightly, making the story involve clones and aliens in order to pad out an already terrible 8 fighter roster in its story mode. Then the controls for this version are gimped too, using only the three button layout of the standard Sega Genesis controller and nothing with the six-button version. Overall, this version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters is considered mid-tier at best and only to be played if you have no other choice. Luckily, you have that choice in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection.
Name: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters
Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Release Date: September 4, 1993
Game Type: Single Player, Multiplayer
Max Players: 2
Developers: Konami
Publishers: Konami
Genres: Fighting
Overview: THE MOST SEVERE PUNISHMENT YOU'LL EVER RECIEVE. Trash the surfboards and heave the 'za. It's a whole new breed of Turtles who are butting heads with the greatest street fighters on the planet. War. Armaggon. Chrome Dome, Rat King, Karai, Wingnut and Aska are the toughest mutant warriors to ever bury their fists into someone's face. And they'll make an impact on your life you won't ever forget. ON THESE STREETS YOU'RE JUST A PIECE OF MEAT.
Street Fighter II was one of the biggest hits for the Super Nintendo with its Arcade accurate conversion taking over lounge rooms all over the world, so why not do the same concept with one of the biggest franchises of the 1980s/1990s in both the video game and cartoon history? This concept is what brought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters into the gaming world. The Super Nintendo version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters is considered to be the best version of the three versions of these games as it has the closest fighting mechanics to Street Fighter II the other two, not to mention that the Super Nintendo version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters has access to more fighters with two unlockable bosses and an overall better presentation in audio and visuals. However, this version is the hardest out of the lot, with the base AI being able to destroy you pretty quickly if you don't know the gameplay mechanics inside and out.
Name: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time
Platform: Arcade
Release Date: September 18, 1991
Game Type: Single Player, Multiplayer
Max Players: 4
Developers: Konami
Publishers: Konami
Genres: Beat 'em Up
Overview: Sunday evening. You're sitting around the sewer watching your main reporter, April O'Neil do a live remote from the Statue of Liberty, then it happens. A humungoso flying android screams out of the sky and rips Lady Liberty from her foundation, sending hundreds of freaked out tourists into the harbor below. "No way!" cries Raphael. "Way", replies Donatello, and the crazy quantum chase is on! Journey through multiple levels of enormous graphics, the largest and craziest talking Turtles ever with eons of bodacious battlegrounds, from prehistoric to futuristic galaxies. Get ready for the 3-D jab and toss that sends enemies flying right in your face. Mondo body slams and pizza power bonuses make you more Turtle than ever before. You better believe you're going to need it. Shredder's out for Turtle hide. And he's got all the time in the world to get it.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time on the arcade is just as good as the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the arcade, but since it comes off as the same game with some slight improvements, the overall is just not as good as some games that came out before Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, or afterward; hell, even the SNES port of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time feels like a much better game than the arcade version. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time is not a bad game at all, but since it was just more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game action, it didn't have the same impact as the original did. Unfortunately, in only 12 months after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time was released, gaming consoles like Genesis and SNES were doing the arcade's job a lot better than what the arcade was doing, even with the same game or game assets.
Name: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist
Platform: SEGA Genesis
Release Date: December 21, 1992
Game Type: Single Player, Multiplayer
Max Players: 2
Developers: Konami
Publishers: Konami
Genres: Beat 'em Up
Overview: Shredder steals the powerful Hyperstone to shrink New York City and it's up to you to teach that treacherous troublemaker not to mess with the fearless foursome! Pick your favorite Cowabunga commando to slash through 5 lawless levels of lambasting. Four levels each have 3 intense stages and the other is packed with brand new challenges that will make you hurl your pizza lunch. Pulverize shrink-happy Shredder before he pockets our whole planet!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist is a controversial entry on this list since it's a well-known fact that this game takes just about everything from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time and "ruins" it... However, what some people consider to be "ruined" or "not as good as the Super Nintendo version", I consider to be a really good conversion of two arcade games to create a really good all-in-one experience for SEGA owners. For years, Nintendo owners got just about everything Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles related on both home and handheld consoles, so SEGA owners getting a mix of the two arcade experiences in the one game sounds like a good trade. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist gives SEGA owners a high-level Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles gaming experience that even Nintendo owners didn't get, and that's why it's a high entry on this list. SEGA owners got the short end of the stick, but when they got something, it was really good.
Name: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time
Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Release Date: July 24, 1992
Game Type: Single Player, Multiplayer
Max Players: 2
Developers: Konami
Publishers: Konami
Genres: Beat 'em Up
Overview: Sunday evening. You're sitting around the sewer watching your main reporter, April O'Neil do a live remote from the Statue of Liberty, then it happens. A humungoso flying android screams out of the sky and rips Lady Liberty from her foundation, sending hundreds of freaked out tourists into the harbor below. "No way!" cries Raphael. "Way", replies Donatello, and the crazy quantum chase is on! Journey through multiple levels of enormous graphics, the largest and craziest talking Turtles ever with eons of bodacious battlegrounds, from prehistoric to futuristic galaxies. Get ready for the 3-D jab and toss that sends enemies flying right in your face. Mondo body slams and pizza power bonuses make you more Turtle than ever before. You better believe you're going to need it. Shredder's out for Turtle hide. And he's got all the time in the world to get it.
You'd think that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time would be an inferior port of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time since it was arcade vs Super Nintendo... But if there was something that the Super Nintendo was proving time and time again, it was that the console was more than powerful enough to do early 1990s era arcade games in a perfect conversion, if not surpass it in some cases, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time was one of those cases. Thanks to the Super Nintendo using the Super FX chip, something that was missing in the arcade, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time was able to do semi-3D looking graphics in some levels, as well as add some new levels where you were doing things from different angles while keeping the traditional right to left gameplay from Beat'em Up games in general. Much like the NES version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time changed things up to create a much longer and better experience that keeps bringing players back time and time again.
Name: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back from the Sewers
Platform: Nintendo GameBoy
Release Date: December 6, 1991
Game Type: Single Player
Max Players: 1
Developers: Konami
Publishers: Konami
Genres: Action
Overview: STOP SHREDDER FROM ZAPPING THE WORLD FAMOUS SEWER STARS INTO PET STORE PEBBLE PUSHERS! Shredder's got his criminal mind back in the gutter and has joined forces with fellow hero hater Krang to pulverize the pizza freaks once and for all. They've shanghaied newswoman of the nineties April O'Neil as a decoy, so the boys from below must rescue her, without losing their shells.
While I'm sure a lot of people would be putting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time into this spot (Arcade or SNES, it doesn't matter), I was a GameBoy kid back in the day and I loved playing this game whenever I could get my hands on it. One of the games that I would hire out for long weekends playing GameBoy while my parents were off camping and Four-wheel driving all over the place, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back to the Sewers would just sit in my GameBoy till it was time to go back to the Video Shop... So much so that my mother actually banned me from hiring this or WWF Superstars two weekends in a row or together. I can still remember playing through this game in a single session, beating Krang in the final level with one turtle left, and just having a fit of happiness that I fell out of my chair cheering. It's accomplishments like this that make some of these Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games something worth remembering, collecting, and playing over and over again.
Name: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan
Platform: Nintendo GameBoy
Release Date: August 2, 1990
Game Type: Single Player
Max Players: 1
Developers: Konami
Publishers: Konami, Ultra Games
Genres: Action, Platform
Overview: In cahoots with exiled alien zap master Krang, the evil Shredder has once again kidnapped the dashing damsel of the news desk, April O'Neil. To rescue this ravishing reporter, you must return to the sewers and dredge forth those reptiles with a penchant for pizza and all the nifty knifework of a chop suey chef. You'll control every move of Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Donatello and Raphael as they arm themselves with head-rattling Nunchakus, back-stabbing Sai Swords, and liver-lashing Katana Blades. Of course, this once in a light year adventure will really start rumbling the nanosecond you bust into 5 never-before-seen levels of Manhattan mayhem, including the Traffic Jam, Waste Dump Ravine and Technodrome Tower. Here you'll perfect the ancient art of icing, dicing and shuriken-slicing. And you'll get the chance to wipe the smirks off the faces of all-new creepshow freaks like Roadkill Rodney, Shell Shocker and that nasty villain Filet O'Filth. So get back into your shell and start snapping away, before April goes from delivering the news to singing the blues in some new cement shoes.
This isn't going to be a surprise to anyone who has read one of my many Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles articles on The Outerhaven over the years as you would have mentioned my love for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan a few times, especially in my "Ode to the GameBoy" article where it was my number one GameBoy game of all time. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of The Foot Clan is one of the few games in my current GameBoy collection where I own a complete in-box copy of the game in both English and Japanese (I first played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan in Japanese). It's a game where I'm happy to load up the rom into my GameBoy Everdrive, or into RetroArch on PlayStation 3 and play the game from start to finish in a single session at random just to have some fun. While this was meant to be a portable game, it's still one that I'm going to be happy to play on the big screen when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection is released.
Name: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Platform: Arcade
Release Date: November 15, 1989
Game Type: Single Player, Multiplayer
Max Players: 4
Developers: Konami
Publishers: Konami
Genres: Beat 'em Up
Overview: Even though Splinter defeated Shredder and Casey Jones attempted to crush him in a garbage truck, Shredder's titanium helmet protected him from certain doom. He awoke on a garbage ship and floated back to land on a raft made out of styrofoam cups that were non-biodegradable. Once on land he began training stronger Foot Soldiers, but they alone were not enough. Shredder, using his translocation matrix beam, then travelled through the universe in search of stronger allies. He recruited a member of the Ultimate Galactic Sword residing in Sector Six of the Oead Star Zone and on the ice planet of Traglodoon he found a bounty hunter named Tora. Together, Shredder, his minions and his two new allies have worked together to kidnap April O'Neil. Splinter has taught them well and now it's up to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to save her!
Yeah, you saw this coming. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the arcades was the first experience I had with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in video games and will forever have all of the rose-tinted retro memories tied to it. Going to Ed Flemming Lanes when my mother was working there and getting the lane mechanics to open up the machine and load like 50 credits on it for free for me to play is something special that I will never forget. Spending hours (and also many dollars... I didn't get all my games for free) playing as any of the four turtles trying to get through as much of the game as possible, either on my own or with random people who joined the game, was so challenging that I only saw the final level (The Technodrome) once during that time. It was great. Sure, I've played the game through emulation many times over the years, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles still remains the game that I'm happy to put on when I'm bored and want to have some fun for a few hours... and it'll be the first game I fire up when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection releases.
Name: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rescue-Palooza!
Platform: OpenBOR (PC)
Release Date: June 20, 2019
Game Type: Single Player, Multiplayer
Max Players: 4
Developers: Merso X Games
Publishers: Merso X Games
Genres: Beat 'em Up
Overview: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Rescue-Palooza is a fan-made beat 'em up using OpenBOR and created as an update and homage to the classic NES titles. It includes 4-player local co-op with 60 playable characters, more than 20 stages and bonus levels, as well as rideable vehicles. It also features improved graphics, voice clips from the cartoon show and countless references to the toyline, comics and culture. Cowabunga!
Oh, you thought I was done? OH HELL NO!! I know I said in the beginning that I would keep this list strictly to the games that are going to be available through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection... But it would be hard not to mention this OpenBOR project. For those of you who have not checked out what OpenBOR is, it's a Beats of Rage gameplay engine (Based on the Street of Rage gameplay system) which allows budding developers to make their own Beat'em Up game easily. It's through this system that Merso X has gone and created his own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game (looking more like a better version of the NES version) with the biggest roster of characters available, and combining levels from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhatten Project, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist, and more to make the ultimate Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade experience. So if you are looking for something to play while you wait for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge to be released, then this is the BEST game to do just that. You can download Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Retro-Palooza! for free here.
