My Played Video Games Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a side-scrolling action and platform game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) released by Konami in 1989. In North America it was published under Konami's Ultra Games brand in the US.

Total nonsense fact: This was the first Ninja Turtles video game I ever got to play.

The Story

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles must stop the evil Shredder and his deadly "Foot" Clan along with their robot army from overrunning the city of New York.

The Graphics and Sound

The graphics are not bad for a NES game. I wish they could have been a little better. The animation that they used for the ninja turtles is done lazily. They all move around like toy robots.

The music is kind of catchy. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles title theme always sounds awesome. As renowned game producers, Konami did a damn fine job composing all the the other tunes in the game. They are really good with music.

The Gameplay

The controls for this game are decent and easy to get used to.

You get to control one of your chosen turtles, and switch to another when that one's life is low. But the turtles are unbalanced. Donatello has the longest range and great strength, while Leonardo, Michaelangelo, and Raphael can only do things their own halfways. Basically, you will use the best turtle depending on the level and the situation.

So we go to the movement in the game. Your jump is kinda slow. And you cannot always plan your landings right. You will often end up falling into the sewers or something, because you were lousy and timed your jump wrong.

Some levels are in the water where you swim past obstacles and disarm bombs. And some are in overhead view where you get to face some difficulty. But these levels can be overcome with some patience and skill.

The replay value is fair enough to have you playing back as your favorite ninja turtle. Other than that, it is just an action game with no secret levels or goodies to unlock.

My Verdict

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the NES is a good action game with some little frustrating parts and a decent challenge. Fans of the cartoons and movies may enjoy playing as their favorite turtles and try to complete this more-than-average difficulty game.

If you are a casual gamer who whine at some difficulty, you will probably give up on this game rather quickly. True gamers will likely enjoy the decent challenge it brings.

Play it on the NES or on emulators with a good controller.

Let's keep on gaming in the free world!