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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES video game)

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This article is about the NES game. For the arcade game, see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (arcade game).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The box art was taken from an alternative cover of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #4.[1]
Developer(s)Konami
Publisher(s)
SeriesTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Platform(s)Nintendo Entertainment System, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, MSX, ZX Spectrum, PlayChoice-10
ReleaseFamicom
  • JP: May 12, 1989
NES
  • NA: June 1989
ZX Spectrum
  • UK: November 1990
Genre(s)Action, platform
Mode(s)Single-player

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles[a] (Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles in Europe) is a 1989 action-platform game developed and published by Konami for the Nintendo Entertainment System.[2] In North America it was published under Konami's Ultra Games imprint in the US and the equivalent PALCOM brand in Europe and Australia.

Alongside the arcade game (also developed by Konami), it was one of the first video games based on the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, being released after the show's second season. The game sold more than 4 million cartridges worldwide.

Plot

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Shredder kidnaps April and gains the Life Transformer Gun, a weapon capable of returning Splinter to his human form. In order to save April, the turtles (Leo, Mikey, Donny and Raph) embark on the streets of New York to confront the Foot Clan. While traversing the sewers, the turtles encounter Bebop, a mutated pig, and Rocksteady, a mutant rhino. Though the turtles defeat Bebop, Rocksteady escapes with April O’Neil. The turtles then chase Rocksteady to an abandoned warehouse, fight him, and rescue April. After disabling bombs in the Hudson River dam, Shredder captures Splinter, so the turtles give chase in the Party Wagon. Hot in pursuit, the turtles scour the city and eventually find that Splinter is held captive by the robotic Mecaturtle on a skyscraper rooftop. After the turtles save Splinter, Shredder escapes in a helicopter. The turtles give chase, tracking him to JFK airport, where they encounter Big Mouser. After defeating Big Mouser, the turtles head to Shredder's secret Foot Clan base in the South Bronx via the Turtle Blimp. Once there, they locate and battle the Technodrome underground. The turtles descend into the Technodrome's reactor and ultimately defeat Shredder. With the Life Transformer Gun, the turtles help Splinter return to his human form. With a tough mission accomplished, the turtles and April celebrate with a pizza.

Gameplay

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Leonardo surrounded by Mousers in the sewer

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a single-player action game. The player starts the game as Leonardo, but can switch to any of the other turtles by pressing the start button and accessing the information screen. The information screen shows each turtle's health, special weapons, a map grid of the current area, and messages from either Splinter or April. Each primary weapon has a different speed, power, and reach. Thus, during gameplay, certain turtles may be more adept at defeating certain enemies and navigating particular obstacles than others. When a turtle runs out of health, falls into a fatal trap, or is struck by a roller car, the Foot Clan captures the turtle and holds him in an undisclosed location. This forces the player to choose one of the remaining turtles in order to continue. The player loses the game when all four turtles are captured. From stage three onward, a captured turtle may be rescued once per each area of gameplay. Overall, six stages (missions) comprise the game: 1) Streets of New York 2) Hudson River Dam 3) Wall Street Rooftops 4) JFK Airport 5) South Bronx Lair 6) Technodrome.

Initially, a player navigates the mission map in an overhead view. When a turtle enters a sewer or building interior, gameplay switches to a side-scrolling perspective. While in the overhead view, a player can move in four cardinal directions and use primary weapons for a single type of attack. As the game progresses, more lethal and numerous enemies appear. In later stages, obstacles include gaps that involve well-timed jumps and inaccessible areas that require specialty items, such as ropes, to progress across building rooftops.

In side-scrolling portions of the game, the turtles jump, crouch, and attack with primary or alternate weapons. Alternate weapons are occasionally dropped by enemies or found along the way in limited quantities. These weapons include single shurikens (throwing stars), triple shurikens (launches three stars simultaneously in a spreading pattern) and boomerangs. A powerful "Kiai" weapon, a scroll that expands into a crescent-shaped beam, may be found in later stages. A limited number of invincibility icons also appear throughout the game, which grant a temporary "cannonball" invincibility effect and allows a turtle to bulldoze their way through enemies and obstacles. On a side note, boomerangs can be reused if the player catches them upon return. Lastly, if a turtle acquires a new weapon, it will replace the previous alternate weapon.

As the game progresses, the turtles must defeat various enemies, navigate traps, search for specific items, and complete certain tasks, such as defusing timed bombs in the underwater area of stage two. During gameplay, the turtles collect pizza to replenish health. The amount of health restored is dependent on pizza portions (whole, half, or slice). A player is given a limited number of continue options. Boss confrontations include Bebop (stage one mid-boss), Rocksteady (stage one boss), Mecaturtle (stage three), Big Mouser (stage four), the Technodrome (stage five), and Shredder.

Development

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Background

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Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) comics in the 1980s.[3] Mark Freedman was the head of Surge Licensing, and had signed on to represent the TMNT brand and secured the rights with Playmates for a toy line and for the first animated television series.[4]

Konami had released its first licensed video game with Cabbage Patch Kids: Adventures in the Park (1984) based on the Cabbage Patch Kids toy line and became the first third-party company to develop games for Nintendo's Family Computer (Famicom) home console in 1986.[5] Emil Heidkamp joined Konami in 1986. He decided to try to have Konami license other media. Finding that flight simulator-styled video games were popular in America, he pitched the idea of a flight sim to Kenji Hiraoka, who was the liaison between Konami's Chicago and Japan-based offices, who was uninterested in the idea.[6] On pitching the idea to Konami founder Kagemasa Kōzuki, Heidkamp suggested they could make a flight sim video game based on the film Top Gun (1986), which excited Kōzuki. This led to Konami making Top Gun video game and becoming more open to seeking licensed properties for games.[7]

Nintendo of America had limited all companies publishing games to release only five games per year. This led to meetings between Konami and then CEO of Nintendo Yamauchi Hiroshi which did not lead to any deal being struck to release more than five games.[5] To release more games, Konami founded Ultra Games in 1988. The company was presented as a publisher, and was publicly known as a spin-off of Konami's American operations branch.[8][5][9] The creation of Ultra Games within Konami allowed them to release twice as many games for Nintendo's Nintendo Entertainment System console in a year and doubled Heidkemp's workload.[10]

Production

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Freedman had reached out to Konami, describing that that the "timing was wonderful for [Surge and Konami]" as Konami was searching for action and adventure themed content to adapt into video games.[4] At the time of these deals, the toys and series had not been released with Andrew Farago author of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Visual History describing the brand as an "unknown quantity to the general public."[4] Heidkamp found the a submission for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in his inbox. He invited Freedman out to Chicago where they struck a deal, with Freedman stating he received a cheque that was "more money than I'd ever seen in my life."[11] Konami had been wanting to develop a new martial arts themed game. Desiring to match the financial success of their licensed games like Top Gun and Double Dribble (1986) proposed the TMNT property for this style of game.[11]

The animated series arrived to television in late 1987, with its popularity leading to Nick Thorpe of Retro Gamer as overtaking the comics in popular consciousness.[3] In 1991 in Playthings described the TMNT as being one of the most successful cross-licensing campaigns by 1991, while Video Games & Computer Entertainment reported that by December 1990, 130 licensees develop products using the imagery from the series. This included films, animated television series, comic books, stage shows, toys, and houseware products.[12][13]

Konami's game features influences of the animated series, such as borrowing characters Bebop and Rocksteady and featuring the Ninja Turtles with different colored bandanas.[1] Nobuya Nakazato, who worked on the development team for the game, said that members of the team performed many jobs. He explained that it was normal for the development team to check the game they had worked on themselves. This led to him working on the game while also working on debugging other Konami titles such as The Adventures of Bayou Billy (1988), Gradius II (1988), and Blades of Steel (1987).[14][15] Former Konami composer and audio programmer Hidenori Maezawa said that the company could not use music from the television series due to copyright issues.[16]

Release

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was presented at the Nintendo Booth at the Winter Consumers Electronics Show (CES) in 1989.[17] The game was released on May 12, 1989 in Japan for the Famicom under the title Geki Kame Ninja Den (激亀忍者伝, which loosely translates to "Legend of the Radical Ninja Turtles").[18] It was released in North American markets in June 1989 for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).[19] The NES version of the game was released to arcades as part of Nintendo's PlayChoice-10 line of arcades. It was made available by 1990.[20]

Former Sega CEO Mike Hayes described the NES reception in the United Kingdom as a "failing brand, treated as a toy by Mattel" and that was it was not achieving the high sales it had in North America and Japan.[21] As the distributor for the system in the United Kingdom, the company Hayes had worked for bundled the console with the game, which was re-titled Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles as bundle called the Mutant Machine.[21][3] Both the title of the game and the show was changed in the UK as the word "ninja" was considered to be too explicitly violent for a children's program in Europe.[22] The release of the bundle led to far higher sales during the Christmas season of 1990, leading to the NES to overtake Sega's Master System console sales.[21][3]

By May 1990, it had sold over 1 million cartridges in the United States.[23] By the end of 1990, the game had sold more than 4 million cartridges worldwide, earning $125 million ($317 million adjusted for inflation) for Konami.[24] Combined sales of all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games from Konami were estimated at $250 million by June 1991.[12]

Ports

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Conversions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were later developed for a variety of home computer platforms.[25] Computer Gaming World said that this release was part of Konami's then recent emphasis on porting their popular NES for home computers. The games were set for release in the first half of 1990.[26] At the 1990 Summer CES, the ports for the C64, IBM PC-compatible and Amiga were presented.[27]

Konami, under the Ultra Games label, released DOS, Commodore 64, and Amiga versions in North America, while the game was licensed to Mirrorsoft's Image Works label for the European market, where DOS, Commodore 64, Amiga, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, and MSX versions were released. The European Amiga port is different from the North American version. The initial release of the DOS version contains a programming error that creates a gap that is impossible to cross without cheating or a patch.[28][self-published source?]

In 1990, Konami and the UK company Mirrorsoft made deals to release certain titles in their respective markets.[29] ImageWorks approached Probe towards the end of 1990 to develop the ports for the game.[30] Dave Perry and Nick Bruty worked as freelancers for Probe Software and created the ZX Spectrum version of the game. It was released in early November 1990 by Image Works.[31][29][32] A representative for Image Works said that they expected sales to be high for the port of the game and gave it a higher budget for the UK home computer market.[30] All the other versions of the game for the UK release were published by the Christmas season of that year.[33]

The ZX Spectrum version of the game sold 420,000 copies within its first month of its release, an amount that Retro Gamer described as "staggering" as sales for the computer system were in decline at the period.[32] It was the highest selling game from Image Works.[32] The game was the UK's number 1 selling Spectrum game for 6 months between March[34] and August 1991.[35]

The NES version of the game was released in 2007 on the Wii's Virtual Console. It was released for the Wii in Europe and Australia for 500 points which was later raised to 600 Wii Points. In North America, it was released for Wii on April 2, 2007, for the price of 600 points, 100 points more than the average NES title on the Virtual Console. This was due to Konami having to re-organize the rights to re-release the game leading to its more expensive price.[36] It was the first licensed game to appear on the North American and European Virtual Console.[citation needed] Due to licensing issues, it was later removed from the Wii Shop Channel in Japan on January 24, 2012, and in North America and Europe on January 26, 2012.[citation needed]

The NES version of the game was re-released as part of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection in 2022.[37]

Reception

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Cameron Koch of Tech Times described the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game as being "well-received" at the time of its release.[43] From contemporary reviews, four reviewers commented on the game in the Japanese video game magazine Bi-Weekly Famicom Tsūshin.[18] Two complimented the games characters and being humorous and entertaining with one reviewer specifically highlighting the smoothness in their movements such as how they do spins when they jump.[18] While one reviewer found the game too difficult, two reviewers found the game similar to other earlier Konami games such as Castlevania (1986) and The Goonies (1986) with one reviewer finding the gameplay to be too ordinary and only reccomending it to fans of the genre.[18]

Nintendo Power scored it 4 out of 5 and praised its "superb play control" and "super-sharp graphics".[44][better source needed]

Computer Entertainer recommended the game complimenting the jumping animation of the turtles and the variety of its levels and scenes.[45] Four reviewers in commented on the film in Electronic Gaming Monthly. Two gave lukewarm reviews complimenting it as a decent game with adequate action sequences and generally good graphics. One went as far as to credit as the best of game of the Fall season.[39] Two reviewers conversely found the game to be "nothing revolutionary" while another was hoping for more noting the hype the game had received.[39] The fourth reviewer found the game to have poor quality control concluded it was "not a true Konami game."[39] Martin Gaksch of Power Play [de] found the graphics had annoying flickering and while the game was overall OK, it did not reach the heights of previous Konami games such as Salamander (1986).[41]

Julian Rignall of Mean Machines was initially disappointed that the game was not a port of the 1989 arcade game, but ultimately complimented the graphics as excellent and that it was a very original game requiring both planning and "arcade skill".[46] Matt Regan of the same publication complimented the graphics and the different abilities of each of the variety of gameplay with four characters with different abilities in the game. Regan only lamented a lack of a two-player mode.[47] Video Games & Computer Entertainment praised the large variety of enemies which kept the action in the game "fast and furious" and that the graphics were "crisp and well detailed and provide a good variety of scenes." Commenting on the controls, he found that they were "smooth and responsive [...] with only an occasional sluggishness when there are many enemies on the screen at the same time (a problem that seems to crop up in a good many games for the NES)."[48] A review in The Games Machine described it as a "tough, but very playable game" with some occasional graphical glitches with high quality sprites and animations.[42] Computer and Video Games complimented the colorful graphics which were "a bit on the blocky side at times" and found that "the high level of difficulty isn't all that frustrating" and only adds to the product.[49]

Ports

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For the ZX Spectrum port, Your Sinclair complimented the release, praising the game's colorful, cartoonish graphics and move sets while also criticizing the game's swimming level.[53]

For the Amiga and C64 releases, two reviewers in Zzap!64 found the gameplay in both versions repetitive with poor quality graphics concluding that it was "a dull game which would've sunk without trace if it didn't have the Turtles name."[54] A review from Duncan Evans in Your Commodore found that the character sprites looked alright on the C64, but the sound was awful and the gameplay mediocre. Evans suggested the game Last Ninja 3 for a superior similar title.[55]

Gaksch dismissed the Amiga version with jerky scrolling, sprites and meidocre graphics and sound. He found the game poorly developed as it required players to flip the disk to load it several times during gameplay. He said that while the original NES game was not brilliant, it showacased that there was a decent game originally.[56]

Retrospective

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When the NES game was re-released on Virtual Console in 2007, it attracted largely negative reviews. GameSpot's Frank Provo gave Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2.7 out of 10, citing the game's very hard difficulty and the game's unpolished and unfun nature as reasons for the rating. Provo also stated that, while the game's music is upbeat, the music and the game in general lacks the more recognizable traits of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.[59] Mark Birnbaum of IGN gave Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a 5.5 out of 10 pointing out that the game is dated and only for nostalgic and hardcore fans. Birnbaum stated that the controls were poor, the enemies bland and the level design and characters were negatives in the game.[61] Both reviewers also cited its poor quality in comparison to Konami's later Turtles NES games, which were not re-released.

A review from AllGame complimented the music and graphics, specifically with its combination of top-down and side-scrolling perspectives, but found the game ultimately too difficult especially with a lack of sufficient continues.[57]

Game Informer complimented that the game the game design, specifically the unique abilities of each character and the ability to swap them. Their review found the games difficulty an issue, with the underwater sections being too difficult and that next NES Ninja Turtles game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game, was superior overall.[60]

Legacy

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The NES version of the game would be voted as the year's best game by readers as part of the magazine's annual Nintendo Power Awards.[63] Computer Entertainer awarded the game the "Game of the Year" for the NES at their 1989 Video Game Awards ceremony at the CES. [64] Game Players magazine had their first Videogame and Computer Game Awards for 1989 and included the NES version of the game in their "Videogame Excellence Awards" awards listing.[65]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles established a long-running theme within games based on the franchise of pizza acting as health recovery items, a feature which would be in nearly every game based on the series after.[43] Subsequent TMNT games were put into production to take advantage of the popularity of the franchise in the early 1990s.[1] Konami's next TMNT video game was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989) for video game arcades.[1] In addition to the arcade title Turtles in Time (1991) and console games Manhattan Project (1991), The Hyperstone Heist (1992), and Tournament Fighters (1993) Konami also released a trilogy of games for Nintendo's Game Boy: Fall of the Foot Clan (1990),Back from the Sewers (1991), and Radical Rescue (1993). The company would also release handheld electronic games during this period, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Manhattan Missions for MS-DOS-based computers.[1][25] Towards the mid-1990s, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles experienced a downturn in popularity leading to no new video games to be released for the second half of the 1990s.[66]

Following the release of the TMNT television series in 2003, Konami released a few more new games for the franchise in the early 2000s, which Game Informer described as only having "a fraction of the success of the original titles from more than a decade ago."[1][67] Ubisoft would secure the license to create new TMNT games in 2006 starting with a game to coincide with the release of the film TMNT (2007).[68]

Notes

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  1. ^ Japanese: 激亀忍者伝, Hepburn: Geki Kame Ninja Den lit. "Legend of the Radical Ninja Turtles"

References

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Footlist

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e f Shea 2024.
  2. ^ "激亀忍者伝 [ファミコン] / ファミ通.com". www.famitsu.com. Retrieved July 24, 2018.
  3. ^ a b c d Thorpe 2023, p. 19.
  4. ^ a b c Farago 2024, p. 193.
  5. ^ a b c Tooley 2008, pp. 28–29.
  6. ^ Farago 2024, pp. 193–194.
  7. ^ Farago 2024, p. 194.
  8. ^ Guinn 1989, p. 3.
  9. ^ Plunkett 2012.
  10. ^ Farago 2024, pp. 194–195.
  11. ^ a b Farago 2024, p. 195.
  12. ^ a b Playthings 1991, p. 26.
  13. ^ Sellers 1990, p. 54.
  14. ^ Thorpe 2019, p. 18.
  15. ^ Thorpe 2019, p. 21.
  16. ^ Parish 2009.
  17. ^ Computer Entertainer 1989, p. 9.
  18. ^ a b c d e Famicom Tsūshin 1989, p. 14.
  19. ^ Nintendo.
  20. ^ Eddy 1990, p. 100.
  21. ^ a b c Edge 2012.
  22. ^ Barros 2015, p. 35.
  23. ^ RePlay 1990.
  24. ^ Sheff 1994, p. 235.
  25. ^ a b Thorpe 2023, p. 20.
  26. ^ Computer Gaming World 1990, pp. 41–42.
  27. ^ Braun, p. 10.
  28. ^ "Scary-Crayon reviews... Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I & II (MS-DOS PC versions)". Scary-crayon.com. Retrieved June 21, 2010.
  29. ^ a b Carroll 2004, p. 89.
  30. ^ a b Dutton & Bunker 1991, p. 35.
  31. ^ Bielby 1991, p. 30.
  32. ^ a b c Jones 2012, p. 55.
  33. ^ Carroll 2004, pp. 89–90.
  34. ^ "The YS Rock'n'Roll Years - Issue 63". Archived from the original on June 17, 2014. Retrieved June 15, 2014.
  35. ^ "The YS Rock'n'Roll Years - Issue 68". August 1991. Archived from the original on June 15, 2014.
  36. ^ Bozon 2007.
  37. ^ Bailey 2022.
  38. ^ Rand 1990, p. 98-99.
  39. ^ a b c d Harris, p. 10.
  40. ^ Rignall 1990a, p. 64.
  41. ^ a b Gaksch 1990a, p. 99.
  42. ^ a b Caswell 1990, pp. 28–29.
  43. ^ a b Koch 2016.
  44. ^ "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: What Did Critics Think in 1990? - Defunct Games".
  45. ^ Computer Entertainer 1989b, p. 11.
  46. ^ Rignall 1990a, p. 63.
  47. ^ Regan 1990, p. 64.
  48. ^ Walnum 1989, pp. 44–45.
  49. ^ Rand 1990, p. 99.
  50. ^ Mark & Nick 1991, p. 66.
  51. ^ Dutton 1991, pp. 36–37.
  52. ^ Sumpter 1990, pp. 14–15.
  53. ^ a b Bielby 1991, pp. 30–31.
  54. ^ a b c King & Wynne 1991, p. 10.
  55. ^ a b Evans 1991, p. 49.
  56. ^ a b Gaksch 1990, p. 81.
  57. ^ a b Couper.
  58. ^ Parkin 2007.
  59. ^ a b Provo.
  60. ^ a b Game Informer 2004, p. 175.
  61. ^ a b Birnbaum 2007.
  62. ^ Calvert 2007.
  63. ^ "Nintendo Power Awards '89". Nintendo Power. Nintendo of America. March–April 1990.
  64. ^ Computer Entertainer 1990, p. 4.
  65. ^ Game Players 1990, p. 14.
  66. ^ Farago 2024, p. 196.
  67. ^ Thorpe 2023, p. 25.
  68. ^ Sinclair 2006.

Sources

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