Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released in 1989 and was based on the cartoon that was out at the same time. It is a mostly side-scrolling adventure game with a few top down moments included for variety and travel between areas. This element was a really interesting change of pace because most games only had one or the other element and not both. Despite being considered by fans and critics alike as one of the most difficult NES games ever made it still sold around 4 million copies. This makes it one of the top-selling Nintendo (NES) games ever. You play as the 4 Ninja Turtles (Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Donatello) on their quest save April and protect their home from Shredder.

Graphics 5/10 – This is likely the weakest part of the game. The graphics simply don’t measure up to other games on the NES. They aren’t the worst graphics I’ve seen on the NES but they aren’t great either. The top down view is the worst of the 2 modes for graphics. The turtles themselves are blobby as well as the foot clan soldiers. The attacking in this mode is also really terrible looking. The weapons aren’t sized well and look pretty bad. Raphael’s sai looks way too big when he attacks. The water, and buildings are very generic and repeat a lot in style through the game. It’s obvious the over-world graphics were not high on the list for this game.

And honestly neither are the side-scrolling graphics well done either. The sewers are pretty monotonous (though I don’t imagine sewers get a lot of variety in their construction) and so are most of the other areas in the game. They get a theme and it sticks through that entire area. The monster design is pretty basic in a lot of cases. And don’t even get me started on the size between the turtles and the Technodrome. It’s laughable. That thing was big enough to have Shredder and Krang inside along with a bunch of foot clan soldiers yet the turtles were about one quarter the size of it. I think a level like the dam level that would involve blowing up the Technodrome from the inside would have made more sense than fighting it face to face and being almost the same size.

Sound 7/10 – This is one aspect that I think this game does pretty well at. The music isn’t great because it is still 8-bit sound but you get the Ninja Turtles theme and the overall feel all fits really well. The style of music just feels like something that fits with the Ninja Turtles really well. The main problem I have is that there isn’t a lot of variety in the music. Especially when you go back and forth between the over world and when you go into buildings. It is the same 2 songs over and over again going back and forth and this can get really annoying after a while. That’s a problem of gameplay more than a fault of the music itself but it does get old after a while.

Addictiveness 4/10 – It is hard to call this game addictive. I would rather say that the difficulty keeps bringing you back in a vain attempt to beat the game which is nearly impossible to do. I know I’ve played this game dozens of times and never managed to beat it as a kid without cheating in some way. So, while I would say that I did play the game over and over again it wasn’t because I loved the gameplay or graphics or story line to the game but because it was so hard that I wanted to keep playing in order to learn the game and beat it and I don’t really think that sort of thing qualifies as “addictive”.

Story 8/10 – I actually really like the story to this game. There are multiple layers to the story so that there isn’t any one moment where you feel like you aren’t really progressing through the story. At first you are tasked with rescuing April O’Neil from Beebop and Rocksteady. I’ve completed this part of the story a lot of times since it is basically the crux of the first level. Next you are expected to dive into the water around the nearby dam and diffuse bombs that are set to go off. This is one of the more difficult stages (but not the hardest by any means) to complete. This level is where Raphael and Michelangelo come in handy. They aren’t overly useful in other areas of the game so this is where they become cannon fodder so to speak. Next up is rescuing Splinter from the Mecha Turtle (which I don’t know any of the backstory for except that I assume it is a robot turtle of some sort). Once you rescue Splinter you are then supposed to defeat a giant Mouser. The mousers are created by Baxter Stockman who has some vendetta against the Ninja Turtles that I can’t remember. They likely prevented him from taking over the world or something. After the Mouser is destroyed it is time to go find the Technodrome. Once you have found and beaten the Technodrome it is time to go inside and beat Shredder.

I like the way the story plays out because it feels like there is a real task for each level rather than just beating levels because they are there and you can’t go straight to fighting the final boss of the game. Other games seem to send you through pointless levels a lot of the time that have no bearing on the characters and are just excuses to fight bad guys and beat a boss that quite often doesn’t have anything to do with the plot.

Depth 7/10 – A big reason why this game gets the rating it does is because of the semi open world concept that levels have. For being a side-scroller you have a lot of freedom regarding where to go and who to fight and when. Each level must be completed in sequence but within those levels you are pretty free to go where you want and do what you want. The respawning of monsters helps keep this aspect of the game fresh as well.

Difficulty 10/10 – this is by far one of the most difficult games for the NES. From the very beginning of the game there are the steam rollers driving around that can kill you instantly if they run you over. Then there are the controls of the game itself. Jumping is quite difficult to do on its own. Add in getting hit while jumping and you get quite a few deaths from that. The combat is also strange sometimes because of damage delays. You can’t hit a monster more than once every couple seconds so quite often you hit the bad guy and he hits you right back right away. This can lead to lots of damage while fighting even 1 of the more basic monsters.

Of course there is the dam level which many people think is extremely difficult. You have to swim through the level without touching the electrified seaweed (not sure what the explanation on that stuff is honestly) while trying to diffuse bombs before their timer runs out. If you get stuck too far into the seaweed then you can die quite quickly. The swimming controls are also pretty clunky which makes it tough. You would think a bunch of turtles would be good at swimming but not these turtles. Also, there is a jump in the dam level that can get messed up a lot of times if you don’t know how to time it right. A lot of life has been lost trying to make that jump and having to go back through the level to try again. There is another jump like that in the sewers but I can’t remember which level it is part of. That one I believe results in a death though which again doesn’t make sense. Turtles falling into a sewer (where they live!) would kill them. Makes no sense to me.

Another difficult part of the game is that in level 3 and later the over world is basically maze like. There is a lot of trial and error in figuring out where to get and which building or sewer to enter. Wrong choices quite often result in a waste of time and life for your characters and only give a small bonus item. To go along with this is the respawning of enemies that I mentioned before. If you kill all the enemies in a building and leave and go back in then all those enemies are back. This can make levels extremely frustrating or impossible to beat if you make mistakes. This game is not very forgiving when you make a mistake. Playing this game with an emulator would allow you to use save states which would reduce the difficulty significantly. Saving before a boss or a jump would help prevent a lot of frustration.

Overall 7/10 – this is by far one of my favorite early NES games. I owned it and played it a ton growing up (but never beat it without cheating). If you are looking for an older game that is challenging then go for this one. I would recommend finding a walkthrough to use while playing though so you don’t waste a lot of time on the extraneous stuff and instead just focus on playing the game you need to play. Otherwise you are going to spend a lot of time playing this game and not always making a lot of progress. Still, this game is one of the better early NES games that got made and is a lot of fun to play.

Great review.
I am glad to see someone else that appreciates this game as much as I did.
I used to play this game all the time as a kid... and as frustrating as it was, I always came back for more out of stuborness because I refused to believe it was unbeatable.