Bad Game: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES

I know what you're thinking, "The Angry Video Game Nerd already did a hilarious review of that game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES!". Yes he did! In fact, you can see it right here.

The Angry Video Game Nerd was not pleased with this game. Neither was I.

Now here's a game designer's take on it. It may not be as hilarious as the Angry Video Game Nerd, but whatever.

I played this game when I was a kid, about six to seven years old. You don't understand how freaking difficult this game was for a kid of that age. Not challenging, just a pain in the ass.

The Gameplay mechanics were simple; you walk back and forth in a sidescrolling platformer fashion with the d-pad, press "a" to jump, and "b" to attack. Simple. The controls were fine. Whenever you move to the overworld, you can move up, down, left, and right in a top-down bird's eye view fashion. Nothing bad, but nothing fascinating.

What I enjoyed was that you can choose between the four turtles, which all hold different weapons. However there were no "lives" or "continues" in this game. If you lose a life, you basically lose a turtle. Once all four are defeated, it's game over, and it's back to the title screen. No continues. How annoying is that? It's also not like the developers utilized each turtle to be an asset for a puzzle or challenge in the game. No strategy like that involved. The turtles were simply there with their individual weapons, so that the kid can pick his/her favourite one - before he/she is quickly forced to choose the other characters after they lose that turtle, thanks to the sheer difficulty of this game.

The sound was fine too, nothing really horrible, but none of them matched the tv show's music, not even the title theme, which is a disappointment for fans. One thing I have to note is whenever your character is low on energy, you'll hear a high pitched alarming sound. A sound that only pulls at your nerves - especially when you're playing through a level that was painstakingly ridiculous. It sort of reminds me of the "low energy" noise from the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, except much worse.

I hate this game.

The story wasn't deep or compelling, it was just about the Ninja Turtles having to again defeat their nemesis, Shredder. Occasionally April O'Neil would instruct the player/turtles on what to do for each level, and give tips here and there - however none of them were useful.

The level design was good, it's not like it was bland or repetitive. Enemies were different for each level, there was always a different theme to each level (ex. sewer, underwater, overworld maze, etc.) So that was nothing bad either.

Now I know what you're thinking, "Hey this doesn't seem too bad of a game, why do you consider it to be a bad game?". Well, now I'm getting to the main reason why I hate this stupid game.
The game flow?... there was no game flow. The entire thing was ridiculously hard. Especially the water level. Oh gawd that friggen water level that helped me become the bundle of nerves I am today - at six years old! Let's start with the first level. It mostly was a pain in the ass, and it introduced the annoying A.I. that was set to kill the turtles in swarms. Actually, I'll go off on that tangent if you don't mind. The A.I. wasn't bad, each enemy was different in terms of looks and behaviour. However there were TOO MANY OF THEM CROWDING DIFFERENT AREAS! Just one attack after another, annoyance after annoyance. Let's say that I'm trying to reach an item that is protected by the platforms in a corner on the screen, and you have to travel in the opposite direction, get by a swarm of enemies, jump to the upper level, and travel in the direction leading to the item. Now you've got a gap that is impossible to jump over. You're likely to fall down the first hundred times. Then you'll have to fight past the swarm of enemies again, which are all placed at random which throws the concept of strategy out the window. There may be a heath regain icon along the way, but when you touch it, it doesn't come back. But the enemies do, at random spots, and in swarms. Then you figure out that you can simply walk over the gap. What a joke! Anyway now I have to return to explain how that water stage was such a crippling experience for my childhood. First off, you have to find bombs under water and shut them off. Second, you're on a timer, so you have to hurry the hell up. Lastly, the stage is so annoying and painfully hard that you require time an patience to complete it. But how could you complete it when you have to beat the timer?! It's not like the developers were generous with the time, and allowed you to complete the stage with let's say a minute of extra time. No, it's to the second. Even with the timer aside, the very basis of the stage was a stab to human central nervous system. The fact that you're underwater made the controls different and slippery, and you had to use you button tapping skills to route through a tight area full of electric seaweed. Like what the hell? This game is for kids, have a little mercy! Eventually I made it out after 1.0937 x 10^7 tries, but then the following maze level was like a punch to the balls; you struggle to complete the water stage, and then the next level just laughs at your face with its difficulty. It's like "oh you struggled so hard to beat that water level, but here, we'll kill you off anyway." It's like all effort gone to waste. If it was an adult playing this game, they would have made the wise decision by putting down the controller, and say "I don't have time for this, I have stuff to do". But I was a kid back then, which meant lots of free time, and ultimately lots of game time. So what better did I have to do than to try and beat that friggen water level that I would be reminded of whenever I looked at that friggen game cartridge. I had to beat it, and look at where my efforts brought me? To lose at the next stage. What a load of crap. They called this a kids game? More like an innocence killing hell hole that is addictive as hell but painstakingly annoying. This is why the game is bad, it'll drive you to insanity! Look at this wall of text! It's all one paragraph! This whole paragraph explains how this game was a bad childhood memory for me. It split me from society, and increased my urge to play this horrible game, over and over, just to try and beat it so I can say "HA! I WIN SUCKER!". But no, that day never came, and to this day I haven't beaten it, or even touched it for that matter.

That God forsaken water level...

I hate games that are addictive AND harmful to your nerves with its annoying difficulty. If it wasn't so addictive, I would have put the damn game away and pop in Super Mario Bros. If it wasn't so difficult, I would have been able to enjoy the game. But no. It's like the developers locked my childhood-self in a cage, and left the game with me as a means of torture. What a horrible game. I'm going to go play it again.