As featured in Retrogaming Times Monthly issue #48, May 2008.

First off my apologies to our readers and staff for missing the previous issue due to sudden illness.  While the majority of NES arcade ports concentrated on classic easy to port arcade titles of the early 1980's, from time to time a then current arcade release would find its way to the platform.  This doesn't mean attention to detail and true quality wasn't crafted into the simpler single screen arcade conversions by any means.  A look at previously reviewed games such as the Donkey Kong series proves that when done right, classic arcade games on the NES could hold their own against the first run titles of the time.  Yet a current hot commodity in the arcades was looked at as a license to print money in cartridge form.  Couple that with a pop culture juggernaut on the level of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and you have the formula for near instant guaranteed sales, regardless of what the finished product may be.  Thankfully what we ended up with would at the very least be a well attempted recreation given the limitations of the home hardware of the time.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was arguably one of the most popular arcade games of 1989, heck if you were under twelve years old it most certainly was the most popular arcade game of the day.  It was with good reason too.  There were few gameplay experiences as entertaining as being crowded around the arcade cabinet with three of your friends, each playing as one of the heroes in a half shell.  I can't think of another arcade game I spent as much money on back during its original release.  Of course that was the idea of a beat 'em up, to eat quarters while the players were blind sided with gameplay that required constant repetitive input and uneven odds.  None of us cared about feeding the machines though.  It was the 'Turtles, it had beautiful graphics ripped right out of the popular cartoon, great sound design that was comprised mostly of remixes of the catchy theme song, tight controls and of course the ability to play with friends and make new ones as people left and joined game progress.  All these things make it a perfect candidate for an arcade to home transition.  Since an original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game already existed on the NES, arcade Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released on the NES platform as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game in 1991.

For the conversion to the NES hardware certain limitations would come into play as they always do.  The first and most obvious being the graphics.  The NES simply cannot replicate the color richness and detail of the arcade original.  Yet looking back what surprised me most about this has nothing to do with the actual game at all but instead how Nintendo's inhouse propaganda magazine, Nintendo Power, attempted to explain the drop in visual detail and color.  According to Nintendo Power it all had to do with the NES outputting in RF and arcade monitors outputting in true RGB.  A technical explanation isn't necessary as it has very little to do with the graphical capabilities of the NES and why Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles looks the way it does on the home console.  Not to say that the visuals on the NES version are bad.  Everything is there for the most part: the different types of Foot Clan soldiers are represented, the stages carry the same theming and design, boss enemies look and behave how they should - it just looks like there's a thin layer of grime over everything.  While not as vibrant as what you'd see in the arcade a real effort was made to recreate the backgrounds and level design, again it's just nowhere near as sharp.  Then there are the infamous Pizza Hut signs throughout the game that were added in the NES version.  Almost anywhere there was a sign or billboard in the arcade original it is now an advertisement for Pizza Hut.  Even some stages that don't have walls for billboards will have Pizza Hut signs stuck into the ground.  Of course not-so-hidden advertising in games is common today but this is one of the earliest mainstream examples.

Since original control was a joystick for movement and a pair of buttons for jumping and attacking, the NES control pad is a perfect candidate for home control recreation.  It all works as one would expect it to and while the controls are mapped out the same as in the arcade, there are some very slight differences in attack range and delay when performing a jump kick for example.  This is nothing that can't be overcome after a few minutes of play but it does feel over all stiffer than the original.  Audio however does suffer on the NES.  While a good effort is put forward to recreate most of the music it's simply not of the quality present in the arcade version.  However the biggest audio loss is that of the voice clips that were sprinkled throughout the original game.  Originally every boss would speak a couple lines when the end of a stage was reached, sometimes engaging in a short witty conversation with one of the turtles.  While this little banter has no effect on the game itself, it did further round out the original package and make the game feel more like the animated series.  Every time a character would speak there would be a text bubble near them as well.  In the NES version only some of these text bubbles are present and of the ones that are there a few of them have been changed.  It seems like pure laziness to have some of the text bubbles there for select game events yet not have them be present for things like boss introductions.  This also lends itself to some of the intermission screens being dissimilar with different layouts, alternate text and again, no spoken audio.  Granted that spoken audio is on the edge of the NES hardware limitations but at the very least it could have all been supplemented with text bubbles, which were originally there anyway.

Konami knew of these limitations and attempted to make up for them by reworking a few areas of the game and adding two totally new NES exclusive stages.  While it may sound like nothing other than a hype machine, there truly are some differences that make the NES version both a more difficult game as well as a longer one.  Right away, the first stage takes longer to complete than it did in the arcade since the level was originally much shorter with only one staircase to pass.  Things are pretty much the same until after the sewer area with Baxter Stockman.  Upon completion of the sewer area, a new stage begins with New York under a blanket of snow and ice due to the actions of a mutated polar bear named Tora.  Over all this stage is rather uninspired and feels simply like filler as opposed to adding something to the game.  After Tora's defeat and the thawing of the city, the game picks back up in the parking lot area from the arcade original.  However the end boss of this area has been changed.  Instead of fighting both Rocksteady and Bebop together, April is now guarded by Baxter Stockman's mutated form, Baxter the Fly.  Things continue more or less the same until after the boss fight against the first stone warrior.  Instead of going directly to the Technodrome after the battle, a new stage is presented that takes place inside a New York high-rise.  Thankfully this new stage feels like some real thought and planing went into it.  The graphical detail and design here is far more solid than any other part of the game, with cool moments such as tiger paintings coming to life and leaping off the walls.  The boss at the end is the Shogun Warrior who also has a unique design and the battle against him is different and entertaining.  After that the game rejoins in the Technodrome where things continue as they did in the arcade, right down to the final battle.

As arcade conversions on the NES go, one could do far worse than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game.  Yet the game still feels like it falls short from providing an entertaining experience on par with its arcade counterpart.  The graphics, audio and play control all have obvious flaws.  I suppose that if only one of these was lacking the game would still be fine but the combination of all of them are what ultimately pulls this title down to the level of a mediocre home conversion.  The NES port also only supports a maximum of two players while the four player arcade cabinet was part of the game's original draw.  The big problem is simply that the original is such a great game.  Beat 'em ups had existed before but the lush graphic detail and comic book style of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made it a showcase of arcade game design at the time.  Since the arcade original was so detailed and fluid no matter how good the NES version could have been, it had a big game to replicate.  While it's a good effort and is still a fun game to play on the NES, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game is simply no substitute for the arcade original.
 

"InsaneDavid" also runs a slowly growing gaming site at http://www.classicplastic.net/dvgi

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