Embrace the Weirdness: In Defense of TMNT 1 on the NES

I feel like, as with many games released during the NES's lifetime, there have been these waves of popular opinion, thanks largely to the internet, where a game that was liked at the time is ripped apart, then everyone talks about how awful it is, then later on everyone kind of pulls back and realizes that maybe it's not that bad. The most extreme case of this happening was probably E.T. on Atari 2600, which at the time of its release I used to enjoy playing, but gradually it became known as the 'worst game of all-time'. Now I feel that people have backed off a bit and realized that there are far worse games, and that outside circumstances meant that it merely wasn't the game that was loftily envisioned by Howard Scott Warshaw at the time. I feel like the first game based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has had a similar rollercoaster ride of sentiments, and I'm not sure where people usually fall now on whether it's good or not. I'm not sure if I can objectively say that it's one of the best TMNT games of all time, but it certainly still one of my favorites.

I can only imagine Konami must have been thanking their lucky stars that they took a chance on a license based on a popular indie comic that was scheduled to have a toy line come out based on it, and a cartoon to help sell the toys. If you look back at old issues of Nintendo Power, you'll notice they mention that a game is coming out based on the comic, and a tv show is coming soon. Konami got to work early enough on this game that it came out right when the turtles' popularity was exploding, it was truly perfect timing. But probably due to that same timeline of working on it before the show had aired, people have complained that the NES game has very little to do with the cartoon. That's true enough, as only a few enemies are modeled after characters from the cartoon show, like Bebop, Rocksteady, foot soldiers, mousers and Shredder. The technodrome is really the only location that is directly from the cartoon as well. Almost everything else is newly created for the game.

But I think I've always like that weirdness, and that variety. If you go down a corridor in level 1's sewers, you might encounter mousers or a foot soldier, but you might also come across a person made of fire throwing little bouncing fires, a frog mutant, weird (maybe mechanical?) birds, or a chainsaw maniac! There is so much variety in the enemies in this game. Compare that to the arcade game, where almost EVERY enemy is going to be a different colored foot soldier. Sure, sometimes they'll change it up with a Roadkill Rodney or a mouser, but it's almost always some variety of foot soldier. The only real exception to this being the two NES-exclusive levels that weren't from the arcade, in those two levels you get so many new and strange enemies to fight, it makes you wish they would have added touches like that to the rest of the stages. I really loved how weird everything was in TMNT 1!

Before the arcade game came along and informed us what the ninja turtles should play like in every game moving forward, Konami had to figure out how to best represent this strange premise. They did that with a mix of platforming and NES action, broken up with top-down segments where you navigate the maze of Manhattan or a hangar, or a timed underwater sequence where you have to disarm a bunch of bombs. TMNT 1 is all about variety when it comes to these stages. And while stage 3's Manhattan maze can be annoying until you figure out the optimal path through, it felt like there was a real sense of exploration and scale to the game that made it feel like you were going on a grand adventure. For some reason the arcade game always feels like you're travelling through a lot of familiar areas from the cartoon, but apart from starting in April's apartment, they're pretty much just as generic as the NES title. Sewers, city streets, a highway of some sort, and a factory. And both the NES game and the arcade end the travels at the technodrome, but on the NES you have to battle the technodrome itself before you gain entry!

After the arcade game came out, any TMNT game that didn't have at least two player multiplayer usually got a complaint in reviews for the game. After all, they'd say, there's four turtles, so way not four players? But just because there are four character doesn't mean we always need multiplayer. A game like TMNT 1 wouldn't work well at all with multiplayer, with its carefully timed platforming jumps and occasional top-down perspective. And since you can pause the game and switch between any of the turtles at any time, it still gives the illusion that they are all traveling with you somehow, and that when one turtle is in danger, one of their brothers can come in and pick up the slack before they're captured. I've always thought it was a little odd to assume that any turtles game needs multiplayer just because there are four turtles, as not every style of game is suited to multiplayer, and not every turtles game needs to be a beat-em-up.

The music in this game is much moodier overall than any TMNT game after it. While most of the other games in the series would go for an upbeat, synthy pop rock, this game's music evokes a cool kind of vibe that gels with the tougher comic book turtles that this game is at least partially inspired by. The music in the second to last stage of the game really shines, playing a slow and dark song while you're sneaking around an enemy base during the above ground parts and then playing a faster-paced song that feels tension filled as you're fighting through lots of tough mutant foes in the underground side scrolling parts.

I realize though that the game is far from perfect. Is it too hard? You'd better believe that the last stage of this game is full of some difficult BS that drove me crazy as a kid (and only drives me slightly less crazy as an adult). The technodrome is huge and sprawling, designed to confuse the player, and the enemies filling the halls take several hits and deal tremendous damage, unless you want to use some of your precious scroll weapons on them. You get, I believe, two continues before being sent back to the title screen. And really, you want to have your characters loaded with the scroll weapon and some other nice secondary weapons, so if you need to continue, you're really starting the stage at a huge disadvantage, making it less likely you'll make it to the end. Donatello and Leonardo have decent enough weapon strength and range, but Mikey and Raph pull up real short in this department.

Even with complaints above, I love how different it feels from most of the games that would come after it. Once people saw how the turtles worked in the arcade game, it seemed like for a long time developers were afraid to stray too far from that formula. And while I find those games plenty fun too, and would say that last year's Shredder's Revenge is probably the best TMNT game of all time, I feel there's room for devs to explore other ways for the turtles to work in video games. Sometimes it's fun to go down into a sewer and be surprised with a fire guy or chainsaw maniac every once in a while, instead of another purple foot soldier.