I’ll be completely honest here, I’m not a big fan of traditional fighting games. When playing with them with other people I get the appeal a lot more but as someone who usually plays video games by himself a lot of these classic ones especially are not a fun experience playing alone. The AI in this game is absolute balls and it’s pretty much the one reason why I don’t really wanna touch this one again but compared to the other versions I’d be down for potentially picking this one up again, who knows. It’s got some cool fighters, some neat and simple enough mechanics and Karai is a super welcome edition. Are there other things here that make me give it a lower score for now? Well even though I can praise some of the gameplay aspects, I feel like this game is way too janky for its own good. Even on the lowest difficulty setting and speed it feels like this game is constantly on the fritz and… yeah it’s hard to describe here but still. Really though it’s the AI that screws everything over, I feel like I’m playing Street Fighter 2 Turbo with how rigged the difficulty is.

I recently bought the Cowabunga Collection, and the timing couldn't be better as my retroactive reviews for my Retro Games Bucket List has finally reached the TMNT games. I plan to replay each of the 16-bit games again before turning in reviews, though I've played them so much since they released that I think I already know what I'm going to say. Tournament Fighters for the SNES is a bit of an exception, though. It was the one Turtles game I didn't play in the 90s, I didn't know anyone who owned a copy and if they rented one then I certainly wasn't invited over to play. Instead, I had to put up with the absolutely miserable Genesis Tournament Fighters, which you can read my review of here.

The key difference between these games is that the SNES version is a passable if somewhat unremarkable fighting game, whereas the Genesis version seems like it was designed by parents who wanted to get their kids to hate the Ninja Turtles and break them from the death grip of Turtlemania. SNES Tournament Fighters plays things pretty safe, effectively being a Turtles reskin of Street Fighter 2. The presentation is fine, the gameplay is fine, but it also doesn't feel like it has any identity outside of the branding. The Genesis version, on the other hand, is as grotesque to look at as it is brutal to play. There's no question in my mind which is the better game, but so too is there little doubt about which I find more interesting.

I do think it's a little lame that you can only play the story mode with one of the four turtles, especially since there is no story to speak of. Each match starts with you exchanging a small dialog with your opponent, which mostly amounts to "Hey, join the Foot clan!" "No thank you." After each match you jump back into your blimp and move on to the next fight. You're telling me they couldn't have done this with Shredder or Chrome Dome as the player character? Sure, you can just set up an AI match and play with the full roster, but I always found it hard to get invested in tertiary modes when playing fighting games solo, and it's a bummer that the story mode isn't as fleshed out as it could have been.

That's my one real complaint though. Otherwise, Tournament Fighters is just a competent fighting game for the Super Nintendo. There's nothing too special about it, but it's not like it doesn't do anything wrong either.

Honorary mention for Karai who they have wearing her more comic accurate jacket with the big shoulder pads. I love that jacket. I want her to step on me.

Alex's Cowabunga Collection Marathon, Pt. 10 of 13

"WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD OF FIGHTING!! DON'T TAKE IT SO HARD!"

Okay, I know I said that HyperStone Heist had some janky translation, but Tournament Fighters on SNES is so much more over-the-top about it. Both characters scream at each other before fights, the winner shouts at the lifeless corpse of the loser, and there's more yelling while riding the Turtle Blimp between levels. I don't think any dialogue exists in this game that isn't in all caps. I love it! At one point, Leo called out "HEY! WE'VE FOUND OUT THE ART MUSEUM!" Immediately after, I was standing in front of two giant stone unicorn heads while Chrome Dome introduced himself by bellowing "YOU HAVE NO FUTURE!"

Obviously this is a fighting game, not a shouting game, but the dialogue was so much fun. The actual game itself is really good! While the NES version was impressive for that hardware and the Genesis port was a waking nightmare, the SNES edition of Tournament Fighters is more than competent. In terms of quality, this felt a lot closer to Street Fighter II than most 16-bit fighting games. Over the course of the story mode, I felt myself learning how to utilize my turtle effectively, improving my skills with each round. By the end, I knew what I was doing and was able to defeat the last few enemies more easily than the ones I fought at the very beginning. Not because they were weaker, but because I was able to git gud improve.

Of the three Tournament Fighters games, this is the most balanced, functional, and fair. The visuals are great, with detailed and lively backgrounds being particularly impressive. If you had grown up with this instead of Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat in the early 90s, I don't think you would have been shortchanged.

Also, those games don't kick off a climactic battle to save Splinter with "FAKE BROTHER! YOU STINK!"

When it comes to most of the TMNT games at this point in time, they usually stuck to two different genres for the gameplay. The games could either be a typical beat-’em-up full of plenty of familiar faces and fast action, or they could be a typical 2D platformer that doesn’t necessarily offer anything new, but they would still manage to satisfy die-hard TMNT fans all the same. It makes sense why they would stick to these two formulas so often, as they were both some of the most popular genres in the video game scene at the time, and it would usually work out, as most of these games ranged from being alright to really goddamn good. But of course, Konami wasn’t a two-trick pony with this IP, and they did manage to take this universe and these characters out of their comfort zone every so often, inserting them into other genres to see how they would fit in them. Take today’s game for example, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters.

As you could probably guess from the title, this is a fighting game, the first and only one fully centered around the TMNT franchise, which was always interesting to me. I have known about this game for quite a while, and I was always curious about how one would make a fighting game based off TMNT, or even if it would be any good. I dunno, it just seemed like the kinda thing that would be suited for that genre, but doesn’t have enough material to fully become a fighter. Clearly though, I must be wrong, because there are actually quite a few TMNT fighting games out there, so I figured I may as well go ahead and check out the first one to see how it is. So, after playing through it, I gotta say…….. this sure is a TMNT fighting game alright. It isn’t bad at all, and it gets the job done, but really, there isn’t much else going for it that plenty of other fighters at the time could give you instead.

The story is one you have seen a million times from TMNT, where April O’ Neil and Splinter end up getting kidnapped by a foe named Karai, so it is up to the Ninja Turtles to locate them and rescue them before it is too late, which is generic as all hell, but it’s a fighting game, so who really cares, the graphics are pretty great, having that distinct style seen in plenty of the other TMNT games from Konami, and the animations and locations seen throughout the game look great as well, the music is wonderful, of course, having that same style as past TMNT games, and being appropriately fast and fun to listen to while punching Shredder in the face, the control is typical of a fighting game, so nothing to add to that, and the gameplay is pretty average for a game from this genre, but then again, that is as to be expected with this title.

The game is your typical 2D fighting game, where you take control of 1 of 10 different fighters, each either being regulars of the franchise or alterations of original characters, take on plenty of other fighters in plenty of different locations, throw out plenty of kicks, punches, grabs and throws against your opponent to deplete their health bit by bit, use different special techniques to get an advantage over your foe, and be the last man (or turtle) standing to reign supreme over all the others. It is your typical fighting game affair, coated with that TMNT aesthetic that any fan of the series would greatly appreciate, which does make it work out in that favor, but aside from all that, there isn’t much else going on here.

With that being said though, the game does offer plenty for you to do so you won’t get bored too easily. Of course, there is the main tournament mode, where you take control of one of the characters, fight against every other opponent, and come out the last fighter standing amongst the rest. It works well enough for what it is, and it can be a good amount of fun, testing out all of the different characters and what they can do. In addition to this, there is also the standard vs mode, where you fight against another player, so nothing more to mention about that, and then there is the main attraction that this game has to offer (at least to me), the Story Mode. This is essentially the same as Tournament Mode, except now there are cutscenes that play in-between matches that detail the plot (or at least what little there is), and you can only play as the Ninja Turtles in this mode. That kinda sucks, but then again, it makes sense, so it isn’t that big of a deal, and for being one of the only dedicated story modes of a fighting game I have played, it works pretty well. Mix all that with the option to change around the game’s difficulty, speed, and continues, and you got yourself a complete package for a fighting game here, and I am sure any TMNT fanatic could get behind this and have a great time with it.

For regular TMNT fans though… I’m not sure about that. As a whole, this game isn’t necessarily anything all too unique or original for a fighting game, as it plays things pretty safe as a whole, adding nothing new or interesting for the genre. There isn’t anything wrong with that, and as a licensed TMNT game, it works pretty well, but it is not gonna be able to compete with other fighting juggernauts of the time, such as Street Fighter II or Mortal Kombat II. Not to mention, it also has that standard fighting game syndrome you have come to expect, so if you are a fan of getting your ass kicked by the computer for ten minutes, then this game is for you. Then again, I could say that about any fighting game out there, unless you are an absolute legend at these games. And finally, for one last complaint, you aren’t able to use the big special attacks in the Story Mode, which is pretty dumb, if you ask me. Doesn’t really seem like there’s any reason why you would wanna leave that out, so that kinda sucks.

Overall, despite its generic nature and fighting game syndrome, TMNT Tournament Fighters is still a good fighting game, one that manages to successfully take the turtles and put them in this genre, while also providing a decent amount of fun along the way, alone or with friends. I would recommend it for those who are big fans of the other Konami TMNT games, as well as those who are fighting game fanatics as a whole, but other then that, there are plenty of other options that you can choose over this. Then again, what other fighting game out there can you play that has you fighting a mutant bat as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?........... wait, what? There are several others? Man… fighting games are WEIRD.

Game #493

Gameplay - ★
Roster - ★★
Graphics - ★★
Sound - ★★

Honestly, there is nothing great to say about EITHER versions of this game. I played both the super Famicom and Sega Genesis versions through and yet still I cannot fathom how absolutely abhorrent this game truly is.

I can give a few things a pass on this - graphics is probably the high point of this game on both versions, but better on the genesis. The controls are, weird to say the least on the SNES, with light and heavy punches and kicks respectively. No command list, but it seems they have taken a leaf out of street fighter's book for this one.

The SNES version of the game plays weirdly. Almost as if every special outside of projectiles are very Bison esque, with ways to travel across the screen, and even less ways to punish it, with Raphael's AI continually doing his version of a Psycho crusher, leaving you open to a grab, something which isn't too dissimilar to SF2 Bison, where there is no way to tech grabs in this. Annoying, but not completely out of options.

The roster is a bit of a strange one, with War swapping out for Ray, and Casey replacing Shredder, as well as some random other character being swapped with April.

Overall, the aesthetic, roster, and feel go to the Genesis version, but neither perform well, and both feel painful to play. No way of training or labbing without going against an AI that can read your inputs as was common for the day, no way of knowing what characters have charge inputs and what ones follow Shoto rules, and no real feedback when attacking either. The only thing that the game had going for it was that if you closed your eyes, you could sort of imagine that you were playing street fighter. Well, that would be if the god awful sound design didn't destroy your immersion.

The sound on this game is terrible. The game in general is terrible. There are very few redeeming factors to this game, and I spent way too long trying to come up with arguments for it. The only thing I can possibly let it off for was sprite work and stages as honestly, the gritty look of the Genesis version really does look decent for the time. Other than that, I don't think I'll be picking this one up again any time soon. I think one or two arcade runs are good enough for this to leave it well alone.

Minor Introduction
And there we are, the finish line! The final game i’m playing from the collection, with only the collection itself and shredder’s revenge remaining for this marathon. Welcome to the thirteenth review of the marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection! And now for the list, it’s the supposed best version of the ninja turtles’s fighting game stint: tournament fighters! Is it gonna be good or underwhelming? Let’s find out!

First Impressions
Finally, after playing two ports of varying degrees of quality, i’m now playing the actual GOOD one! This is such an underrated fighting game. Tournament Fighters doesn’t do anything new, nor does it carve its own path from the competition, but it absolutely works as a spin-off from the usual beat’em’up TMNT games of before and it is really fun on its own! Is it a street fighter 2 clone with a tmnt skin on top? Well yea, but it does more than just be a shameless no-effort street fighter clone.

Gameplay
The actual fighting portion is really good. This is the one part where it might feel a bit more basic than street fighter 2, but that’s not bad by any means. There are still plenty of unique, if a bit tough to execute moves for each of the characters of the roster to go through (whoever came up with the “charging” part for some of the moves, I hope you choked on cereal for breakfast one day…and then recovered of course!) and it is fun to try and string these moves together in a combo, which is also far less clunkier to do. It also helps that the combat is more fast-paced than genesis or nes. The game takes advantage of the snes controller, since this game has more combos and moves present than other ports, allowing for more gameplay variety. The roster is also pretty good. I wouldn’t put it above genesis for the characters (the lack of april and casey jones is very noticeable), but it gets bonus points over the genesis version for a higher character count and a more balanced roster overall…not to say all the characters are fully balanced, some characters are definitely better than others in many regards, but it’s definitely not as broken as genesis or nes which had 1-2 characters that worked stupidly well against everyone. The stage selection also is great, thanks to all the locales being really pretty and distinct from one another (it also does the sf2 thing of adding some background activity and energy, which helps in making the locales feel even more alive). The single player offerings are far better than genesis and nes. There is a story mode, with the usual fights against CPUs as you progress through the story. The CPU during the fights is also much easier than genesis..it will still kick your ass as you go on and it very much is still that 16-bit FG difficulty progression, but it’s more tolerable than the bullshit garbage of genesis. There is also the tournament mode, which has specific character endings for everyone in the roster, as well as a fun little side-story with april narrating the tournament and more over-the-top quips after winning a fight with the character of your choice. It encourages replayability and it is a great mode. Then there are the 1v1s with your friends, which is very fun to play…against your friend of course. And there is also a watch mode, which is basically customized cpu vs cpu fights that you can make (your very own powerscaling simulator!). Great single-player variety all things considered.

Story
The story is less cooler than the genesis’s galaxy trip story, but it is still fun and has the best story presentation of all three ports. Karai kidnaps april and splinter, so the turtles have to fight across the entire US in their turtle blimp, to collect information to finally track them down, save them and defeat Karai. The strongest point of the story is the cutscenes and character exchanges before each fight in the story, which are both very fun to watch, due to the turtles’s RADICAL personalities, and gives instantly quick information about why is the fight even happening. The fact the tournament mode also has its own sidestory and endfight text boxes with over-the-top quips from the character of your choosing is a big plus towards the story side of this game as well. It all combines for a very fun traversal through this straightforward story and I just simply loved it!

Presentation
The presentation is top-notch. The sprites are great, both for the characters and especially the background work (with all their details and background interactions, taken from sf2), the animation is energetic and snappy for all the movement options, the colorful artstyle is pretty and vibrant, and the music is great. It just checks all the boxes and doesn’t skip a beat, it is honestly amongst the prettiest TMNT games up to that point and it still looks great today!

Negatives
My main flaw rather stem with how it compares to other fighting games…in that it really doesn’t. Its mechanics are not as fleshed out as the flagship FGs of the era, so it doesn’t make for a proper substitution or competition to an actual FG. You aren’t playing this game for its mechanics, you’re playing it cuz it’s an FG with the ninja turtles and that’s a big distinction. The feeling of it copying many aspects of street fighter 2 as a foundation are also still present. It manages to get away from that, cuz it goes beyond just a tmnt coat of paint, but its fleshing out of the mechanics never goes above just the vibe of the devs working with it being a spin-off first and foremost, rather than its own amazing game, which is somewhat of a shame, but understandable.

Final thoughts
Don’t let that distract you from the fact that this game is still worthy of your time and an overall great spinoff in this series. It’s easily the best of the three ports and it’s not even close. I wouldn’t play or prefer it over something like a mortal kombat or street fighter of its time, but I also wouldn’t mind and even have a lot of fun if I was playing this game instead. Comes highly recommended for any tmnt fan and I will even suggest it to FG fans! Final verdict: 8/10!

Not gonna lie, was kinda disappointed in this one. I had heard over the years that this was the best of the 3 Tournament Fighters games, and after playing it, I really hope that's not the case or I'm REALLY gonna hate the other ones...this one did have some good.

I really like the art style of the sprites for both the characters and background characters, a lot of references to the cartoons, movies, and toy line I also like how every character including the turtles have a very distinct fighting style to match their weapons, and the super attacks are kinda neat.

The part that goes downhill is how slow this game goes to me. All the characters feel REALLY big, so the hotboxes seem a bit off. I'm not an expert in fighting games and the series I dislike the most is Street Fighter and this felt something like that. The difficulty has no medium, either the CPU is brain dead or just counters every little thing.

The music was pretty good as well, nothing seemed recycled, only a few tracks were remixed, but most everything was brand new.

Honestly, I didn't have fun with this game, it's a good idea but wasn't fond of the execution.

A fighting game that's worth looking into if you like SNES fighters. Story mode has you play through the game as one of the four turtles while tournament mode lets you use any character besides the bosses. Has better balancing than the Genesis version, but there's a certain shark that can be extremely broken if used in a specific manner. Despite this knowledge, I'm primarily a Shredder main. My only criticism is damage output can be random despite using a heavy attack or not. So that heavy punch you landed could just deal small damage. Tournament and Story isn't as punishing as the genesis version, as beating Karai in either mode will get you the expected ending on the default difficulty. The game can be hard regardless due to the AI being able to spam moves faster than a human player (Armagon would fire 2 projectiles without any visible input because AI) This game also predates Super Turbo in terms of having super moves. Overall, its a good SNES fighting game when you want more variety on the system. Just be sharp when facing the AI cause they're almost as bad as Mortal Kombat II's.