Amazing graphics and music ...this could have been so good if it wasn't for the unmanageable difficulty.
Ta chimbo, mano
A disaster of a game. The CPU is very cheap and even telepathic at times, and special move inputs don’t always register. The only thing this game has going for it is some decent sprite art.
No reason for this game to be this bad. The NES version is somehow better. Ugly graphics, bad controls, horrible music, and the gameplay is a complete disaster. Still better than eternal champions though.
Awful piece of shit. Even putting aside the neutered combat system that was only neutered for the worse, its AI is even more dreadful than the SNES version, its character selection is pathetic aside from letting you play as April and compared to the other two Tournament Fighter games it’s an eyesore. Skip this schlock.
Pelea aburrida
This game is just broken in general for a fighting game. Bosses are cheap, and I am not beating the game on a higher difficulty because Karai cheats like there's no tomorrow. Apparently whoever made this version of Tournament Fighters have no idea what balancing is.
I have a very specific memory of this game. I was 7-years-old, and my mom used to take me and my sister to the local YMCA to swim on weekend mornings. I recall the sky was so deeply overcast it almost appeared like night, and the air was so humid that - even though I had thoroughly dried off - it felt like I had just gotten out of the water. Of course the sound of thunder in the distance meant we weren't going to spend any time outside, but that was fine, because the video store was on the way back home and my mom always took us there to rent something after going to the pool.
Tournament Fighters had just come out, and I loved me some Ninja Turtles, so the choice was pretty clear. I slammed it into my Genesis and spent the entire rest of the day getting my ass beat mercilessly by the AI. No matter which character I chose my fate was the same, and after a full weekend of playing I made zero progress.
25 years later I tried playing this game again. "I'm an adult, I know my way around video games," I thought.
I loaded it up on my Retropie and spent the entire rest of my day getting my ass beat mercilessly by the AI. I have never won a single match in this fucking video game.
Tournament Fighters had just come out, and I loved me some Ninja Turtles, so the choice was pretty clear. I slammed it into my Genesis and spent the entire rest of the day getting my ass beat mercilessly by the AI. No matter which character I chose my fate was the same, and after a full weekend of playing I made zero progress.
25 years later I tried playing this game again. "I'm an adult, I know my way around video games," I thought.
I loaded it up on my Retropie and spent the entire rest of my day getting my ass beat mercilessly by the AI. I have never won a single match in this fucking video game.
https://twitter.com/NyxURIEN/status/1292594715754483712
Some say this is broken, I say it's a skill issue
Why yes I do play Casey Jones, how could you tell?
Some say this is broken, I say it's a skill issue
Why yes I do play Casey Jones, how could you tell?
I do not like the Sega Genesis controller so trying to play a fighting game on it is not fun. what surprised me was how shockingly bad the gameplay was since this was just a port from the SNES.
Everything feels a lot slower and cumbersome making the game feel really tedious.
It's not as bad as the NES version but that was a fighting game on NES, literally, anything is better then that version.
Everything feels a lot slower and cumbersome making the game feel really tedious.
It's not as bad as the NES version but that was a fighting game on NES, literally, anything is better then that version.
It's not very good
TMNT: Tournament Fighters (1993): Claramente la versión mala de las dos. La IA es ridículamente hábil, que incluso se salta normas que sí se te aplican a ti, no tiene más modos que el VS y en general, no da motivos para jugar a este plagio de SFII más allá de las tortugas (4,80)
Minor Introduction
Uhhhh do I have to? Do I have to play this? Why am I even asking, I already played it if I’m reviewing it here. Welp, here we are. Welcome to the twelfth review of the marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection! And for this review, we have…this monstrosity. I am genuinely not looking forward to it, since I have heard nothing but bad things about it, so let’s just wrap it up quickly.
First Impressions
What the fuck is this? No seriously, what the actual fuck is this? You would think that for a 16-bit system, the game would at the very least be better than the goddamn 8-bit NES version, but no this is actually WORSE than that! How do you even manage to fuck this up?!?! There are some mild praises to be had here and there, but it is genuinely as bad as you’ve heard, with its only salvageable praising mark being “atleast it’s not NES TMNT 1!” …let’s just mention what makes this game stick the landing in a pile of shit head-on. Considering I have way more criticism than words of praise, the dedicated flaws section will be omitted from this review.
Gameplay
I want to start first with what I think are the things this game either does right or better than NES version. The roster is honestly the best of all three games, by actually having most of the recognizable tmnt characters (the usual four turtles, april and casey jones) alongside one less-known cut (Ray Fillet) and a fully original character for this version (Sisyphus)…tho this all comes with the omission of shredder who appears in snes and nes version. The stage selection is also very good, featuring some distinct locales and settings (taking full advantage of the galaxy trip story of this game), albeit not as pretty or unique as snes, but far better than nes selection. I…uhhh…have nothing else to praise about the gameplay here. The actual core fighting is really clunky. Gone is the fast pacing and more natural combo stringing of snes and even nes to a degree, and instead we have this slow and janky combat, where stringing combos together is rather rough to do (as if doing the combo on its own isn’t already bad enough here), even with the speed and power settings turned to max. The controls are also…not much of an improvement over nes. You would think that the addition of one button would at the very least guarantee a better combo system, as there are better opportunities to implement an additional attack or new combos, but instead that’s used for taunting…which basically does nothing….yay. Ok that’s not completely true, you can use taunt in conjunction with the d-pad to perform a powerful special attack that can only be enabled when you’re close to dying…but also couldn’t they just implemented that with a two-button combination NES style and used the third button for other intricate combos? Oh yea, the special attack taunt combo is also never once mentioned to you, neither by the game nor the manual, so you have to find it in a stroke of luck…absolutely brilliant. In a console that’s already known for not being a good platform for fighting games due to its base controller, this is just rubbing salt on the wound. The single-player offering is also underwhelming. The tournament mode is fucking useless, as it omits the character-specific endings entirely from snes, so it’s just a 1 vs CPU mode without any fancy bells or reason to go for it. The actual story mode is also an extra bullshit tier usual than most FGs of the era. The CPUs are peak arcade mentality, spamming their cheapest moves and stringing impossible combos to take you down…and that’s from the very first opponent, who is as difficult as most later-game CPUs in other FGs. This does balance itself in a weird way, as their AI is rather braindead when you decide to cheap yourself through the game with April and spam her Blanka rip-off move. The balancing is simply all over the place. It all combines for a gameplay experience that is simply tolerable at best, unbearable at worst and just “not fun” most of the time.
Story
The actual story this time is a lot more sensible than nes’s “shredder just asks for a raw fist fight” and more in-line with the story in the snes version…despite having its own tweaks. Splinter gets kidnapped by turtle clones sent by Krang, so the turtles and their allies have to fight ACROSS THE GALAXY to defeat them and save Splinter…oh right and Karai is the true mastermind (there is your accuracy cue!). The story concept sounds sick as fuck and the presentation is also given more attention, with an opening cutscenes and intermission cutscenes after the clone fights that progress the story, featuring the usual interactions and fun dialogues that you would expect. If the gameplay was good, i’m sure I would have a lot of fun traversing through this story, cuz it’s clear they put some effort in this one and tried to make the most RADICAL tmnt adventure. Really really cool stuff here.
Presentation
The presentation is fine. The character sprites are good, the backgrounds are very good and distinct, the character animation is decent enough, the artstyle’s more muted colors fits the genesis attitude and still looks good and it all runs at a consistent smooth framerate…but in comparison to tournament fighters snes or even other genesis games of the same period this came out, it feels rather lacking…all except for one area. The music SLAPS! The ost of this game is the one aspect I will absolutely give to the genesis version over any of the other tournament fighters ports, it’s absolutely great work! Even this game follows the genesis badge loyally with its soundtrack being top-tier. Why is it that the ass games have the most slapping songs?
Final Thoughts
So yea, this is as close as you’ll get to another tmnt game being as bad as the infamous first nes game, because even though the fighting is clunky, there is fun to be found in 1v1 against a friend or hearing the music in the game. Otherwise, stay the fuck away from this. Final verdict: 4/10!
Uhhhh do I have to? Do I have to play this? Why am I even asking, I already played it if I’m reviewing it here. Welp, here we are. Welcome to the twelfth review of the marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection! And for this review, we have…this monstrosity. I am genuinely not looking forward to it, since I have heard nothing but bad things about it, so let’s just wrap it up quickly.
First Impressions
What the fuck is this? No seriously, what the actual fuck is this? You would think that for a 16-bit system, the game would at the very least be better than the goddamn 8-bit NES version, but no this is actually WORSE than that! How do you even manage to fuck this up?!?! There are some mild praises to be had here and there, but it is genuinely as bad as you’ve heard, with its only salvageable praising mark being “atleast it’s not NES TMNT 1!” …let’s just mention what makes this game stick the landing in a pile of shit head-on. Considering I have way more criticism than words of praise, the dedicated flaws section will be omitted from this review.
Gameplay
I want to start first with what I think are the things this game either does right or better than NES version. The roster is honestly the best of all three games, by actually having most of the recognizable tmnt characters (the usual four turtles, april and casey jones) alongside one less-known cut (Ray Fillet) and a fully original character for this version (Sisyphus)…tho this all comes with the omission of shredder who appears in snes and nes version. The stage selection is also very good, featuring some distinct locales and settings (taking full advantage of the galaxy trip story of this game), albeit not as pretty or unique as snes, but far better than nes selection. I…uhhh…have nothing else to praise about the gameplay here. The actual core fighting is really clunky. Gone is the fast pacing and more natural combo stringing of snes and even nes to a degree, and instead we have this slow and janky combat, where stringing combos together is rather rough to do (as if doing the combo on its own isn’t already bad enough here), even with the speed and power settings turned to max. The controls are also…not much of an improvement over nes. You would think that the addition of one button would at the very least guarantee a better combo system, as there are better opportunities to implement an additional attack or new combos, but instead that’s used for taunting…which basically does nothing….yay. Ok that’s not completely true, you can use taunt in conjunction with the d-pad to perform a powerful special attack that can only be enabled when you’re close to dying…but also couldn’t they just implemented that with a two-button combination NES style and used the third button for other intricate combos? Oh yea, the special attack taunt combo is also never once mentioned to you, neither by the game nor the manual, so you have to find it in a stroke of luck…absolutely brilliant. In a console that’s already known for not being a good platform for fighting games due to its base controller, this is just rubbing salt on the wound. The single-player offering is also underwhelming. The tournament mode is fucking useless, as it omits the character-specific endings entirely from snes, so it’s just a 1 vs CPU mode without any fancy bells or reason to go for it. The actual story mode is also an extra bullshit tier usual than most FGs of the era. The CPUs are peak arcade mentality, spamming their cheapest moves and stringing impossible combos to take you down…and that’s from the very first opponent, who is as difficult as most later-game CPUs in other FGs. This does balance itself in a weird way, as their AI is rather braindead when you decide to cheap yourself through the game with April and spam her Blanka rip-off move. The balancing is simply all over the place. It all combines for a gameplay experience that is simply tolerable at best, unbearable at worst and just “not fun” most of the time.
Story
The actual story this time is a lot more sensible than nes’s “shredder just asks for a raw fist fight” and more in-line with the story in the snes version…despite having its own tweaks. Splinter gets kidnapped by turtle clones sent by Krang, so the turtles and their allies have to fight ACROSS THE GALAXY to defeat them and save Splinter…oh right and Karai is the true mastermind (there is your accuracy cue!). The story concept sounds sick as fuck and the presentation is also given more attention, with an opening cutscenes and intermission cutscenes after the clone fights that progress the story, featuring the usual interactions and fun dialogues that you would expect. If the gameplay was good, i’m sure I would have a lot of fun traversing through this story, cuz it’s clear they put some effort in this one and tried to make the most RADICAL tmnt adventure. Really really cool stuff here.
Presentation
The presentation is fine. The character sprites are good, the backgrounds are very good and distinct, the character animation is decent enough, the artstyle’s more muted colors fits the genesis attitude and still looks good and it all runs at a consistent smooth framerate…but in comparison to tournament fighters snes or even other genesis games of the same period this came out, it feels rather lacking…all except for one area. The music SLAPS! The ost of this game is the one aspect I will absolutely give to the genesis version over any of the other tournament fighters ports, it’s absolutely great work! Even this game follows the genesis badge loyally with its soundtrack being top-tier. Why is it that the ass games have the most slapping songs?
Final Thoughts
So yea, this is as close as you’ll get to another tmnt game being as bad as the infamous first nes game, because even though the fighting is clunky, there is fun to be found in 1v1 against a friend or hearing the music in the game. Otherwise, stay the fuck away from this. Final verdict: 4/10!
Cowa-fuckin-piece-a-dogshit
"Hey! Come and get me!" - Donatello (taunt)
This is the Tournament Fighters I grew up with, coming back to this game now, it made me understand why I love SNK Fighters so much since this one kinda has that DNA in it. Now that I have a broader mindset and have played nearly all the TMNT game on the collection, my memories of the game versus what I see now don't differ, this game is fun and has some high points, but kinda low points I didn't notice growing up.
I do love this art style of the turtles the most, I think it captures a more rough and darker side to them and gives them a bit of edge they had in the comics, They all have their personalities for once, the voice clips fit how they sound and what they would say. I also really love this version of Casey and April, this made me a fan of Casey along with the movies. I also really like the weird worlds you go to, none of them look like anything from most the Turtle media, so my guess is this must be Dimension X, but the stages look good if not a tad out of place.
The game controls a bit faster than the SNES version, but I think one of the issues is the Genesis controller was a circle with to represent the diagonal presses and then there's the normal d-pad on top and this works for that controller but using anything else makes for a very non optimal response to some of the moves. The turtles again have their own fighting styles to match their weapons though the combat animations feel cleaner in this game.
Honestly the music by far is the best, for it to be Genesis it really doesn't sound tinny, and you can hear the synth very well much like the Streets of Rage games. I also love the voice clips as I had said before, they could be a bit clearer, but it's better than prior games or none at all.
This game's difficulty is where I take the most issue with, unlike the prior game where there's a braindead difficulty and then just hardcore, this game kinda goes from rough to impossible kinda lacking the easy part after the first 2 difficulty numbers. It's very much not fair and seems like the AI is reading your inputs.
So yeah, it's a pretty mixed game in spots, but I enjoyed it just as much as I did growing up, but I do now see the issues that I can't ignore, though the game is fun.
This is the Tournament Fighters I grew up with, coming back to this game now, it made me understand why I love SNK Fighters so much since this one kinda has that DNA in it. Now that I have a broader mindset and have played nearly all the TMNT game on the collection, my memories of the game versus what I see now don't differ, this game is fun and has some high points, but kinda low points I didn't notice growing up.
I do love this art style of the turtles the most, I think it captures a more rough and darker side to them and gives them a bit of edge they had in the comics, They all have their personalities for once, the voice clips fit how they sound and what they would say. I also really love this version of Casey and April, this made me a fan of Casey along with the movies. I also really like the weird worlds you go to, none of them look like anything from most the Turtle media, so my guess is this must be Dimension X, but the stages look good if not a tad out of place.
The game controls a bit faster than the SNES version, but I think one of the issues is the Genesis controller was a circle with to represent the diagonal presses and then there's the normal d-pad on top and this works for that controller but using anything else makes for a very non optimal response to some of the moves. The turtles again have their own fighting styles to match their weapons though the combat animations feel cleaner in this game.
Honestly the music by far is the best, for it to be Genesis it really doesn't sound tinny, and you can hear the synth very well much like the Streets of Rage games. I also love the voice clips as I had said before, they could be a bit clearer, but it's better than prior games or none at all.
This game's difficulty is where I take the most issue with, unlike the prior game where there's a braindead difficulty and then just hardcore, this game kinda goes from rough to impossible kinda lacking the easy part after the first 2 difficulty numbers. It's very much not fair and seems like the AI is reading your inputs.
So yeah, it's a pretty mixed game in spots, but I enjoyed it just as much as I did growing up, but I do now see the issues that I can't ignore, though the game is fun.
I played this in the Cowabunga Collection, so I actually had some conflicting feelings calling this "completed". I didn't so much "beat" the Genesis version of Tournament Fighters as I did "endured" it, I thought. They gave me the tools necessary in which to see the end credits (a rewind feature) and by god, I used it until the CPU thought I was some sort of inhuman anime protagonist capable of reading all the minute movements of my opponent.
Then I realized "You know what? I shouldn't feel bad. If the CPU can cheat and one-shot me with four cheap combos, why not do the same and also cheat?". I didn't want to use the well-documented Casey Jones cheese strat - I wanted to get to the credits as Sisyphus the mutant dung beetle, damnit. Casey can become invulnerable indefinitely but Sisyphus shouts "BUG!" when he wins and his name is a reference to the fact that his species rolls around giant boulders of shit. Casey Jones may have infinite I-frames but Sisyphus has charisma.
The phrase "Wow, I don't think anyone play-tested this!" gets tossed around a lot when talking about badly balanced video games as a little cutesy insult, but I firmly believe that either there was no QnA process beyond "well the game doesn't hard-lock or give anyone seizures when I do this" or the guy they got to playtest this was some sort of futuristic cyborg who assumed that humanity had reached the same level of dexterity and cat-like reflexes in 1993. This game hates you in such a comical supervillain fashion that I picture the I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream monologue whenever I'm projectilelocked into oblivion.
"Okay okay but what about the rest of the game?" you might be asking. Well, even if you get past the fact that the CPU wants your fleshy appendages to bleed and decide to play with someone with a pulse, you're still playing a downgraded version of TMNT: Tournament Fighters. The SNES version just looks and sounds better. Sure, you and your friends probably didn't know any better in the 90's when you were playing this game on the Sonic Console, but now it feels like you're eating stale crumbs from Nintendo's pizza box when you sample the multiplayer.
But there is one redeeming factor. Man Ray (sorry, Ray Fillet as this game coins him) and my boy Sisyphus are only playable in this game. In fact, this is the only appearance of Sisyphus in the entire franchise. Godspeed, Sisyphus. You're punching angels in heaven now.
Then I realized "You know what? I shouldn't feel bad. If the CPU can cheat and one-shot me with four cheap combos, why not do the same and also cheat?". I didn't want to use the well-documented Casey Jones cheese strat - I wanted to get to the credits as Sisyphus the mutant dung beetle, damnit. Casey can become invulnerable indefinitely but Sisyphus shouts "BUG!" when he wins and his name is a reference to the fact that his species rolls around giant boulders of shit. Casey Jones may have infinite I-frames but Sisyphus has charisma.
The phrase "Wow, I don't think anyone play-tested this!" gets tossed around a lot when talking about badly balanced video games as a little cutesy insult, but I firmly believe that either there was no QnA process beyond "well the game doesn't hard-lock or give anyone seizures when I do this" or the guy they got to playtest this was some sort of futuristic cyborg who assumed that humanity had reached the same level of dexterity and cat-like reflexes in 1993. This game hates you in such a comical supervillain fashion that I picture the I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream monologue whenever I'm projectilelocked into oblivion.
"Okay okay but what about the rest of the game?" you might be asking. Well, even if you get past the fact that the CPU wants your fleshy appendages to bleed and decide to play with someone with a pulse, you're still playing a downgraded version of TMNT: Tournament Fighters. The SNES version just looks and sounds better. Sure, you and your friends probably didn't know any better in the 90's when you were playing this game on the Sonic Console, but now it feels like you're eating stale crumbs from Nintendo's pizza box when you sample the multiplayer.
But there is one redeeming factor. Man Ray (sorry, Ray Fillet as this game coins him) and my boy Sisyphus are only playable in this game. In fact, this is the only appearance of Sisyphus in the entire franchise. Godspeed, Sisyphus. You're punching angels in heaven now.
Alex's Cowabunga Collection Marathon, Pt. 7 of 13
THIS IS BAD
Before getting into the Genesis version of Tournament Fighters, I read Weatherby's review which describes how he got ruthlessly bodied by the CPU both as a kid and as an adult. With that warning, I lowered the difficulty in the settings to 1 (out of 8). When picking a character, it let me decide my character's speed and power, so I set both of those to 8. I was ready to mop the floor with this game.
I have since read a couple GameFAQs walkthroughs a learned that this was a big dumb mistake. Apparently, raising your power to 8 makes you incredibly slow, and setting the CPU to 1 made them marginally weaker, but a LOT faster.
If you must play this game, don't do what I did. Leave everything on 4 and hope for the best.
But if you haven't committed to beating all 13 games in the Cowabunga Collection like I have, I'd just avoid this version entirely. The controls are super stiff and combos are difficult to execute with any accuracy. My experience was similar to Weatherby's. This game spanked me, Karai in particular. I didn't even bother with rewinding, I just saved at the start of the fight and tried it 30 times until I won, because as soon as she started a combo, I was dead in 3-4 hits every time, unable to break her chain.
I'm sure all of this would be excusable if the game was fun, but it really isn't. I'm kind of shocked at how much worse this is than the NES version. We'll see how the SNES release fares!
Also who the heck are Sisyphus and Ray Fillet???
THIS IS BAD
Before getting into the Genesis version of Tournament Fighters, I read Weatherby's review which describes how he got ruthlessly bodied by the CPU both as a kid and as an adult. With that warning, I lowered the difficulty in the settings to 1 (out of 8). When picking a character, it let me decide my character's speed and power, so I set both of those to 8. I was ready to mop the floor with this game.
I have since read a couple GameFAQs walkthroughs a learned that this was a big dumb mistake. Apparently, raising your power to 8 makes you incredibly slow, and setting the CPU to 1 made them marginally weaker, but a LOT faster.
If you must play this game, don't do what I did. Leave everything on 4 and hope for the best.
But if you haven't committed to beating all 13 games in the Cowabunga Collection like I have, I'd just avoid this version entirely. The controls are super stiff and combos are difficult to execute with any accuracy. My experience was similar to Weatherby's. This game spanked me, Karai in particular. I didn't even bother with rewinding, I just saved at the start of the fight and tried it 30 times until I won, because as soon as she started a combo, I was dead in 3-4 hits every time, unable to break her chain.
I'm sure all of this would be excusable if the game was fun, but it really isn't. I'm kind of shocked at how much worse this is than the NES version. We'll see how the SNES release fares!
Also who the heck are Sisyphus and Ray Fillet???
"CRUSH YOU!!" ~ Triceraton
I always had a big soft spot for the Genesis version of Tournament Fighters, it's obvious Konami put the brunt of their workload on the SNES version, and for sure that one is the best of the bunch and loved to the point that it actually has a competitive scene. The NES version is kinda just...there, it's neat but eh? The Genesis version though? Oh boy...
The CPU? Absolute trash. Even on the lowest difficulty setting it will instantly hit you out of many attacks, beat you to the punch on throws constantly and generally be a bad time. It's like Konami looked at the Genesis market and went "fuck, these Genesis people are hardcore, we gotta make the CPU literally unbeatable under any normal gameplay". Even with my knowledge of how the CPU operates, and knowing when it's actually vulnerable it's not what I call "fun". It would actually be nice if I could land a jump-in or win a trade. Instead I have to keep my feet glued to the floor, and constantly wait for them to whiff a DP or sweep them from max range.
It's actually worth note that I played a hacked version of this that makes the bosses playable and selectable from the character select. It's kinda baffling to me that they're unplayable, because they're not that buggy at all and even have 2P colors. Hell, the goddamn Triceraton is even on the cover of this game! Why is he not playable?! I love him! Imagine Blanka Balls that hit twice, can somehow crossup on-block and can hit during recoil. It's fucking dumb.
Despite that though, I can't take advantage of it against the CPU, because they punch me right out of my Blanka Ball 99% of the time. Meaning my strategy was constantly sweeping them from range and throwing them with my bite attack when they became vulnerable. The only character I lost against in two round matches was against the worst one. Karai, the final boss. When playable she is nowhere even close to as broken as her SNES counterpart who can literally one-button infinite you, as a CPU opponent though she is one of the most horseshit final bosses you could ever fight. You have to play against her so carefully, because if you're even remotely close to her, she will throw your ass to the ground. After that? She'll throw you again straight through the floor of her stage, because she's so fast she'll go right up to you as you're recovering and throw you again. If her stage's floor didn't break she could literally chainthrow you to death. Absolutely fucking ludicrous. Konami hates Genesis gamers confirmed.
Aside from the absolutely woeful single player though, the Genesis version does have things over the SNES version for me. I love the stages, they're weird as shit, but they have some kind of artistic alien quality to them. The music here is also a bunch better in my opinion, there's one track in Krang's Stage that feels like it came straight out of Contra Hard Corps. The game itself is also absolutely busted and a blast to play with friends. It's just a shame that the CPU is so miserable to fight.
RANDOM TOP THREE FAVORITE TAUNTS FROM THE GENESIS VERSION:
1. CRUSH YOU!! ~ Triceraton
2. You stink, dirtbag. ~ Ray Fillet
3. Come on baby! ~ April
After Shredder's Revenge being a thing, you know what I'd like? A Tournament Fighters remake. Make it like the SNES version, but also bring in all the Genesis and NES exclusive characters. Make it complete. I wanna play as my boys Triceraton and Ray Fillet in a competitively-viable fighter. For now, I will sit here and wait for the Cowabunga Collection players to stop by and 1-star the game since they can't beat the CPU and there's no online for it. Suck my nuts Digital Eclipse/Konami.
"You are dead, HA HA HA HAAAH!!" ~ Krang
I always had a big soft spot for the Genesis version of Tournament Fighters, it's obvious Konami put the brunt of their workload on the SNES version, and for sure that one is the best of the bunch and loved to the point that it actually has a competitive scene. The NES version is kinda just...there, it's neat but eh? The Genesis version though? Oh boy...
The CPU? Absolute trash. Even on the lowest difficulty setting it will instantly hit you out of many attacks, beat you to the punch on throws constantly and generally be a bad time. It's like Konami looked at the Genesis market and went "fuck, these Genesis people are hardcore, we gotta make the CPU literally unbeatable under any normal gameplay". Even with my knowledge of how the CPU operates, and knowing when it's actually vulnerable it's not what I call "fun". It would actually be nice if I could land a jump-in or win a trade. Instead I have to keep my feet glued to the floor, and constantly wait for them to whiff a DP or sweep them from max range.
It's actually worth note that I played a hacked version of this that makes the bosses playable and selectable from the character select. It's kinda baffling to me that they're unplayable, because they're not that buggy at all and even have 2P colors. Hell, the goddamn Triceraton is even on the cover of this game! Why is he not playable?! I love him! Imagine Blanka Balls that hit twice, can somehow crossup on-block and can hit during recoil. It's fucking dumb.
Despite that though, I can't take advantage of it against the CPU, because they punch me right out of my Blanka Ball 99% of the time. Meaning my strategy was constantly sweeping them from range and throwing them with my bite attack when they became vulnerable. The only character I lost against in two round matches was against the worst one. Karai, the final boss. When playable she is nowhere even close to as broken as her SNES counterpart who can literally one-button infinite you, as a CPU opponent though she is one of the most horseshit final bosses you could ever fight. You have to play against her so carefully, because if you're even remotely close to her, she will throw your ass to the ground. After that? She'll throw you again straight through the floor of her stage, because she's so fast she'll go right up to you as you're recovering and throw you again. If her stage's floor didn't break she could literally chainthrow you to death. Absolutely fucking ludicrous. Konami hates Genesis gamers confirmed.
Aside from the absolutely woeful single player though, the Genesis version does have things over the SNES version for me. I love the stages, they're weird as shit, but they have some kind of artistic alien quality to them. The music here is also a bunch better in my opinion, there's one track in Krang's Stage that feels like it came straight out of Contra Hard Corps. The game itself is also absolutely busted and a blast to play with friends. It's just a shame that the CPU is so miserable to fight.
RANDOM TOP THREE FAVORITE TAUNTS FROM THE GENESIS VERSION:
1. CRUSH YOU!! ~ Triceraton
2. You stink, dirtbag. ~ Ray Fillet
3. Come on baby! ~ April
After Shredder's Revenge being a thing, you know what I'd like? A Tournament Fighters remake. Make it like the SNES version, but also bring in all the Genesis and NES exclusive characters. Make it complete. I wanna play as my boys Triceraton and Ray Fillet in a competitively-viable fighter. For now, I will sit here and wait for the Cowabunga Collection players to stop by and 1-star the game since they can't beat the CPU and there's no online for it. Suck my nuts Digital Eclipse/Konami.
"You are dead, HA HA HA HAAAH!!" ~ Krang
I know people say the SNES version is better and it is, but as a Sega kid this is all I had and it isn't a terrible time with friends. It's not deep or anything super awesome but it was a turtles fighting game in the 90's. We ate that shit up. It's a very genesis style of fighter if that makes any sense. Especially with the sound. It was a good rental but I'm also didn't play it to get good at it either. Let's just end this with a distorted angry turtle taunt of "That's a laugh..."
Add notes: Playing it again so many years later on the TMNT cowabunga collection I still think this is my favorite version. It's definitly got some issues, especially the balancing. Casey is straight up broken. There's definitly jank as well. Especially weird how you can choose your power level and how it effects your speed. The Karai on hard litterally can kill in two hits. You gotta cheese to beat her true form. But it's okay it's easy to cheese the ai with certain moves. Playing it again there's lots I really like here. I like the roster. Would trade Ray or Sys for Shredder in sec though. The art design is kinda cool and I really dig how some of the attacks feel. Plus I still love the character voices and taunts. "That's a laugh" I even liked the out of character April redesign. "Cmon on baby!" It's a shame if this game went back in the oven and ironed out the broken kinks this could have been a real winner IMO.
Add notes: Playing it again so many years later on the TMNT cowabunga collection I still think this is my favorite version. It's definitly got some issues, especially the balancing. Casey is straight up broken. There's definitly jank as well. Especially weird how you can choose your power level and how it effects your speed. The Karai on hard litterally can kill in two hits. You gotta cheese to beat her true form. But it's okay it's easy to cheese the ai with certain moves. Playing it again there's lots I really like here. I like the roster. Would trade Ray or Sys for Shredder in sec though. The art design is kinda cool and I really dig how some of the attacks feel. Plus I still love the character voices and taunts. "That's a laugh" I even liked the out of character April redesign. "Cmon on baby!" It's a shame if this game went back in the oven and ironed out the broken kinks this could have been a real winner IMO.