Minor Introduction
Welcome to the penultimate review of this marathon, courtesy of…wait that won’t work here. Courtesy of itself? Well, whatever. Today it’s gonna be a rather different type of review. We are going to be checking out the cowabunga collection AS A WHOLE. I have already reviewed the games contained here, but what does the collection itself do beyond just game bundling to warrant itself a purchase? For all you know, the games could be emulated or look like shit. Due to the fact that i’m reviewing the collection as a whole, rather than the games themselves within it, this review will be a bit different and structured differently as well.

First Impressions
This very much falls in line with other Konami collections of their beloved franchises in regards to effort…in that this is also a quality collection. Everything you expect with a Konami collection is here and it’s the perfect gateway to get people into the beloved ninja turtles videogames, all for a great price at launch and especially a banger price nowadays that it gets more discounts.

Content
The collection is simply stacked. We have a whopping 13 games included, taken from the entire history of the turtles in videogame format across the big platforms, from the arcades to the snes. Those games are the two arcade games, the NES trilogy, the GB trilogy, all three tournament fighters ports, as well as the legendary snes version of turtles in time and genesis’s hyperstone heist. But of course, that clearly isn’t enough, so the collection also goes the extra mile of including all the covers and manuals to inspect (and even the fucking game magazines and strategy guides that were made for the games), all the soundtracks to enjoy separately on the cassette player (they appear as cassettes in-game), all the concept arts for each of the games, the comic book covers for the comic serials of the era up to the IDW stints and even…screenshots of EACH EPISODE of EACH SEASON of EACH CARTOON, from the classic 80s cartoon to the recent rise of tmnt. It probably also includes more deepcut stuff that I have either forgotten or not seen, but STACKED is putting it very lightly. It is a whole ass fucking museum of videogame goodness for the turtles, all preserved in one blu-ray disc for the player to consume on their console with their cash. Just by content alone, it more than justifies the price, but of course, how does the execution fare?

Performance
This section details how the games perform here. Firstly, they’re all emulated. This is to be expected, since they’re being mass-released to platforms that were never built to authentically run these games, which were built on 30+ year old chips. However, is said emulation good? Well…yea it is…for the most part. They did well with the emulation, the games all look faithful and run at 60fps. Some games lag here and there due to the overabundance of in-game effects, but it is consistently smooth performance over all (and the lag tends to be from the game itself, rather than the emulation). Each of the games also get QoL additions and enhancements, courtesy of the emulation method. You can choose between 4:3 aspect ratio, go full (which is still 4:3, but a big more magnified and still clear quality) or lose respect for yourself and go STRETCHY mode. You can enable the custom borders (which all look great btw) or disable them, as well as enable scan lines from CRT or not, if you want to be faithful. There is also the ability to save state for each game, which becomes a godsend for some games that were specifically designed to pad themselves with sheer bullshit (it is morally right to spam save state your way through TMNT 1 NES). You even have the option to toggle what region version you want to play for each game (whether it be JP, NA or PAL mode), which is a great extra detail (The covers also change to their respective region covers, nice touch). Each game also has a specific enhancement toggle in the options menu, which exists solely to address one specific aspect in each game that can become an annoyance later, (one such instance is a toggle to turn off the ability for the enemies to come out of nowhere and toss bombs at you in the first arcade game) or to immediately unlock a in-game feature that otherwise needs you to progress in the game to unlock it (one example here is a toggle to immediately unlock desperation moves for use in the story mode of tournament fighters). The games also have strategy guides, containing helpful tips or information about enemies and levels, which are very useful and helpful for certain games (the strategy guide of Radical Rescue has the entire map in detail and with markers, which is insanely helpful since that game is a metroidlike game) Hell, you have a fucking watch mode that contains a playthrough of each game, with the option to immediately jump into playing at any point of the playthrough. The sheer amount of enhancements, little features and QoL improvements with each of this games, all in the name of making the games as accessible as possible for everyone to even dig into the deepcut contents of each game and play as they please, is absolutely great! Some games also have online multiplayer…but the execution is rather sloppy. I’m not sure how it performs now, but when I played it, the online was simply inconsistent and all over the place, regarding connection and lag, which is quite a huge shame. Speaking of lag, this collection unfortunately also suffers from a common issue regarding these konami collections…noticeable input lag. The patches thankfully have fixed it (because it used to be even worse), but I could still notice some very minor input lag, which varied between games. These two main flaws are something to consider, but outside of them, the games’s emulation and their new features are absolutely great to have!

Presentation
This section regards how all of this content is presented to the player. After all, it wouldn’t be as enjoyable or interesting to browse through the contents, if the menu was a lazy unity or unreal engine default setting UI or some shit like that. And i’m glad to say the presentation is catchy! Right from the get-go, the collection opens with that iconic ninja turtles opening, recreated with new animations and vocals and it is just amazing! You are then greeted with a banger title screen with new artwork of the cast, all while the background music is the rocking sewer music of the 2003 tmnt game on ps2! It’s a stellar first impression of the game, but the best presentation has to go to the turtle’s lair. That’s the menu where you will find all the other contents that aren’t the games themselves, and each of those content is displayed in a recreation of the turtles’s lair, scattered around like adventure trophies or everyday items they use. It is both immersive, making you feel like you’re delving in this den that has seen decades of adventures, as well as a cool and playful way of displaying said contents. Of course, the menu to select them is straightforward down below, so you don’t omit convenience for the sake of the presentation. The same attention is applied to the main game menu, where you can select each game. Each game in the selection screen displays their cover (or even arcade booth), name, platform, the number of players that can play at once, as well as a preview of the game you’re going to select. It perfectly communicates all the necessary information in a quick and catchy way. Attention has been given even to the UI animations, sound effects and typefont for the menus. It all goes to show how much the developers of the collection cared to present all this content in the best and most beloving way possible, without sacrificing the convenience of simple menu selects. It’s top-tier presentation all around!

Final Thoughts
Overall, this collection is simply a must-own. It could very easily be a 9 or a 10/10 with the amount of content present, how great they perform and how said content is presented in a way that catches the eye and doesn’t sacrifice convenience and quick access. However, its two sole flaws (inconsistent online and minor input lag) happen to be glaring ones, so the score will stay where it is….which is to say, it is still a high recommendation! Final verdict: 8/10!

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!

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!