Minor Introduction
And we are close to the finish line! After wrapping up the GB trilogy, it’s time to rewind back to our beloved main consoles with a trilogy of strangely different ports of the same game. Curious how that will go. Welcome to the eleventh review of this marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection! Next for the list, the NES port of the franchise’s stint into fighting games: Tournament Fighters. How did they execute this on an 8-bit console with only a d-pad and two buttons on its controller? Let’s find out!
First Impressions
It’s a fighting game on an 8-bit system with only a d-pad and two buttons…I feel you know where i’m going with this one. Despite the shortcomings this game has due to the limitations of the platform and its controller, it still manages to be an okay experience…I dare say the gameplay is even enjoyable too.
Gameplay
It sure is a fighting game alright. The core gameplay of a fighting game is exactly that…the fighting. And with the devs being limited to a dpad and two buttons, the mechanics and combos are understandably basic and simple enough that even a baby can learn them. Nevertheless, they still managed to atleast make the fighters somewhat unique, by essentially going the tmnt 3 route of giving each of them one special move of their own, while their combos are also tweaked to match their fighting styles in the cartoons with their own advantages and disadvantages, which leads to the roster still being distinct, rather than just sprite changes and nothing more. The gameplay and movement is also fast-paced, which masks some of the clunkiness present within it. Combined together, it leads to the general gameplay still being enjoyable and surprisingly okay. The content present is also small, whether it be the roster, stages and gamemodes, which is understandable, considering the storage within an NES cartridge. It does make its small selection count where necessary though, with the roster of seven characters, six of which are a must (the turtles, shredder and casey jones) and the other…sure exists (hothead). While April or Splinter not being in this roster is rather odd, the other selections do make it a very decent overall roster. As for stages, it’s the environments the turtles have gone to, so they get the job done. For gameplay modes, we have only three modes: a story mode, a versus mode and a tournament mode. The story mode is exactly that: you pick a turtle, go through a wave of vs cpu fights, fight shredder as final boss and then cue credits. The actual fights are meh, with the CPU’s difficulty being rather inconsistent (ranging from a joke to fuck you), but it’s still an enjoyable mode. The versus mode exists there solely to fight with your friends or against cpu…if I guess you really enjoyed one particular stage or character. Tournament mode is the same as story mode, except you have the full roster and the story isn’t there. Soooo yea, very straightforward gamemodes with not much differences between them. Despite the limitations and flaws in the overall gameplay package, it’s still a genuinely tolerable and okay experience and I dare say it’s probably amongst the better offerings of the fighting game genre from the NES (which there are like 7 FGs).
Story
The story definitely exists alright. Shredder challenges the turtles to a brawl…literally no world domination plot or anything, just a raw fist fight, and the turtles fight…amongst themselves and their allies to decide who is worthy of fighting shredder…I never knew such a simple request could be an effective way of breaking the alliance from inside. But uhhh yea that’s it. It’s cool that there is an opening cutscenes, but it feels rather half-assed and just there to fill the quota. Then there is one cutscene at the end of the story and that’s it, no funny dialogue exchange before fights or intermission cutscenes and over-the-top quips. It just exists…moving on.
Presentation
The game actually looks pretty decent. Very solid spritework and animation (which is kinda a necessity to get right in a FG and they got it right here, with each fighter having their own animations for their attacks and combos that fit them), good background work and good music too. The artstyle is also solid and about on-par with tmnt 3, except the colors are just a bit more muted than that game. The most impressive part to me is how it runs at a consistently smooth framerate, which when paired with the fast pacing of the gameplay, manages to hide (for the most part) the basic and clunky nature of the gameplay. Overall, the game’s presentation is just a little below tmnt 3’s, which I’ll take it, since that game is the best looking NES TMNT game, and the fact it manages favorably against that is a mark on this game’s side.
Negatives
Obviously there are flaws here, some of which I’ve already mentioned above and are justified for the most part. The combos are very basic, the fighting has some clunkiness to it (despite the game’s best and mostly successful efforts at masking it with fast pacing and smooth framerate), the gameplay, roster and stage select is small, the cpu difficulty can be inconsistent. What I did not mention is how unbalanced the roster is as well. You may want to go the Casey Jones or Shredder route if they’re your favourite characters, but then all those preferable options go immediately out the window once you enter the ring with Raph and spam his bite or use the classic “slide kick+throw” spam combo with Leo and easily cheese through all the CPU bosses…which means you can fire back at their difficulty with your own share of cheese.
Final Thoughts
Nevertheless, it is a very competent and okay experience for a fighting game on NES and I didn’t regret going through it. Most of its flaws stem from the platform it’s present on, but this game manages to do well enough with those flaws present. And it certainly is better than the fucking sega genesis version (ooooh I am gonna get to that review). Final verdict: 5.5-6/10 review, give it a shot if you are reaaaally curious about it.
And we are close to the finish line! After wrapping up the GB trilogy, it’s time to rewind back to our beloved main consoles with a trilogy of strangely different ports of the same game. Curious how that will go. Welcome to the eleventh review of this marathon, courtesy of the cowabunga collection! Next for the list, the NES port of the franchise’s stint into fighting games: Tournament Fighters. How did they execute this on an 8-bit console with only a d-pad and two buttons on its controller? Let’s find out!
First Impressions
It’s a fighting game on an 8-bit system with only a d-pad and two buttons…I feel you know where i’m going with this one. Despite the shortcomings this game has due to the limitations of the platform and its controller, it still manages to be an okay experience…I dare say the gameplay is even enjoyable too.
Gameplay
It sure is a fighting game alright. The core gameplay of a fighting game is exactly that…the fighting. And with the devs being limited to a dpad and two buttons, the mechanics and combos are understandably basic and simple enough that even a baby can learn them. Nevertheless, they still managed to atleast make the fighters somewhat unique, by essentially going the tmnt 3 route of giving each of them one special move of their own, while their combos are also tweaked to match their fighting styles in the cartoons with their own advantages and disadvantages, which leads to the roster still being distinct, rather than just sprite changes and nothing more. The gameplay and movement is also fast-paced, which masks some of the clunkiness present within it. Combined together, it leads to the general gameplay still being enjoyable and surprisingly okay. The content present is also small, whether it be the roster, stages and gamemodes, which is understandable, considering the storage within an NES cartridge. It does make its small selection count where necessary though, with the roster of seven characters, six of which are a must (the turtles, shredder and casey jones) and the other…sure exists (hothead). While April or Splinter not being in this roster is rather odd, the other selections do make it a very decent overall roster. As for stages, it’s the environments the turtles have gone to, so they get the job done. For gameplay modes, we have only three modes: a story mode, a versus mode and a tournament mode. The story mode is exactly that: you pick a turtle, go through a wave of vs cpu fights, fight shredder as final boss and then cue credits. The actual fights are meh, with the CPU’s difficulty being rather inconsistent (ranging from a joke to fuck you), but it’s still an enjoyable mode. The versus mode exists there solely to fight with your friends or against cpu…if I guess you really enjoyed one particular stage or character. Tournament mode is the same as story mode, except you have the full roster and the story isn’t there. Soooo yea, very straightforward gamemodes with not much differences between them. Despite the limitations and flaws in the overall gameplay package, it’s still a genuinely tolerable and okay experience and I dare say it’s probably amongst the better offerings of the fighting game genre from the NES (which there are like 7 FGs).
Story
The story definitely exists alright. Shredder challenges the turtles to a brawl…literally no world domination plot or anything, just a raw fist fight, and the turtles fight…amongst themselves and their allies to decide who is worthy of fighting shredder…I never knew such a simple request could be an effective way of breaking the alliance from inside. But uhhh yea that’s it. It’s cool that there is an opening cutscenes, but it feels rather half-assed and just there to fill the quota. Then there is one cutscene at the end of the story and that’s it, no funny dialogue exchange before fights or intermission cutscenes and over-the-top quips. It just exists…moving on.
Presentation
The game actually looks pretty decent. Very solid spritework and animation (which is kinda a necessity to get right in a FG and they got it right here, with each fighter having their own animations for their attacks and combos that fit them), good background work and good music too. The artstyle is also solid and about on-par with tmnt 3, except the colors are just a bit more muted than that game. The most impressive part to me is how it runs at a consistently smooth framerate, which when paired with the fast pacing of the gameplay, manages to hide (for the most part) the basic and clunky nature of the gameplay. Overall, the game’s presentation is just a little below tmnt 3’s, which I’ll take it, since that game is the best looking NES TMNT game, and the fact it manages favorably against that is a mark on this game’s side.
Negatives
Obviously there are flaws here, some of which I’ve already mentioned above and are justified for the most part. The combos are very basic, the fighting has some clunkiness to it (despite the game’s best and mostly successful efforts at masking it with fast pacing and smooth framerate), the gameplay, roster and stage select is small, the cpu difficulty can be inconsistent. What I did not mention is how unbalanced the roster is as well. You may want to go the Casey Jones or Shredder route if they’re your favourite characters, but then all those preferable options go immediately out the window once you enter the ring with Raph and spam his bite or use the classic “slide kick+throw” spam combo with Leo and easily cheese through all the CPU bosses…which means you can fire back at their difficulty with your own share of cheese.
Final Thoughts
Nevertheless, it is a very competent and okay experience for a fighting game on NES and I didn’t regret going through it. Most of its flaws stem from the platform it’s present on, but this game manages to do well enough with those flaws present. And it certainly is better than the fucking sega genesis version (ooooh I am gonna get to that review). Final verdict: 5.5-6/10 review, give it a shot if you are reaaaally curious about it.