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!
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!