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.