Surprise surprise. The NES game that is notorious for being difficult and unfair is indeed difficult and unfair. The Internet and the Youtube reviewers are right about this one and any contrarian "oh I'm sure it's not THAT bad!" attitudes instantly evaporate the moment you play that childhood-destroying dam level and realize "oh hell, I have to thread through this tunnel of electric death seaweed like a goddamn sewing needle with these controls".
Then, if you happen to make it past the well-remembered dam level, it begins to dawn on you that the whole bombs in the dam sequence of the game was one of the earlier levels and that the rest of the game gets harder. Everyone remembers the seaweed but that seaweed didn't instantly kill you the way the fire pits and the spike walls do.
I played this on the Cowabunga Collection, which really is the best option since they both give you the option to turn sprite flicker and game slowdown off and they give you a rewind feature and save states just to give you a fighting chance. And let's be real - the rewind feature isn't cheating if the game itself is cheating right back. I suppose if you held me hostage and told me to beat this game on a legitimate piece of NES hardware I could eventually bring myself to do it, but for now, my time on this planet is fleeting and I just have better things to do with my life than to memorize the inner workings of TMNT NES.
Also anyone who says that utters this game in the same breath as Contra and Castlevania is getting a boomerang to the face followed by a crouched bo attack that hits you from across the room and through a stack of crates.
Then, if you happen to make it past the well-remembered dam level, it begins to dawn on you that the whole bombs in the dam sequence of the game was one of the earlier levels and that the rest of the game gets harder. Everyone remembers the seaweed but that seaweed didn't instantly kill you the way the fire pits and the spike walls do.
I played this on the Cowabunga Collection, which really is the best option since they both give you the option to turn sprite flicker and game slowdown off and they give you a rewind feature and save states just to give you a fighting chance. And let's be real - the rewind feature isn't cheating if the game itself is cheating right back. I suppose if you held me hostage and told me to beat this game on a legitimate piece of NES hardware I could eventually bring myself to do it, but for now, my time on this planet is fleeting and I just have better things to do with my life than to memorize the inner workings of TMNT NES.
Also anyone who says that utters this game in the same breath as Contra and Castlevania is getting a boomerang to the face followed by a crouched bo attack that hits you from across the room and through a stack of crates.