Played on The Cowabunga Collection.
I'm not good at fighting games. Never have been, probably never will be, yet I find myself drawn to them despite my total lack of skill. Perhaps they're just too technical for me; after all I can barely pull off a proper quarter-circle to save my life, even something as simple as a Hadoken requires a level of dexterity and quick thinking that I am physiologically ill-equipped for. And yet, I'm good at TMNT: Tournament Fighters... for the NES.
See, that last bit is the most important. Tournament Fighters comes in three very distinct flavors. On the Super Nintendo, it's a competent Street Fighter 2 clone. On the Sega Genesis, it's a graphically hideous and mechanically nightmarish torture device. On the NES, it's a two button button-masher that strips all the nuance out of combat, resulting in an extremely novice friendly fighting game. Of course, Tournament Fighters is this way as a requirement. The fighting genre had largely adopted a standardized approach by the time it came out, and much of that design philosophy had to be cast aside because the NES simply couldn't handle it. For me, personally, this highly compromised and scaled down approach to a fighting game also makes it the most accessible one I've played in a very long time. As I flung Raphael through the air at Casey Jones, administering a full-force blow square to the center of his forehead, no doubt causing a traumatic brain injury that will take weeks if not months to recover from, I thought "you know, I'm feeling pretty good about this. I'm feeling good about myself."
It's also just bewildering that this game even exists. It was released in 1994, and though my memory of the early-to-mid 90s is at times hazy, I don't think there was much reason to put something like this out when two other 16-bit versions were also hitting the market. For chrissake, the Nintendo 64 was just two years away, the NES wasn't so much long-in-the-tooth as it was being carried towards its final resting place. I am nevertheless glad that they made it, however, because I think it's a great showcase for what kind of games the NES was capable of supporting, albeit with compromises. Even if you can't appreciate the game on a mechanical level, you should at least be able to respect the ingenuity behind it.
As I threw a fireball directly into Shredder's cock and balls, effectively ending his bloodline, I thought "Tournament Fighters is kind of impressive. Unnecessary, but impressive."
I'm not good at fighting games. Never have been, probably never will be, yet I find myself drawn to them despite my total lack of skill. Perhaps they're just too technical for me; after all I can barely pull off a proper quarter-circle to save my life, even something as simple as a Hadoken requires a level of dexterity and quick thinking that I am physiologically ill-equipped for. And yet, I'm good at TMNT: Tournament Fighters... for the NES.
See, that last bit is the most important. Tournament Fighters comes in three very distinct flavors. On the Super Nintendo, it's a competent Street Fighter 2 clone. On the Sega Genesis, it's a graphically hideous and mechanically nightmarish torture device. On the NES, it's a two button button-masher that strips all the nuance out of combat, resulting in an extremely novice friendly fighting game. Of course, Tournament Fighters is this way as a requirement. The fighting genre had largely adopted a standardized approach by the time it came out, and much of that design philosophy had to be cast aside because the NES simply couldn't handle it. For me, personally, this highly compromised and scaled down approach to a fighting game also makes it the most accessible one I've played in a very long time. As I flung Raphael through the air at Casey Jones, administering a full-force blow square to the center of his forehead, no doubt causing a traumatic brain injury that will take weeks if not months to recover from, I thought "you know, I'm feeling pretty good about this. I'm feeling good about myself."
It's also just bewildering that this game even exists. It was released in 1994, and though my memory of the early-to-mid 90s is at times hazy, I don't think there was much reason to put something like this out when two other 16-bit versions were also hitting the market. For chrissake, the Nintendo 64 was just two years away, the NES wasn't so much long-in-the-tooth as it was being carried towards its final resting place. I am nevertheless glad that they made it, however, because I think it's a great showcase for what kind of games the NES was capable of supporting, albeit with compromises. Even if you can't appreciate the game on a mechanical level, you should at least be able to respect the ingenuity behind it.
As I threw a fireball directly into Shredder's cock and balls, effectively ending his bloodline, I thought "Tournament Fighters is kind of impressive. Unnecessary, but impressive."
FallenGrace
1 year ago