Alex's Cowabunga Collection Marathon, Pt. 5 of 13
When I played this on my NES as a teenager, I thought "Man, I wish I had the actual TMNT arcade machine in my house. That'd be amazing!!" But after having finished that arcade game for the first time, I'm shocked to realize that this was the superior version of the game all along!
The farthest I ever got pre-Cowabunga Collection was probably around 2003, when I made it to the hoverboards-on-the-street level while playing co-op with my cousin. We had tried so many times, but always ran out of continues right around that level. Finding out as an adult that there's a simple button combo you can do on the title screen to get 10 lives instead of 3 was similar to finding out years later that a girl you liked in school secretly had a crush on you too. We could have had it all! If only I had KNOOOOOWN
There are a few key things this game does to improve on the arcade experience. Obviously the visuals are a downgrade, and it's only 2-player as opposed to 4. But the most important aspect of a brawler, the combat, just feels so much better here, especially with that quick A+B combo jump swing attack. The hitboxes are actually decent, which is a huge plus, and there are more levels and bosses here as a bonus for console players. Lastly, while the bosses are still quite difficult, they don't feel as quarter-devouringly brutal as the arcade version.
Oh, and this port has that same epilogue again, which is unsurprising since it's a port of the Arcade title which that wall of text originated in, but this one spells "milkshake" properly as one word. DEFINITIVE PROOF that the NES release is superior to the original.
When I played this on my NES as a teenager, I thought "Man, I wish I had the actual TMNT arcade machine in my house. That'd be amazing!!" But after having finished that arcade game for the first time, I'm shocked to realize that this was the superior version of the game all along!
The farthest I ever got pre-Cowabunga Collection was probably around 2003, when I made it to the hoverboards-on-the-street level while playing co-op with my cousin. We had tried so many times, but always ran out of continues right around that level. Finding out as an adult that there's a simple button combo you can do on the title screen to get 10 lives instead of 3 was similar to finding out years later that a girl you liked in school secretly had a crush on you too. We could have had it all! If only I had KNOOOOOWN
There are a few key things this game does to improve on the arcade experience. Obviously the visuals are a downgrade, and it's only 2-player as opposed to 4. But the most important aspect of a brawler, the combat, just feels so much better here, especially with that quick A+B combo jump swing attack. The hitboxes are actually decent, which is a huge plus, and there are more levels and bosses here as a bonus for console players. Lastly, while the bosses are still quite difficult, they don't feel as quarter-devouringly brutal as the arcade version.
Oh, and this port has that same epilogue again, which is unsurprising since it's a port of the Arcade title which that wall of text originated in, but this one spells "milkshake" properly as one word. DEFINITIVE PROOF that the NES release is superior to the original.
combatcoldcuts
1 year ago