What a collection! I had been wanting to play through a bunch of these games for a very long time, so when The Cowabunga Collection was announced, I committed to beating every single game. As of today, I've finished the task. Here's what I thought.
I've made a ranked list of all the games HERE
I reviewed each game individually, and links to each of those are listed in the order I beat them here:
1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES) ^
2. Fall of the Foot Clan
3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade) ^
4. Tournament Fighters (NES)
5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game ^
6. Turtles in Time (Arcade)
7. Tournament Fighters (Genesis)
8. Back from the Sewers
9. The HyperStone Heist
10. Tournament Fighters (SNES)
11. Radical Rescue
12. The Manhattan Project
13. Turtles in Time (SNES) ^
^ = Played when I was younger, but never finished until now
This was such a great binge! I was incredibly surprised to discover how incredible Radical Rescue and The Manhattan Project were! Konami did a great job improving these games as they went, with each platform's games getting better with every subsequent release. I was also shocked to discover just how different all the different versions of Tournament Fighters are! I had never touched any of them as a kid, so I just assumed they were the same game on 3 different platforms. Turns out, the SNES one is great, the NES one is really good for the hardware, and the Genesis one probably should have been cancelled!
Beyond my takes on each game, I'm so impressed by the love and care that was put in. The scans of boxes and manuals are great, the Nintendo Power-esque strategy guides created for the game are delightful, you can even have each of the 13 included games play itself and then jump in at any point if there's a specific part you wanted to try. The only knocks against this release are the small number of games that support online play and the screen filters. They're the really basic PNG overlay kind, with lines or patterns spread over the display in a way that feels wholly digital. I personally would have loved it if they had CRT filters more like what Nintendo developed for the NSO, but that's obviously a nitpick. I firmly believe that this package is greater than the sum of its parts, and is worth checking out for any Ninja Turtle fan, or anybody looking to try some classic brawlers.
I've made a ranked list of all the games HERE
I reviewed each game individually, and links to each of those are listed in the order I beat them here:
1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES) ^
2. Fall of the Foot Clan
3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade) ^
4. Tournament Fighters (NES)
5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game ^
6. Turtles in Time (Arcade)
7. Tournament Fighters (Genesis)
8. Back from the Sewers
9. The HyperStone Heist
10. Tournament Fighters (SNES)
11. Radical Rescue
12. The Manhattan Project
13. Turtles in Time (SNES) ^
^ = Played when I was younger, but never finished until now
This was such a great binge! I was incredibly surprised to discover how incredible Radical Rescue and The Manhattan Project were! Konami did a great job improving these games as they went, with each platform's games getting better with every subsequent release. I was also shocked to discover just how different all the different versions of Tournament Fighters are! I had never touched any of them as a kid, so I just assumed they were the same game on 3 different platforms. Turns out, the SNES one is great, the NES one is really good for the hardware, and the Genesis one probably should have been cancelled!
Beyond my takes on each game, I'm so impressed by the love and care that was put in. The scans of boxes and manuals are great, the Nintendo Power-esque strategy guides created for the game are delightful, you can even have each of the 13 included games play itself and then jump in at any point if there's a specific part you wanted to try. The only knocks against this release are the small number of games that support online play and the screen filters. They're the really basic PNG overlay kind, with lines or patterns spread over the display in a way that feels wholly digital. I personally would have loved it if they had CRT filters more like what Nintendo developed for the NSO, but that's obviously a nitpick. I firmly believe that this package is greater than the sum of its parts, and is worth checking out for any Ninja Turtle fan, or anybody looking to try some classic brawlers.