Alex's Cowabunga Collection Marathon, Pt. 12 of 13
HOLY GEEZ THIS GAME OWNS
What an incredible brawler! I played a lot of the NES port of The Arcade Game when I was a kid, so playing this for the first time felt like suddenly discovering Super Mario Bros. 3 if you had only ever played the original 1985 game. Previous TMNT games feel like a rough draft compared to this, every aspect of it is absolutely delightful!
These Foot soldiers, man. They’re popping onto the screen in every wacky way they can think of! We’ve got trios of them somersaulting across the screen, synchronized swimmers leaping out of the ocean, Foot posing as statues in the park, we’ve even got Foot soldiers being assembled and immediately stepping off the factory line to kick you in the face! I love how much charm Konami packed into the animations. The variety of levels and locations is possibly the best in the whole series, very little of the game was in your standard "City Street or Perhaps a Sewer" aesthetic. Also, Age of Ultron totally ripped off Shredder's plan here.
This also feels a bit less brutal than the previous NES games, though I might just be getting a bit better after playing through so many TMNT beat ‘em ups in the past two weeks. In any case, it did feel more balanced and fair, and I was able to wipe out screens of enemies without taking any damage quite frequently. That is, unless I did damage to myself.
Yeah, the A+B “recoil damage” moves are back. I was disappointed for the first half of the game. Like in HyperStone Heist, you can do a stronger attack by pushing both buttons simultaneously, but it hurts your Turtle every time. However, it actually ends up working a lot better in Manhattan Project, and I ended up using it fairly frequently. On the Genesis, the move seemed to just be twice as strong as a standard hit. But here, it works as a OHKO on everyone who’s not a boss! This provided a more interesting element of risk and reward. If a group of extra-strong enemies like Rock Soldiers show up, you can try to slowly whittle their health down without taking any damage, or you can burn one bar of HP to take them out immediately. This ends up being a great mechanic to have at your disposal, though I do feel like it might have been better to have a Special meter that you could charge up by getting a certain amounts of hits in a row so you could use these moves while preserving your limited number of lives.
There’s only one game left to go in my Cowabunga Collection playthrough. I’ve been going through each series of games in the order they released, though jumping around between platforms and release order to keep things fresh. What has most impressed me is how each game improves on what came before it. With the numbered home console games, TMNT III – The Manhattan Project is better than TMNT II – The Arcade Game, which was better than the first entry. We’ll see tonight if TMNT IV: Turtles in Time keeps this momentum going!
HOLY GEEZ THIS GAME OWNS
What an incredible brawler! I played a lot of the NES port of The Arcade Game when I was a kid, so playing this for the first time felt like suddenly discovering Super Mario Bros. 3 if you had only ever played the original 1985 game. Previous TMNT games feel like a rough draft compared to this, every aspect of it is absolutely delightful!
These Foot soldiers, man. They’re popping onto the screen in every wacky way they can think of! We’ve got trios of them somersaulting across the screen, synchronized swimmers leaping out of the ocean, Foot posing as statues in the park, we’ve even got Foot soldiers being assembled and immediately stepping off the factory line to kick you in the face! I love how much charm Konami packed into the animations. The variety of levels and locations is possibly the best in the whole series, very little of the game was in your standard "City Street or Perhaps a Sewer" aesthetic. Also, Age of Ultron totally ripped off Shredder's plan here.
This also feels a bit less brutal than the previous NES games, though I might just be getting a bit better after playing through so many TMNT beat ‘em ups in the past two weeks. In any case, it did feel more balanced and fair, and I was able to wipe out screens of enemies without taking any damage quite frequently. That is, unless I did damage to myself.
Yeah, the A+B “recoil damage” moves are back. I was disappointed for the first half of the game. Like in HyperStone Heist, you can do a stronger attack by pushing both buttons simultaneously, but it hurts your Turtle every time. However, it actually ends up working a lot better in Manhattan Project, and I ended up using it fairly frequently. On the Genesis, the move seemed to just be twice as strong as a standard hit. But here, it works as a OHKO on everyone who’s not a boss! This provided a more interesting element of risk and reward. If a group of extra-strong enemies like Rock Soldiers show up, you can try to slowly whittle their health down without taking any damage, or you can burn one bar of HP to take them out immediately. This ends up being a great mechanic to have at your disposal, though I do feel like it might have been better to have a Special meter that you could charge up by getting a certain amounts of hits in a row so you could use these moves while preserving your limited number of lives.
There’s only one game left to go in my Cowabunga Collection playthrough. I’ve been going through each series of games in the order they released, though jumping around between platforms and release order to keep things fresh. What has most impressed me is how each game improves on what came before it. With the numbered home console games, TMNT III – The Manhattan Project is better than TMNT II – The Arcade Game, which was better than the first entry. We’ll see tonight if TMNT IV: Turtles in Time keeps this momentum going!
ThumbsMckenzie
1 year ago