For those that grew up in the Turtlemania craze, what to you think of the infamous first NES game?

[entremet]

This was one of the few NES I personally owned--a birthday gift. I was very young. If I wanted to play more games outside Xmas/Birthday, it was either video store rentals and trades with friends. In the late 80s and early 90s, NES games were not cheap.

I was a huge fan of the cartoon at the time. Had the Playmates toys as well. The hype for the first NES game was through the roof.

We all know of the crazy dam stage. However, it didn't give me any trouble as a kid. I did get stuck at the 3rd level. It's just incredibly obtuse. It was hard to find the next major checkpoint. I don't think I ever made past it. I just remember trying to find anything and entering random buildings.

Outside a few enemies, most of the enemies were incredibly bizarre. I was old enough to understand abstraction in video gaming, but tons of enemies just didn't feel like they belonged in the game at all.

Strangely, I was not disappointed in the game. It had a fun loop, but this was before widespread internet. I think I made have traded it with a neighbor and never got it back. He moved lol. But I wasn't salty. By that time, I was enamored with the excellent and more thematically accurate TMNT Arcade, the actual arcade game. It made me forget about the original TMNT NES game completely. And the later NES port, while far from perfect, was excellent given the hardware limitation. I also had tons of fun with that.

I didn't get into TMNT games again until Turtles in Time, the arcade as well. I lived in them lol. I rented the SNES port, but I preferred the arcade game and still do. The cool additions in the SNES port were pretty cool, though.

For those not familar with the game, AVGN reviewed it ages ago. One of his best reviews:

 

[sir_crocodile]

I didn't like it that much, thought it felt janky. I bought it second hand from a pawnshop for like £3 a couple of years after the SNES had come out I think, so I wasn't too unhappy about it.

 

[Ferrs]

Wish I could tell you, but I had the DOS version...yeah :(

 

[AlgusUnderdunk]

Back when it came out, most amazing game I ever repeatesly only played the first ten minutes of.

 

[KC-Slater]

Many (most?) of the early licenced Konami NES games were very disappointing to me as a kid. The first TMNT and X-Men stand out as especially rough.

Edit: I misrembered X-Men as being published by Ultra, but it's actually LJN (Acclaim)

 

[entremet]

Did anyone beat level 3? Holy heck was it confusing. I could never find the exit.

 

[mute]

I had it sometime back then. It didn't jump out at me as particularly difficult when at my age at the time lots of nes titles were difficult. I think that really blew up with the avgn videos.

I never got too far but I did beat the dam level a few times. I do remember playing the turtles game in the arcade and thinking it was so much better. Eventually I got Turtles IV on SNES and don't think I touched the nes game again, at least not until it became an internet thing.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

Only played the handheld version by Konami, and even there the swimming was hard as balls!

 

[sir_crocodile]

Did anyone beat level 3? Holy heck was it confusing. I could never find the exit.

Click to shrink...

Is that the one where you have to find the technodrome, and it's in a random location? That sucked

 

[OnanieBomb]

I loved it because I was a kid and it had the ninja turtles in it.

 

[NeoGold123]

Loved it, still have it, never beat it. Lol, heck I think I only made it through the dam a handful of times and died pretty quickly after.

 

[entremet]

Is that the one where you have to find the technodrome, and it's in a random location? That sucked

Click to shrink...

It's the one after the dam level, where you entering buildings and sewers.

 

[Fisty]

Could never make it past the first overworld driving area, very frustrating design. Even the underwater sections didn't make me give up compared to that level

 

[bionic77]

I thought it was a pretty good game.

It had some poor design to it but it was mostly well made. Something you could not say about most licensed games at the time. It was very hard though. Especially the technodrome and the last stage. Definitely scratched the TMNT itch for me.

The arcade games were much better though in every way.

 

[The Spoony Hou]

It was shit back then and I'm pretty sure it's still shit now, but I'd have to play it again to make sure.

Actually, no. It's shit. Its unbalanced ass can fuck off into the annals of history.

 

[Marvie]

Made it as far as the Technodrome a few times but never any farther.

 

[GokouD]

It was the first game I ever played. I lived in Spain at the time and they used to have arcade cabinets that were basically a NES in a box with 10 games to choose from. You paid 100 pesetas for a certain amount of time on it. I was obsessed with it, but never did get past the dam level, even playing it on the Wii years later. It's a rubbish game really, but the nostalgia factor is huge for me.
As a side note, it shows how huge Turtlemania was at the time, my parents were new-age travellers and we spent most of our time in a hippie commune in the galician mountains, but me and my brothers still knew what the turtles were and all the names etc!

 

[test_account]

Turtles 1 for NES was the first game that my family bought for the NES (besides Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt which were included with the console). I still remember it to this day. It was about an hour drive to the store and i got to test out different NES games there (Prototector (or Contra) was another game i got to test). I ended up choosing Turtles.

As far as nostalgia goes, its probably one of the strongest NES games for me. I also think i beat it back in the days, at least i specifically remembering getting to inside of the Technodrome. I think that the game is pretty good, even to this day :) It can be a bit hard for sure, and some of the levels might be a bit confusing indeed, but its something that can be learned/memorized after playing a bit.

 

[Nephtes]

Second game I owned for NES. It was miserably difficult for an 8 year old and not in line at all with the age group the cartoon was targeting.

First game I ever rage quit.

I can still remember it vividly. Just past the dam stage the there's a group of endlessly spawning enemies in a room where you need to walk across a small gap to get across for a grappling hook I think? But I didn't know the trick I kept jumping and falling below.

The words "THIS ISN'T FAIR!" escaped my mouth as a controller was hurled across a room loudly enough for my mother to become annoyed her son was in the process of breaking the $100+ brand new game console and she kicked me out the house, "life's not fair, go play outside."

I pleaded my case to stay inside, but to no avail. I spent the rest of the day locked out of my house, riding my bike around the suburbs of New Orleans East, looking for a hit of NES at someone else's house.

But no one else had one at the time.

Fuck you TMNT NES.
You made me have to go experience outside.

 

[bremon]

As a kid I thought it was insanely cool and just assumed it was hard because I wasn't "good enough" at video games. Turns out it's just a merciless pos. Kids are easily entertained though.

 

[Camwi]

I think I also got stuck in the third level. Funny how everyone complains about the underwater level, but that's not so bad after a few tries. The third level is just confusing bullshit.

 

[Furiousone]

I enjoyed it, at the time it was better than nothing. I remember getting pretty far in it. Once the Arcade game/port came out, I forgot about it. I look back upon it fondly now.

 

[eXistor]

A very under-appreciated game. It has its fair share of issues, but overall it's a pretty decent game.

The main issue would be difficulty balance. The enemies are placed pretty randomly and unfairly the farther you get to the point of ridiculousness and a lot of them are just random monsters instead of being recognizable from the show.

With some tweaking here and there it would be seen a lot more favorably compared to what it is. I still like the game well enough to play it every now and again.

 

[Forearm_Star]

I loved it because I was a kid and it had the ninja turtles in it.

Click to shrink...

This
Game was hard as hell too but I didn't care

 

[crimzonflame]

I loved it because I was a kid and it had the ninja turtles in it.

Click to shrink...

Pretty much. Though as soon as part 2 came out I never looked at it again.

 

[VariantX]

Hated it back then because almost nothing from the show was in the game. All the turtles were the same color. The other turtles were just there to burn to keep Donnie alive because raph and mikey sucked. Game was full of weird fuckers that probably were repurposed from another game to make this one. Trying to find the Technodrome was bullshit. Then there was plenty of bullshit in the technodrome. Then played the arcade game which had all the shit I wanted in the turtles game which made me hate it more. The fact that they had to put "The arcade game" on TMNT 2 makes me feel like I wasnt the only one who felt that way as a kid. I literally never touched the game again as soon as I got the Nes port of the arcade game.

 

[mindsale]

I used to love this game - and it was one where Donatello and Leo were objectively better than everyone else. Eventually Manhattan Project and Turtles in Time would be much, much better games, but this was still a hoot.

 

[New Donker]

Turtles 1 was a confusing mess to me. I ended up using game genie whenever I played.

Now Turtles 2 and 3 were incredible and I played the hello out of them

 

[andymcc]

It's like a worse Getsu Fuuma Den but still thought it was pretty inspired for what it TRIED to do.

 

[jon bones]

i still have nightmares of the dam stage

fuckk

 

[Dark Mantonio]

I appreciated that all the Turtles played differently. That feature was missed in TMNT2.

And fuck the dam stage.

 

[spman2099]

It was a solid game that only really became infamous after the fact because the granddaddy of all the petulant, manbaby, gaming youtubers made a video about it.

 

[super etrian odyssey]

still haven't beaten it. but it, along with many NES games, was like pure fucking magic to me as a kid. i still love the basic feel of the side scrolling parts, and the music is so, so good.

 

[Citizen Rizer]

I didn't like it very much, but it had the Turtles and it was a video game so I played it quite a bit. I also couldn't get past level 3. For some reason I couldn't get the rope that you have to string across two buildings to work. Then more and better Turtles games came out so this one got mostly forgotten.

 

[Novocaine]

Didn't care for it. Didn't have a NES but played it at a friends. Enjoyed the arcade game much more.

But I did get a Turtles game for gameboy and that was alright. I think it was the second one.

 

[Vitet]

I had it in DOS, but just found some jumps I could simply not do as a kid and give up.

I thought it was this but it says it was fixed in the EU version:




Maybe was another jump that was too close to the ceiling and you can't run through the gap neither jump because you are already at the ceiling. I don't know, I never beat it.

 

[Oreiller]

It was neat. I feel like most of its reputation is because of the AVGN more than anything.

 

[AstronaughtE]

I got it when I got the NES for Christmas. I hadn't seen it before so it was fun to see this game I had never seen before in action. I was a little bit disappointed in that I didnt recognize most of the enemies, and was confused by the extra 3 Raphaels on the cover.

I had to watch my dad play the game (like most games of this time) because I was a kid and couldn't read. I could get by the dam fairly reliably once I saw how it was done...but it was oh so stressful for my little nerves. I couldn't make it much further than the boss on the rooftop though, I beat em couple of times but, even if I did, I couldn't get much further.

 

[Dary]

Another one of those times where a popular internet review coloured a lot of people's perception of the game. The underwater segment was never that difficult. Now, nailing the timing on those spike walls at the end of the fourth level..

Anyway, the game had an interesting mechanic with enemies, where it cycles through different sets as you move between screens. I've always wondered if you fix it to a specific set with a cheat device, perhaps even to a set not native to the level - say, importing those nightmarish final level enemies to the first level! - but, by the time I owned a Game Genie, I'd sold the game, so never got to test it out as a kid.

 

[PinkSpider]

The first game I actually owned; bit naff but looked cool. Could only get to the water level (And that was torture).

Luckily I was also bought Super Mario Bros 3 for the same Christmas (Or was a hand me down at 1990). Which I was still naff at at the age of 5 but didn't have so many difficulty spikes.

 

[Tiny Chihuahueño]

Never played the NES version, but played the Spectrum one which was a port of the NES one I guess? And had a lot of fun with it, it was my favorite game on the system at the time (I was like 6 at the time)

 

[The Adder]

It's a well made game that AVGN's review ruined. And I don't blame him for that. I blame people taking a comedy bit too serious.

 

[Nolbertos]

The first TMNT was very janky and difficult. Took me many tries to finish and wasn't fun at all. I gave my entire NES collection to my cousins after I got bored of gaming for awhile.

 

[casnix]

I liked certain parts of it and completed it. I remember throwing my controller a few times.

 

[Kurekure Takora]

I really liked it, but it was way too hard at the time. All those rooms/buildings/sewers connected by an overworld map was a really neat idea. Surprisingly I never had a problem with the underwater stage, but the furthest I ever made it was the beginning of level 5.

 

[Deleted member 79451]

I kind of like it. I mean it has more depth than the brawlers. It's janky as hell but the music is sweet.

I rented it in the day, liked it, got it cheap for DOS (which is a sad version really, especially because the box shows other superior PC versions, like that Amiga screenshot), still liked it.

 

[The Adder]

A good video on what I'm talking about

 

[joe1138]

Back when it came out, most amazing game I ever repeatesly only played the first ten minutes of.

Click to shrink...

I feel like this really sums up my experience with the game. It was okay for what it was.

When the arcade game came home, that was pretty great though.

 

[The Spoony Hou]

A good video on what I'm talking about

Click to shrink...

Nah, that video is bs. No game analysis, he's just reading reviews. Yes, the game was interesting for the time it was made, but it's shit.

I'd would give Richard more credit if he'd at least try playing the game some, but I think he can't even touch a NES in character.

 

[Ifrit]

Game has a bad rep, but I loved it as a kid and I still love it, and yes, the game is hard but I'd say it's fair, I mean there's some unavoidable damage in some few parts like the water level, but you have enough health and turtles to get through it.

I love that you have to manage health and items while changing turtles, all with slight differences, donatello being the best of course.

Graphics, gameplay and music are great, the game is legit good.