Hardcore Gaming 101 article on TMNT

[Ninjinister]

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/tmnt/tmnt.htm

I've been a fan of hcg101 for a while. Although not perfect, I always find their articles fascinating and well-researched.

With this TMNT article, there are many things including the TMNT1 dam trick the cropped up a few years back being a hoax, as well as the secret origins of Aska, that surprised even me, and I consider Turtles video games my forté.

I've only skimmed the article briefly thus far though, so I hope a thorough read will only bring more treasures.

[oldmanwinters]

Been looking forward to this one for a while! I remember you mentioned they were working on a big TMNT feature a while back.

EDIT:

HOLY COW!!! "Aska" was originally supposed to be Princess Mitsu!

Now I kinda wonder if Genesis TF April O'Neil was also supposed to be Mitsu too, since there are some similarities to the sprites.

[ToTheNines]

Wow. Haven't read it all, but I've literally found 0 errors in their findings. It's definitely a pleasure to read something so large and thorough without having to put up with the usual misinformed bull crap. I'll do the whole thing tomorrow.

EDIT: He said Ultrominator... lol

[oldmanwinters]

It's definitely a pleasure to read something so large and thorough without having to put up with the usual misinformed bull crap. I'll do the whole thing tomorrow.

So true! This is amazing work!

Wow. Haven't read it all, but I've literally found 0 errors in their findings.

I found a couple of surprising errors on the 2nd page (http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/tmnt/tmnt2.htm). April O'Neil is said to be "Channel 9's most eager reporter." Heck, who knew she was said to have been Splinter's daughter in the Japanese version of the first NES game?

And there's a sentence that reads: "Though probably more of an accidental move rather than planned marketing, the use of Mike Dooley's art from the TMNT #2 issue from 1986 drew in the comic book fans with a familiar image"

The references to Mike "Dooney" appear to be correct in the rest of the article. The art piece to which they were referring was actually the reprint of TMNT #4.

Nitpicks aside... I am in awe of their command of the history of TMNT video games. I had no idea there were so many mobile games! I'd like to play "Ninja Training NYC" and "TMNT: The Power of 4" someday!

[Ninjinister]

Yeah, most of the errors I've come across so far are typographical - both in letters and numbers.

[Powder]

Regarding the SNES TF entry, I too am quite surprised by the Mitsu bit (would've preferred her, I think), but I'm surprised by something else...
It says there that the cover was Dooneys work, I always thought it was Chris Allan who drew the characters. The background painting I could see being MD, though.

[oldmanwinters]

Regarding the SNES TF entry, I too am quite surprised by the Mitsu bit (would've preferred her, I think), but I'm surprised by something else...
It says there that the cover was Dooneys work, I always thought it was Chris Allan who drew the characters. The background painting I could see being MD, though.

Yeah, it was clearly Allan's style. Another one of those errors that you at least had to give them credit for trying though.!

[Xav]

On the supporting cast page they list Slash as first appearing in issue #1 and Karai in issue #2.

[Ninjinister]

I like how they mention the elevator being a tradition to beat-'em-ups. My brother and I have said for years that a game isn't a real beat-'em-up unless it has an elevator sequence. The only game we've given a pass is Ninja Baseball Batman, and that's only because it's so f**king awesome.

[Audi]

Hey brothers in shell. I'm Audun Sorlie, the writer of this article.
First of all, thanks so much to you who read it already! As a lifelong TMNT fan, just the chance to give something back to a franchise that has given me so much entertainment makes me feel very glad.

Let me also apologize for the errors that are made, which are both from auto corrections slipping past my eye and fumbles from my side due to the sheer size of the article and work involved. I did numerous interviews with both Konami and members of the Mirage group, which really gave me some excellent insight. A number of these interviews, along with the inclusion of the LCD games will be added soon, as well as corrections based on your feedback already.

In the mean time, feel free to send a link to the article to the numerous game websites and tmnt sites out there and have them report on it, not so much for my own sake, but because I feel that many of these games truly deserve to be rediscovered, like Tournament Fighters and Radical Rescue.

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

You can also follow me on twitter or facebook in my signature to keep up with future articles and projects for magazines and game companies. My interviews with former Mirage staff were not only for this article....

[oldmanwinters]

Audi, I am honored by your presence on these forums!

You have done TMNT fans and classic gaming enthusiasts a tremendous service!

[Ninjinister]

Damn, your research was impressive. The Rockstar pickup of TMNT3D/Next Mutation rumor was something that my old fansite ran as an exclusive way back in the day. I don't know of anyone outside of an obscure PlayStation magazine that ever ran that story.

[Audi]

Ah so it was your website? I do remember that from way back when, but could not find any info on it anymore. Do you remember if there was ever any materials released, or was there only mentions in text?

winters: Thank you!!

[oldmanwinters]

Damn, your research was impressive. The Rockstar pickup of TMNT3D/Next Mutation rumor was something that my old fansite ran as an exclusive way back in the day. I don't know of anyone outside of an obscure PlayStation magazine that ever ran that story.

What was the url address? I'd love to run interarchive on that site to see what I might find!



winters: Thank you!!
The pleasure was all mine!

Also, in your analysis of the first NES game, I appreciate how you put Michelangelo at the bottom of the tier. Like you, I consider Raphael to be a most useful character than Mikey, although most other players tend to elevate Mikey above Raph. Mike does have the advantage of gaining attack power once his health drops below 50%. I believe Leonardo has a similar attribute as well.

[Ninjinister]

What was the url address? I'd love to run interarchive on that site to see what I might find!

http://www.geocities.com/donturtle_2000/TMNT.html

[oldmanwinters]

http://www.geocities.com/donturtle_2000/TMNT.html

Ah, Geocities... Yeah, those sites are pretty much dead as doornails nowadays!

[Xav]

Let me also apologize for the errors that are made, which are both from auto corrections slipping past my eye and fumbles from my side due to the sheer size of the article and work involved. I did numerous interviews with both Konami and members of the Mirage group, which really gave me some excellent insight. A number of these interviews, along with the inclusion of the LCD games will be added soon, as well as corrections based on your feedback already. Hate to break it to you but the first appearances of Slash and Karai are still wrong Slash first appeared in Slash The Evil Turtle from Dimension X and Karai in issue 53. You also appeared to have mixed up the bio of Scratch with that of Hallocat from the comics. Also Kevin and Peter didn't create Bebop and Rocksteady it was Dave Wise.

[oldmanwinters]

Also Kevin and Peter didn't create Bebop and Rocksteady it was Dave Wise.

That's seems to be a continuous subject of debate among TMNT fans, but Eastman and Laird did the original concept art for the warthog and rhino mutants that became Bebop and Rocksteady. David Wise just gave them their personality and origin story. Mirage Studios owned both characters and the rights now belong to Viacom, not David Wise or Fred Wolf Films.

[ToTheNines]

Hate to break it to you but the first appearances of Slash and Karai are still wrong Slash first appeared in Slash The Evil Turtle from Dimension X

Which is episode #84 of the 1987 cartoon show and first aired in 1990, in case you were wondering Audi. His first comic book appearance would be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #23.

[Xav]

That's seems to be a continuous subject of debate among TMNT fans, but Eastman and Laird did the original concept art for the warthog and rhino mutants that became Bebop and Rocksteady. David Wise just gave them their personality and origin story. Mirage Studios owned both characters and the rights now belong to Viacom, not David Wise or Fred Wolf Films. How do you know that? All I know is that Peter did a Rhino Mutant rough sketch at one point.

[pannoni1]

I like how all the articles are organized as put together, it reads like a book that may be titled, "The complete history of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video games". Sure, there are a few minor errors, but I like how it uses comparisons of different versions of the same game by having photos side-by-side, along with some musical downloads. In the end, the games that were released reflected which universe was most popular at the moment and gives a good judgement on the definitive version of each title, and given that wikis tend to just list each version individually, the ability to compare better and having some nice multimedia touches makes this the definitive source currently for information on the TMNT video games.

[oldmanwinters]

Hey, Audi, do you have scans of the Japanese TMNT1 NES manual? I'd be curious to see how it sets up the alternate version of the TMNT universe.

How do you know that? All I know is that Peter did a Rhino Mutant rough sketch at one point.

I really wish I had bookmarked some of those threads where is question got hashed out. But here's one I did find:
http://forums.thetechnodrome.com/showthread.php?t=33000

Also, here is Wise's Facebook claim that he should be credited with the creation of the characters (I genuinely respect the guy's talent and commitment to his job, but that kind of attitude over a Wikipedia page seems kinda petty to me):
http://imgur.com/PTeLA

[Audi]

Bear with me if I make any mistakes. The amount of info from development to character bios is pretty heavy, especially in combination of my own memory, various sources on the internet and corrections from other forums that contradict (though my own judgement would lead me to trust you guys being a specific TMNT community). I'll get more corrections up shortly, as I been going through pages 1-9 since yesterday and made many corrections.

Winters: I got the manual, I will upload it for you.

About Bebop and Rocksteady, I spoke with no less than 3 individual from Mirage (I'll leave them unnamed due to the fact there is apparently some disagreements) and 1 said he was unsure, while the 2 others said Laird and Eastman. So I really don't know the entire deal about their creation. I'll see if Wise is interested in talking to me again and see if I can get him to elaborate on it.

[oldmanwinters]

Bear with me if I make any mistakes. The amount of info from development to character bios is pretty heavy, especially in combination of my own memory, various sources on the internet and corrections from other forums that contradict (though my own judgement would lead me to trust you guys being a specific TMNT community). I'll get more corrections up shortly, as I been going through pages 1-9 since yesterday and made many corrections.

About Bebop and Rocksteady, I spoke with no less than 3 individual from Mirage (I'll leave them unnamed due to the fact there is apparently some disagreements) and 1 said he was unsure, while the 2 others said Laird and Eastman. So I really don't know the entire deal about their creation. I'll see if Wise is interested in talking to me again and see if I can get him to elaborate on it.

That's interesting info regarding your interviews with key TMNT people.

Isn't there is also some disagreement between David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane as to who ought to be considered the "creator" of the Venom character in Spider-man comics? Perhaps the mysterious he-said, they-said accounts of Bebop and Rocksteady will occupy a similar point of contention amongst TMNT fans.


Winters: I got the manual, I will upload it for you.


Sha-weet!

[Ninjinister]

I guess it'd be too much to ask to credit all three men, no? I mean, Pete and Kevin penciled out a concept, and David developed them into characters. Seems fair for all three to get the share to me.

[Audi]

Oh absolutely not, I just haven't gotten around to editing those pages yet cause I been fixing the last few pages.

LCD games and Pinball is now added:
http://hardcoregaming101.net/tmnt/tmntlcd.htm

Here is the manual, Winters:

http://i.imgur.com/PDvMTs.jpg (http://imgur.com/PDvMT)
http://i.imgur.com/mKshbs.jpg (http://imgur.com/mKshb)
http://i.imgur.com/8KxZKs.jpg (http://imgur.com/8KxZK)

Eastman emailed me today and said he loved the article and read through all of it, so I'm very happy about that! I only had a few exchanges with Laird during writing, so I sent along the link to him, so hopefully he'll enjoy it as well.

[Ninjinister]

Oh absolutely not, I just haven't gotten around to editing those pages yet cause I been fixing the last few pages.

I meant in general. Good to know, though.

[oldmanwinters]

Audi, I love the addition of the LCD section! I think the first TMNT Konami handheld might just be the greatest game in the genre. Did you know that it was so innovative at the time that it even received its own patent (http://forums.thetechnodrome.com/showpost.php?p=549740&postcount=1)?

As far as gameplay goes, I never quite figured out how one is supposed set the bombs properly in order in order to break April's containment tube. The instructions seem vague and I just press the directional buttons hoping I get lucky.

[Audi]

I read the patent, but many of the Konami LCD games received patents back then, so I didn't see it exclusively relevant enough to go into detail about that specific point. I genuinely enjoy the first LCD game however. The rest, not so much.

[oldmanwinters]

I read the patent, but many of the Konami LCD games received patents back then, so I didn't see it exclusively relevant enough to go into detail about that specific point. I genuinely enjoy the first LCD game however. The rest, not so much.

Interesting! I had no idea all those games were patent-worthy. Nowadays stuff like that just seems like lazy cash-ins on popular franchises. And I agree that some of the follow-up TMNT LCD games I've played pale in comparison to the original.

[Xav]

LCD games and Pinball is now added:
http://hardcoregaming101.net/tmnt/tmntlcd.htm I have a question about your part on the third game, who the heck are Metaligore and Rotagilla? No characters by that name are in the game.

[Audi]

I have a question about your part on the third game, who the heck are Metaligore and Rotagilla? No characters by that name are in the game.

They are listed in the manual, and I believe they are even spoken of on the TMNT site? I don't actually own that game, and only spoke to an individual over at the handheld museum site who owns it for some impressions, I am guessing that they might have renamed certain characters on the packaging, like they included Shredder only in name.

EDIT: Indeed they are: http://www.ninjaturtles.com/html/handheld.htm

[Konchadunga]

A very thorough article, but I could have done without all the hyperbolic digs at Fast Forward. I may be all alone in my appreciation of that season, but I wish the world would at least stop rubbing my nose in that. I also noticed quite a lot of grammatical errors, but I cut them a lot of slack for those, as they had a long task ahead of them.

I remember being very disappointed at Smash Up as well, but more than its lack of characters, its being too similar to SSB for comfort, or any of the other problems the article described, what turned me off of it were the 2007 movie designs for every character applicable. I've actually praised many parts of that movie's visuals; the turtles look great and so do their environments, and the scene where Leonardo and Raphael fight on the rooftops, with many long shots of New York and close-ups of raindrops splashing on their scaly skin, was just amazing. However, all of the human characters aside from the villain look awful to me; they're too cartoonish for a film that strives for realism elsewhere, and their skinny appearance is ugly on any terms. I didn't lose all interest in it, but I didn't buy it and from what I learned since, I'm glad that I didn't. Had I bought it and learned the Rabbids were in it, I would have thrown the worst fit since buying Rayman Raving Rabbids for the Wii expecting the platformer that Michel Ancel origially intended it as, only to find a gaggle of wretched Wiitard minigames. Sorry about my prolonged rant; I just really hate the Rabbids.

[Audi]

A very thorough article, but I could have done without all the hyperbolic digs at Fast Forward. I may be all alone in my appreciation of that season, but I wish the world would at least stop rubbing my nose in that. I also noticed quite a lot of grammatical errors, but I cut them a lot of slack for those, as they had a long task ahead of them.

Someone has been watching the Argentinian TMNT adult film ;)

Thanks for reading through. I am aware of the grammatical errors and going through each page systematically and uploading a fixed version over the next few days, as I have been doing so far. Like you noted, juggling this large article next to everything else in daily life and writing results in oversights and brainfarts.

I actually watched Fast Forward (along with every episode of 1987 and 2k3) in preparation to writing this piece, and I would have to say that it's probably some of the worst television I have seen in my life, and one of the hardest things to get through, be it playing through the titles or watching content to review and note.

[Konchadunga]

Why? Just because it's different?

[Ninjinister]

I actually watched Fast Forward (along with every episode of 1987 and 2k3) in preparation to writing this piece, and I would have to say that it's probably some of the worst television I have seen in my life, and one of the hardest things to get through, be it playing through the titles or watching content to review and note.

Really? Even the later part of the season where plot, tone, and writing bumped up a few notches? Even then... you must not watch a lot of TV :P I've seen far, far worse on TV than even the worst episodes of anything with Turtles in it.

[Xav]

They are listed in the manual, and I believe they are even spoken of on the TMNT site? I don't actually own that game, and only spoke to an individual over at the handheld museum site who owns it for some impressions, I am guessing that they might have renamed certain characters on the packaging, like they included Shredder only in name A few things about the game your to the left of the screen not the center. You actually fight the bosses twice on each level once in the middle and at the end. At the last level you fight all the bosses again. I don't think in the later levels you face more enemies on screen or that they get faster or stronger. Though later levels add a new enemy a Stone Warrior who can take multiple hits.

[oldmanwinters]

Audi, I think the last paragraph on the first LCD game may be incomplete. I can only read the last sentence until "Real life" and then it just ends.

Also, regarding the Slam Dunk Donatello action figure, what did you mean by "This figure also received a white redesign exclusively sold at Wal-Mart" ? I couldn't figure out if that was a joke I didn't get or some bizarre variant I've never seen before. :-P

EDIT AGAIN:
On the entry for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Dimension X Assault" you identify the cover art as the work of Ken Mitchroney. If my eye is correct, only the back package art is by Mitchroney. The front cover art appears to be a rarely seen (in America anyway) piece by Chris Allan.

EDIT ad nauseum:
Got any info on the "cancelled PSX game"? I've never read anything about that! The closest thing to 32-bit TMNT I've ever seen was some left-over TMNT sprites hidden on one of Sega's 32X cartridges.

EDIT "I can't help myself"
You mention that the Genesis Hyperstone Heist game lacks the "Mode 7 powered screen toss" of the SNES Turtles in Time, but I don't think that particular feature utilized Mode 7 at all. I believe the screen throw animation was just a few extra sprites resized for effect.

[Xav]

I noticed on the page for Tournament Fighters for the SNES you say the Foot kidnap April and Splinter when it is actually Karai and the Shredder Elite.

[oldmanwinters]

I noticed on the page for Tournament Fighters for the SNES you say the Foot kidnap April and Splinter when it is actually Karai and the Shredder Elite.

Eh... close enough, right?:tcool:

[Ninjinister]

Also, regarding the Slam Dunk Donatello action figure, what did you mean by "This figure also received a white redesign exclusively sold at Wal-Mart" ? I couldn't figure out if that was a joke I didn't get or some bizarre variant I've never seen before. :-P

http://myteefinestuff.com/product_info.htm?cPath=21_22&products_id=6814&msize=1&PHPSESSID=d151146c057d799ac041fa416038edc9

[oldmanwinters]

http://myteefinestuff.com/product_info.htm?cPath=21_22&products_id=6814&msize=1&PHPSESSID=d151146c057d799ac041fa416038edc9

Wow, I totally never noticed that he came with a Home & Away jersey variants! When I read "white version" I was thinking there was a figure made that gave Donatello's normally dark-complexion an unusual "albino" skin coloring.

[Xav]

It says the enemy placement in the first game is random and the game generates a random number of enemies. But that's not true I fight the same number of enemies in the same places all the time. It also says nearly every enemy has a projectile as well as a close range attack. Which is not true most enemies don't have a projectile attack at all. I also like how he says the Shredder fight borders on being nearly impossible. Which is funny because I actually found him to be the easiest fight in the game. It also says Michaelangelo has no advantage. Which isn't true, he's the best swimmer of the bunch. His attack is extremely fast, plus his attack boost at half-life is higher than Leo's. He becomes almost as powerful as Don. His ducking attack has the longest range in front of him. It says for the most part, the bosses are the only ones that are directly inspired by the cartoon series, being Rocksteady, Bebop, Giant Mousers, Technodrome and Shredder. There is only one Giant Mouser and Shredder is actually based off his Mirage counterpart. He also says the mechanical turtle idea was later revisited with Mechaturtle. I think he means Metal Head as Mecaturtle was the name of the robot in the game.

On the Dimension X Assault game you said that Berserko was a villain from the latter seasons of the 1987 cartoon. That should be season as he was only in one episode.

On the character page you call Granitor, Lt. Granitor, which as far as I can tell is a fan title.