Worst OT game?
 

Many agree that the franchise's gaming endeavors were at their peak during the late 80's to the early-to-mid 90's, back when the OT was still going strong and when Konami held the rights to develop video games based off of it. Of course, even back then our favorite Heroes in a Half-Shell weren't completely safe from the cheap, slapdash practices that continue to plague licensed games to this day. So, what's your pick for the worst OT game?

Barring hand-held toy aisle joints, I'd go with Tournament Fighters for Genesis. I find it unplayable.

Kamehameha.

Though the SNES version was better.

The SNES version surpasses the Genesis version by 100x. Better graphics, better variety of characters, better controls, better music, better sound effects...better everything, really.
The Genesis version is a complete and utter trainwreck.

By the time it came out it was difficult to find any buddy that wanted to play a poor man's Street Fighter 2 with Ninja Turtles in it. But it looks nice. The SNES one anyway.

Tournament Fighter NES. It has the four turtles, Shredder, and Hothead. It was not a novelty to fight as Shredder because he was also included in the SNES version which also included The Rat King and Armaggon.

The SNES Tournament Fighters was awesome. Unlike the other console-only fighting games like Eternal Champions, Double Dragon 5, Ballz and whatever else, this game played like Street Fighter with actual combos and quick gameplay, and they threw in SNK style super moves. The game was friggin awesome.

The Genesis version was.... horrible. To be fair, I was at least able to beat it. But yeah, the worst OT game thus far was Genesis Tournament Fighters.

I've always thought Genesis TF controls better than SNES TF. Doesn't look anywhere near as good, but I find it easier to play. The AI is brutally cheap, even though the SNES AI abuses the block feature ad nauseum.

As for worst classic Turtles game... I'll go with TMNT II on the original Game Boy. It's a decent game with good sprite art, but it's also my least favorite of the GB trilogy.

To be fair, Fall of the Foot Clan and Back from the Sewers were equally mediocre in their own right. Radical Rescue on the other hand was a really solid Metroidvania-style game.

Plays just as well as a polished SF title, but yeah, the visuals are definitely it's biggest charm point. Amazing OST too, though!

Glad I'm not the only one to feel this way. I mean, I suck at it, so I figured it could be my fault in part, but it does seem to have brutally cheap AI, as OMW puts it.

Which isn't an issue if you know their weak spot. There's a trick to getting through the defense of each character. Like Shredder, for example. Keep a distance & always sweep the legs.

I like RR least of the three, personally. It's got some cool concepts & visuals but the gameplay itself is tiresome & a bit difficult, IMO. I have the same problem with similarly styled games though, in fairness. & Megaman, too.

Hmm... the Turtles always did have a penchant for referencing 80s movies! :tlol:

The names of the stages in the Genesis version of TF are pretty unimaginative, too. I mean, "Futuristic City Planet"? "Bio Planet"? "Water Planet"?

I like the music in the Genesis version of Tournament Fighters.

That's probably about the only thing I like about it, though.

I just realized that a true contender would be the non-NES ports of the first game. Some were so bad, that you legitimately cannot get past a certain point without cheating due to piss-poor programming.

Yeah, if we open it up to the home computer market, that's a certainty!
http://www.scary-crayon.com/games/tmnt12pc/

Is it fair to call them, "OT" games? The classic games seemed like they were based on the cartoon, Playmates toyline, and Archie comics all rolled into one.

Well, some of the games felt like that. Games like Fall of the Foot Clan and the original arcade game were solely based on the OT.

I think Back from the Sewers improved on Fall of the Foot Clan. The Game Boy controls felt a little cramped but it wasn't bad.

The UK Amiga version looks and plays a bit better but suffers a similar issue. I love the game but I normally cheat through the game because of it's difficulty. :lol:

For all of the talk of how great Radical Rescue is I found it more of a chore to play than actual fun. Then again I'm not a big Metroid fan.

Having beaten Hyperstone Heist this morning, I feel compelled to say how much that game sucks too. Turtles In Time rules, obviously, but HH is such a cheap imitation.

Sometimes, I wonder if HH was initially supposed to be a Genesis port of TiT, but some random circumstance forced Konami to re-tool the entire thing into something different. It would explain the recycling of music and level themes from TiT (Aside from the ghost ship and Japanese town levels, which I thought were pretty cool. It's a shame the game didn't have more stages like them).

I'm rather suprised to see that Turtles in Time Re-Shelled wasn't in here. From what have read, many of the TiT fans did not take well to the newer version of its former predecessor game.

I actually wanted to play Re-Shelled at one time simply because I never had TiT or a SNES to play the game. I also had the Genesis version of TMNT - Tournamet Fighters. Let's just say that I wasn't impressed with the game either.

Oh god, Re-Shelled....if DuckTales Remastered is the perfect example of everything that a remake should be, then Re-Shelled is the perfect example of everything that a remake shouldn't be. Putting aside the complete and utter butchering of the music, the graphics are dull and shallow, the controls are wonky, and just about everything that made the original such a classic amongst TMNT fans and gamers in general was nowhere to be found. Hyperstone Heist might not be all that great, but it least it's far more likeable and enjoyable than...this. Hands down, one of the worst TMNT games ever and one of the worst beat 'em ups of all time.

Wow, I loved the nes game, but that port was really really bad. Even that classic music bleed my ears lol.

The original TMNT NES game or the Genesis version of Tournament Fighters are the worst FW based TMNT games I've played. That being said, I haven't played any PC or Game Boy FW Turtle games.

It's not bad, just an inferior version of it. Plus, it is frustratingly hard at times. Especially the Gauntlet level. Jesus.

As for remastered/remakes... I'd love to see the 1989 NES TMNT game done right. That game had a lot of potential and a great a concept. But boy was it executed badly.

The difficulty is a big part of why I say it sucks, that & the fact it's so short is like getting smacked on both cheeks. :tlol:

I don't recall Hyperstone Heist being hard, but its been a few years since I've played it. What baffles me about that game the most is how Rocksteady is in it but no Bebop. Like...how the hell did that happen?

Who makes a game that only has Rocksteady and no Bebop? That's like blasphemy. You can't have one without the other.

^ I got annoyed with the 'cloned' different colored versions of Leatherhead, Rocksteady, and I wanna say Tatsu when they showed up the second time around. At least Krang was rather fun to beat up on, while 'Super Shredder' was just stupid easy to beat.

It's harder than TiT, but I wanna say it's more of a hit detection issue than anything else. I found a lot of my moves either weren't going through at all, or missed their mark. & believe me, I've played enough of the SNES port to be damn good, that shouldn't have been happening. + the hardest part is The Gauntlet, having to fight every boss up to that point all over, consecutively, with no pizzas or courtesy health refills. Pure death. It'd be a much easier time without Tatsu, I think. He's the hardest of them.

As for Bebop's exclusion, pairing that with it lacking in levels/originality, & having a stage dedicated to replaying the boss fights, I've concluded they were forced to rush this one.

A shame, really, 'cause it had the potential to be a spiritual successor. The sewer & dojo levels had decent design, it would've been nice to see what else they came up with.

You girly man! :twink:

I'm just messin'.

I've long liked Hyperstone Heist (mostly for the graphics and gameplay) and my biggest beef with it is that it's too repetitive and the bosses are too predictable. The Gauntlet feels like we got cheated out of an original stage and it's long long that it really throws the pacing off. And while HH lacks the famous screen throw gimmick, I do appreciate the sheer variety of attack options the game offers. No other Turtles game offers as many options on how to destroy a Foot Ninja. I think the run and jump animations each offer at least three or four variations.

I appreciate this comparison of the two. Turtles in Time is definitely superior.
http://www.sega-16.com/2010/01/side-...nesis-vs-snes/

Hyperstone Heist was basically TMNT 4.5 rather than a real sequel or standalone game. It might also be because it was the first Sega TMNT game, and Konami knew most TMNT fans grew up with the NES and moved onto the SNES.

That's why you have human Baxter in Hyperstone Heist, and some levels are mish-mash of old TMNT II levels as well.

It's been years since I played it but Hyperstone Heist wasn't as difficult as the NES games but it was a little bit more than TiT. Or maybe I just knew TiT better and this was only my first time playing HH when I did. When I played it like ten years ago it was weird seeing TiT elements barely modified to fit the new theme but cool to have another turtles game and Sega players got some turtle love.


So since HH has human baxter does that mean it takes place after TMNT II but before turltes in time? We must figure out this OT video game timeline.

The nes one.

Yeah The Gauntlet just went on and on and taking on 3 bosses in the same level who were now twice as strong and no pizza to refill your energy before fighting each boss was WAY overkill.

As for Bebop not being in it, I guess since it was probably rushed and they wanted to include a new villain like Tatsu in it, they had to sacrifice one of the bosses. It is odd that Bebop is not in the game, but that didn't really bother me much. What really baffled me was neither Bebop and Rocksteady not being in the Arcade version of Turtles in Time. And even in the SNES port, you had Tokka and Rahzar in the Technodrome instead of them. R&B as pirates was pretty cool and easy to believe but Rahzar and Tokka in the Technodrome didn't make much sense.

SNES Turtles in Time could be quite challenging on the hardest difficulty setting, but on the easiest one? You'd cruise that game in half an hour or less.

Honestly, they should have just released TIT on both SNES and Genesis. A year or two later, Genesis would get the ABSOLUTELY WORST version of Tournament Fighters. When there's a better version of a FIGHTING GAME on the NES than on the Genesis, you know you screwed up badly.

The first TMNT game the one based on the comic was extremely difficult. I remember one part of the game were you had to disable a bunch of bombs.

4, even worse! Leatherhead, Rocksteady, Tatsu, Baxter. Without Tatsu it'd be manageable, I can get through LH & R without even getting hit. The other two, ugh. The damn Foot/Mousers can be relentless.

That game was not even remotely based on the comics, brah. Technodrome, Turtle Van, Bebop/Rocksteady, etc. It's the OT with some original elements tossed in.

Most people seem to struggle a lot with the dam level to the point of not ever being able to beat it. It is a tough level, but certainly not anywhere near impossible or deserving to be in a "top 10 toughest video game leves of all time" list. Naturally I couldn't beat that level when I was a kid, but as a teenager I managed to beat ti several times. The furthest I've gotten in that game was to the airport level. I've been able to get to it twice, I think. And died thanks to the spikes coming out of the wall. Ever since then, I could never beat the 3rd level. Those goddamn jumps.

That one hop in the sewer in level 3 (the one rendered literally impossible in the DOS version) is infinitely more frustrating than the entire dam level.

The NES game isn't THAT bad IMO. Yes, it does have its' flaws, some extremely more glaring than others, and it does suffer from some cheap difficulty, but when you look at the bigger picture it's a fairly solid and fun action-adventure game. Maybe if all of the kinks and flaws had been ironed out, it'd be far more well-received than it is now.
Now, the ports on the other hand...those abominations couldn't have been salvaged from the word "go".

it was definitely na ambitious game for its time. And as I said, the concept was great. But the execution was bad. No wonder pretty much every Turtle game since then has been a beat 'em up or a fighting game.

I don't even find TMNT NES that enjoyable. I honestly gave up on trying to beat that game.

Can't call the game a failure, however. I mean, it did sell 4M units. Afaik, it still is the highest selling TMNT game of all time. And it was like, the 6th or 7th highest selling NES game? Pretty much everyone who had a NES had that game at some point or another.

The game is not terrible, just mediocre. Its reputation got WAY worse thanks to that AVGN review that came out a decade ago. Before that, people just said it was an average game with a very high difficulty level and some issues. Then people started to trash it calling it "one of the worst games ever". But lately, people have become more rational about it again.

1992 was the year Konami finally began to port some of their bigger franchises to the Genesis, so I think the more likely explanation was that they rushed a TMNT game together to strike while the market was still hot for it. Nintendo has historically been known to be heavily restrictive with third-party publishers, so most of the Konami and Capcom releases had to be significantly changed or delayed for other systems after debuting on Nintendo hardware.