One reason I loved playing the classic games is the boss roster
 

I actually really like the fact that Konami put some thought into which characters to use as bosses. As a kid I loved facing all those bosses.

Groundchuck and Dirtbag being bosses in TMNT III being a great example. Awesome characters to use. TMNT IV of course had almost all the notable villains at the time as bosses. Tatsu was awesome in Hyperstone Heist.

TMNT II, I love that robot samurai boss from the ninja level, the one whose head comes off to chase you around. I also love the fact that they included the blue Rock Soldier from the fourth episode...and General Traag!

And any bosses that didn't make it into the beat 'em ups made it into tournament fighters, where we got the likes of Armaggon, Hothead (NES), Wingnut, Chrome Dome, War, Karai etc.

I'm going to concur with this. The bosses/secondary characters (for fighting games) were a major highlight of the games.

Yeah, the roster is pretty boss. I love The Shredder in the Arcade Game. He's got a katana, phantom doubles, and he shoots lightning that de-mutates you. Awesome stuff. He was bad ass, the way The Shredder should have been in the cartoon.

I think, in general, Konami's OT games had a great rogues gallery, henchmen included.

Loved the boss teams in Turtles in Time, that was a neat feature. I actually just ordered Tournament Fighters for the Super NES the other day, so I'll report my feelings on that once I play it.

You've never played it?!

Neighbor kid had it back in the day, and I had a ROM that only worked for certain levels, so I've played it.

But yeah, bad fan either way for taking so long to actually own it lol.

The special moves are actually easy to do in that game. They don't tell you in-game how to do them, you have to have the instruction manual or print out a list online.

I never understood how War made it into there. He's a random obscure character from the middle of the Archie series...one of Death's 4 horseman. How the hell did he get chosen?

Well Wingnut is archie & he's there... Maybe that saga was going on while they made it or something.
I'm glad either way, obscure characters getting some shine always pumps me up.

I must repeat this as it is stuck on my mind: I HATE facing Slash in turtles in time on Hard difficulty. if you don't time it right, he'll take away at least 2 lives from you.

This isn't 100% complete (it's missing some command moves), but it took me a while to complete it and I'm proud of it.

So I beat Karai on default difficulty, but the ending I got was a lot like when you beat Turtles in Time on anything but hard mode. Splinter just says to keep training...

What level do I have to do it on? I was on my last continue when I beat Karai, so I'm not so sure I'm up to it lol.

That's awesome man! Very helpful.

The bulk of the "classic" games just strike me as inordinately lazy game-making. The only ambitious one was the first game, which was a promising (if difficult) start to the series, but then the games just plateaued out into mindless arcade-style whack-a-mole with different colored Foot, walking down a rail.

Boooring.

By the time they realized they couldn't keep making the same game year after year and had to try something new (Tournament Fighters) it was too late and no one gave a f*** anymore.

Uh, back in the 80's and 90's beat 'em ups like TMNT and Streets of Rage were common.

Other than that we just had platformers like Mario and Sonic, some RPG's, and a couple of adventure games like Zelda.

But Armaggon is in it too, and he came along several issues after...wait...he was in Mutanimals before the crossover, right? Never mind.
EDIT: He was introduced in the next Mutanimal issue after the 3 issue crossover. :D My bad.

You just say that because they had multi-colored bandanas, Andy.

That doesn't make it any less stupid.

What do you mean? I just got done saying how the original NES game was pretty cool.

Um...the box art and game sticker had Mirage art....um...SHUT UP!

II through IV aren't the most in depth games, but they take about a half hour to play through so they don't really need to be. The music rocks, I love killing Foot soldiers, and they'll always bring back good memories. Gotta love 'em.

Yep! Though they're repetitive, they have that old-school charm, and of course turtles. Plus I love all kinds of beat-em-ups.

Turtles in Time: Best Beat-Um-Up Evar!

SHUT-UP! The O.G. TMNT Arcade Game was like, totally, the BESTEST Beats-me-Up Eber!