Were Triceratons Originally Supposed to be in The Manhattan Project?
 

This is just an observation I made when revisiting all of the TMNT video games I can. It is widely known that the cover of this game shows the Turtles fighting a Triceraton, despite there not actually being any Triceratons in the game. However, the game does feature a city being cut out of the ground and levitated, in the exact same way as Triceraton technology allows. This begs me to wonder, could it be that the Triceratons were originally intended as the villains in that game, until executive meddling decided that using a better-known villain would be more successful, but left the bit about ascending Manhattan in the game? Can anyone substantiate this?

It's a good theory. I guess not even Mike Dooney knows for sure though.

Maybe we can get anser through his blog? I will try the next time I visit there. Probably late afternoon today. I will keep an eye on the blog entry and see if we get an answer. If so or not I will reply to this thread to let you know.

Very good question, but a more telling answer might be to "was the package art created especially for this game".

There might have been discussions about adding in Triceratons at some early point... but then Konami realized it would be so much cheaper just to continue using different colored Foot Soldiers again like the game before it and all the games after it.

According to Dooney himself:

Thanks, I guess the same could be said about using TMNT vol.1#4 cover s the art for TMNT I (NES). It does not match the contents which is quite odd. I remember when I got the game back in kindergarten and saw the all red mask for the first time thinking it was a print error. With the covers in mind I doubt it was supposed to emulate the actual contents.

The packaging does feature Manhattan island floating in the sky, so my guess was that it was specifically requested.

That's great that you got a response from him! Would you be so bold as to ask him a follow up question on whether or not he still has the original art? I've always wanted to see it, but haven't been able to get a response from Dooney yet.