The NES version of Tournament Fighters is a technical marvel

[Ash]

So I didn't even know this version of Tournament Fighters existed until the Cowabunga Collection came out. After playing it, I'm amazed at what Konami managed to make the NES do. I never imagined you could get a fighting game this good on that system...

Anyway, if anyone is interested, I wrote a blog post going into more detail about the game and what makes it so accomplished. It talks about Turtles games in a wider contact too, so maybe you'll get something out of it...

https://gamesfromtheblackhole.wordpr...22/09/25/tmnt/

[Ash]

By the way, I don't think I made any factual TMNT errors in this article but if I did, please go easy on me. I'm a big fan but probably not as knowledgeable as most of the people here.

[oldmanwinters]

I got a lot of enjoyment from it back in the day, being a long term NES holdout.

Ironically, I think it is the only version of TF that has a traditional Tournament bracket as a game mode.

[CyberCubed]

It was also one of the very last NES games to come out. The SNES was already out 3 years when this game came out.

[IMJ]

There were a couple of games that were pretty impressive on the NES back in the day - this one, Shadow of the Ninja and Batman Return of the Joker. The Batman game had a special chip actually engineered onto the game board to make it more powerful on the NES.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by IMJ

There were a couple of games that were pretty impressive on the NES back in the day - this one, Shadow of the Ninja and Batman Return of the Joker. The Batman game had a special chip actually engineered onto the game board to make it more powerful on the NES.

All things considered Batman RotJ looks better in 8 bit than either 16 bit console

[CyberCubed]

Man we need a collection of all the classic Batman games next.

The NES games, Adventures of Batman and Robin from SNES, Batman Returns on SNES, the Sega Genesis Animated series game, the Gameboy Batman games, etc. Basically everything before the Playstation 1 era.

[IMJ]

The Batman Returns SNES game was awesome...

[Sumac]

Amazing game, indeed. One of the two good fighting games on NES and both were made by Konami. I wish it had some other stage rather than a Pirate Ship, since I have no idea how its relevant to the Turtles, but Konami for some reason thought that pirate ships are integral part of TMNT and had put them into almost every beat'em up and fighting game.

Also, minor corrections:
- Hothead is not an original character. He is based off the TMNT Adventure comic book character Chu Hsi and then both versions were used to create a Playmates toy.
- Splinter appears each round in the battle.
- You can use Splinter's Super Ball as much as you want, you just need to pick it up again and don't allow it to fly beyond the screen.
- Street Fighter 2 certainly could've worked on NES - MK1 was on Sega Master System, which is roughly equal to NES. A lot of stuff, including probably would have been cut, but it wuld have worked, even if it played nothing like Arcade game.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Man we need a collection of all the classic Batman games next.

The NES games, Adventures of Batman and Robin from SNES, Batman Returns on SNES, the Sega Genesis Animated series game, the Gameboy Batman games, etc. Basically everything before the Playstation 1 era.

That would be hard, since most of the games were made by different developers.

Originally Posted by IMJ

The Batman game had a special chip actually engineered onto the game board to make it more powerful on the NES.

Are you sure about it, because, it is the first time I hear about. I've checked Google and it doesn't know anything about it. I don't think that Konami used any special chips, except ones enhancing music.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Man we need a collection of all the classic Batman games next.

The NES games, Adventures of Batman and Robin from SNES, Batman Returns on SNES, the Sega Genesis Animated series game, the Gameboy Batman games, etc. Basically everything before the Playstation 1 era.

A licensing nightmare! Sunsoft, Atari/Namco, Konami, and Sega all would have to be on board, as well as the potential of contracted development studios who actually developed the games for the publishers. I don't even know the current IP holder for the various Batman Forever tie-in games (arcade and console) Acclaim published. And that's without even considering the mess that is WarnerMedia right now, who would rather simply write off financial losses for tax purposes than create profitable media for sale.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by Sumac

Are you sure about it, because, it is the first time I hear about. I've checked Google and it doesn't know anything about it. I don't think that Konami used any special chips, except ones enhancing music.

Off the top of my head from those days of when the magazines would pimp all of the tech advancements (like the SNES "Mode 7" or Genesis "Blast Processing") it was a Sunsoft game and it used what they called their "Sun-5 Chip". It allowed for larger sprites on the screen and some significant parallax scrolling effects.

But that's all honestly being pulled from memory from when I was probably 13 or 14 years old.

[Ash]

Originally Posted by oldmanwinters

I got a lot of enjoyment from it back in the day, being a long term NES holdout.

Ironically, I think it is the only version of TF that has a traditional Tournament bracket as a game mode.

I really liked that tournament mode. As I say in the post, it's fun to set four computer players fighting against each other.

[Ash]

As a bonus I've published an old interview I once did with Peter Laird that's never been published in its entirety before. I think it has some interesting tidbits...

https://gamesfromtheblackhole.wordpr...airdinterview/

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by Ash

I really liked that tournament mode. As I say in the post, it's fun to set four computer players fighting against each other.

Nes version also has my favorite pre-fight matchup intro music, and I love the SF2 style “loser” portraits.