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May 10, 2007

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I & II DOS Reviews!

But first, Crayon Poetry Corner #14! I actually wrote this a really long time ago and completely forgot about it -- I think I was planning to accompany it with a voice recording. Anyway, I was about to post another poem when I stumbled upon it instead, so I figured I'd get this thing up. Seeing as how the poem was partly inspired by Frogger, the image to the right of the poem is taken from the SNES version. Yep.

That said, the star of today's update is this in-depth review of the MS-DOS versions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I and II. Much like the PC port of Street Fighter II that we reviewed a year ago, these computer incarnations manage to be inexplicably different from the original versions in marked ways. I'm admittedly a bit fond of some of the graphical modifications to the first game (the Turtles look interesting and Shredder looks great, but I don't like what they did to April at all), but the changes to the gameplay of both titles are pretty hard to overlook. You'll read more about it in the actual article, but I will continue to argue that TMNT I is impossible to beat without cheating until someone out there proves me wrong. So get to it!

So in case you're up for taking the challenge or simply giving these games a try, here is a helpful tutorial on Abandonia for configuring DOSBox and getting games up and running. I personally recommend using a frontend like D-Fend to simplify the process, though.

That said, in case you've got absolutely no desire to play these broken games, here are some YouTube recordings that I made of the final battles and ending sequences. I've been going crazy with YT as of late.

Aaaand while we're at it, here are a few more videos that I posted to YouTube of the movie game. Two are boss battles with the Generals (one each); the other is an extended battle with the Shredder and his clones, which is what happens if you don't target the genuine article. It's too bad the Turtles don't gain EXP or coins for every defeated enemy -- that battle would be solid gold for leveling up and making money.

All for now, then. Seeya next time, minna-san!

-posted by Wes | 9:14 pm | Comments (9)

9 Comments »

spoodles says:

May 10, 2007 at 10:33 pm

Wow...I didn't even know they ported those over to PC.

I got TMNT on the virtual console, and I can't even get past that first water level. In fact, that's as far as I got when I rented it as a kid, too. That's a hard-assed game. Meanwhile, TMNTII: The Arcade Game was one of my absolute favorites, and I much preferred it to the actual arcade.

Great article, and I really liked the poem too. Funny shit.

Reply
Matto says:

May 11, 2007 at 6:10 pm

Very in-depth and written wonderfully. I'm still LOLing over that image tag on that one screen shot of Scene 1 where April is screaming by her desk. "What a scoop!" but... the NES version of scared April is by far better then the Arcade version (even if she didn't have a mouth and eyes, and her breasts grew bigger...)

Cheers!

Reply
haywood says:

May 21, 2007 at 10:53 pm

You always do a great job with your articles. After reading the review of both games, I had to go break out TMNT on the NES (I couldn't get the Dos version to work for some reason...) Nearly 15 years later I still can't do anything about the stupid underwater section. Maybe it was never meant to be.

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Matto says:

May 24, 2007 at 11:08 am

@ haywood: Don't feel discouraged, the underwater level is tough as nails, but it IS beatable. You should use Raph or Mikey since they are pretty much useless in the majority of the other stages.

Reply
Nigel says:

May 28, 2007 at 12:25 am

This article exposed a whole (darker) side to TMNT video games I had no idea existed. That underwater section is hell itself and the simple reminder of it makes me angry.

Also, I know this isn't about this article specifically but I am amazed I haven't read any of the stuff on this site before. I had a fantastic time reading through a whole load of articles in the archives.

Reply
garsh says:

July 21, 2007 at 2:28 am

Hey, thanks for this awesome article. A couple weeks ago I scoured the onlineslol for something exactly like this and turned up nothing significant. I'm really glad I stumbled on your site. It's the details that I appreciate most, like the music file download, side-by-side comparison screens, and even using the proper "title" tags on your images (as opposed to "alt") so they show in firefox on mouseover. Evidently it's been a while since you did this, but I just wanted to let you know how grateful I am.

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lampadario says:

August 18, 2007 at 3:32 pm

I remember the issue of the jump in the sewers, as far as I
can remember there were 2 versions of the game for the PC.
One called "teenage mutant hero turtles" with the issue, and another
called "teenage mutant ninja turtles" that solved the issue
and the jump gap was reduced (or vice-versa).

Reply
whetphish says:

September 20, 2008 at 3:59 pm

There were two ports of this game on the PC - one was the American port Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the other was the British port Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (as the Turtles were called here).

They were two completely different ports with different graphics, gameplay, etc.

I downloaded the American version mentioned in the article but can't find the UK version anywhere on the net. I bought it from eBay but it's on 5.25" floppies and I can't find my old 5.25" drive.

If I do find it, I'll make it available.

Reply
Geoff says:

June 19, 2009 at 2:45 pm

I had the original DOS PC game of #1, I didn't have a Nintendo, so for me, that was as good as it got. I remember the ill-fated jump quite well, as not only did I waste several days of my youth pouring over it but it pretty much ruined a few days with me seething in anger over not being able to progress in the game. For the longest time I thought it was due to the touch sensitivity of my joystick at the time, but it's good to see that there was an actual bug. I did make the jump on a couple of occasions, though I am not proud to say so, as I attempted it no less than about 5,000 times, sitting, angry in front of the screen hoping against hope that "next time for sure". As I remember I did make that first jump a couple of times, but even with saving it right then and there, there were 2 more right after it that were equally impossible. Once your Turtle hit that water you were dead and gone, so trying after that point became a fools errand.

Eventually I gave up, angered and annoyed and eventually I got the ROM and passed that jump in one try, and proceeded to finally beat the game about 10 years after wasting my days with that terrible DOS game.

I remember a friend of mine and his buddy watching me try to play the NES version and them mocking me as I had a lot of trouble adjusting to the differences in the game. My pal stuck up for me and said it was different on my cpu, but his jerky rich-boy friend insisted they were 'exactly the same' and I was deemed a dork for not being very good at it after playing for so long. That kid was a dink.

Reply