TMNT: Tournament Fighters - Genesis, SNES and NES, 1993 & 94



Jason "Mr Midnyte" Pinon

Hey and welcome back!  This week I'm highlighting a series that is near and dear to many.  Since their debut, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been a pop-culture phenomenon.  Starting with comic books, then TV and movies, it makes sense that they even dominated video games as well.  The arcade beat-em-up is still a major standout in that genre, and Turtles in Time is considered one of the best.  It makes a lot of sense that they would eventually bleed over into the world of Fighting Games.

Developed by Konami (who had made all of their other games up to this point), it follows in the footsteps of Street Fighter with big colorful characters and none of the crazy bloody violence of MK and the other games I've covered so far.  As usual the four brothers are out to put a stop of whatever dumb bullshit the Shredder is up to this time.  What's unique about this game is that across the three platforms that it was released on, each game has a unique visual style and lineup.  

 


    The NES version is one of the few fighting games released for that platform, as it was very near the end of it's life-cycle during the first Fighting Game boom.  With the four Turtles, sports enthusiast/psycho Casey Jones, and the Shredder, there is also a mutant dragon by the name of Hothead.  Gameplay is pretty standard for a fighting game, even on such a limited system.  During each match, a drone with Splinter's face on it flies in and drops a red ball that any player can collect and launch at their opponent like some sort of cosmic dodgeball.


The Genesis version features the reptilian brothers fighting against clones of themselves, paired again with Casey Jones, adding April O'Neil, Ray Fillet (a mutant stingray) and Sisyphus (a stag beetle).  I have fond memories of this specific games, as I had it as a kid.  The controls were kinda weird, with the three button setup of the Genesis having a punch, kick, and taunt button.  Each character had special moves, as well as a Super Move that could only be used when you were low in life (kinda like the Rage Art in Tekken).  It was also punishingly hard, as I don't remember ever facing off against the three boss characters: Karai, Triceraton, and Krang.  It was the early days of the internet, I although I tried I couldn't find quality information on how the game worked or how to perform all of the special moves.  It felt really fluid though, so gameplay itself was pretty good.

The SNES version is considered the definitive version of this game.  It has strong gameplay and combos, interesting and varied characters, and even still played competitively.  Each character has a flashy Super Move in combination with their special attacks.  The Turtles fight against Shredder (called Cyber Shredder?  Is he a computer?  STOP ALL THE DOWNLOADIN).  The cast also has a shark-man named Armaggon, Wingnut the bat person, Aska the ninja lady based on a character from the third TMNT movie that was kind of a flop, Chrome Dome the robot (I love the name though), and WAR which I have no idea what the fuck it is.

Seriously, what that hell is that?

Bosses include Karai and...the Rat King.  Some dude who also lives in the sewer and thinks he's a monarch to rodents.  A little lackluster in my opinion.

Although the quality of the games vary, overall they're pretty good games.  The Super Nintendo version is the standout, checking all of the boxes for a quality fighting game that still stands the test of time.  

Here is the Top 8 from Combo Breaker the last time they had one, back in 2019.

https://youtu.be/u714LYCamPA

Midnyte Score - for the SNES, 4 out of 5



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