Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time (SNES) Review
System SNES
Developer Konami Publisher Konami Genre Side Scrolling Beat'em Up # of Players 1-2 Release Date August 1992 |
Pros
Solid Gameplay Good graphics Extra modes besides the campaign Cons Campaign is on the short side |
Review
by Thonos
5/12/2015
Growing up as a kid in the late 80's and early 90's, I was a big fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. From the action figures to the movies I enjoyed all of it. I even enjoyed the Coming out of there shells music album that was done for the franchise. But I mostly enjoyed the cartoon and the Nintendo games that came out. Out of all the turtles games that I played, I enjoyed Turtles 4 the best.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4 is a side scrolling beat'em for one or two players. The game takes many enemies from the 1987 cartoon and incorporates them in the game. The story is pretty basic: Shredder and Krang steal the Statue of Liberty and the turtles have to get it back. While doing this you end up getting sent back in time and have to fight your way through time to beat Shredder. While not the most in depth story, it gets the game going.
You are able to choose from any of the four turtles and while some are better at certain aspects game (ex, Raphael moves faster than the other turtles while Donatello's special hits the hardest), you are not going to be at a disadvantage by picking your favorite turtle. You then proceed through ten levels beating up foot soldiers and other TMNT enemies and at the end of each level you fight a boss. For combat you have one button to attack, one to jump and combining them does a special attack. Combining the attack button with a directional movement also lets you other moves, my favorite is throwing foot soldiers at the screen. Overall the gameplay is really good and I felt the strongest part of the game.
Each level is themed after a certain area for example one level has you in the sewers while another has you fighting on a ship. The only items in the game are pizza boxes that refill your health or red pizza boxes that gave you a spinning attack for a few seconds. You can also interact with certain objects while going though the stages some of them helping you while others would hurt you. Overall I liked the level designs of the game. The only complaint I have the levels were not long and most could be beaten within 5 minutes or less.
Graphically the game uses a brighter color palate which I felt worked well for the game. The character and enemy animations look good and that helped me enjoy the game more. The game also has a option for you to switch the color palette to a more comic book color scheme which tones the colors down a little darker which I felt was a nice touch. The games audio is also well done from the sound effects to the music. Overall I felt the game had a good presentation.
The game has a campaign that supports 1 to 2 players and is also the main part of the game. The game supports three levels of difficulty which is noticeable in the enemy aggressiveness and boss difficulty. There is a Time Trails mode that gives 3 areas to pick from that are broken into five 30 second areas. You are given one life to get the fastest time. There is also a two player versus mode where you fighter each other using the turtles in a best 2 out of 3 setting. The time trails mode is alright and the versus mode is a nice diversion. They do add some more features to the game which is not a bad thing.
While my own enjoyment of the source material does help me enjoy this game more than some people, it is still a good game in its own right. The game looks good, sounds good and plays good. The extra modes, while limited, do provide extras to do after the main game. My only complaint about the game is that the game's campaign is short, the whole game can be beaten in around 30 minutes depending on the difficulty.
by Thonos
5/12/2015
Growing up as a kid in the late 80's and early 90's, I was a big fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. From the action figures to the movies I enjoyed all of it. I even enjoyed the Coming out of there shells music album that was done for the franchise. But I mostly enjoyed the cartoon and the Nintendo games that came out. Out of all the turtles games that I played, I enjoyed Turtles 4 the best.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4 is a side scrolling beat'em for one or two players. The game takes many enemies from the 1987 cartoon and incorporates them in the game. The story is pretty basic: Shredder and Krang steal the Statue of Liberty and the turtles have to get it back. While doing this you end up getting sent back in time and have to fight your way through time to beat Shredder. While not the most in depth story, it gets the game going.
You are able to choose from any of the four turtles and while some are better at certain aspects game (ex, Raphael moves faster than the other turtles while Donatello's special hits the hardest), you are not going to be at a disadvantage by picking your favorite turtle. You then proceed through ten levels beating up foot soldiers and other TMNT enemies and at the end of each level you fight a boss. For combat you have one button to attack, one to jump and combining them does a special attack. Combining the attack button with a directional movement also lets you other moves, my favorite is throwing foot soldiers at the screen. Overall the gameplay is really good and I felt the strongest part of the game.
Each level is themed after a certain area for example one level has you in the sewers while another has you fighting on a ship. The only items in the game are pizza boxes that refill your health or red pizza boxes that gave you a spinning attack for a few seconds. You can also interact with certain objects while going though the stages some of them helping you while others would hurt you. Overall I liked the level designs of the game. The only complaint I have the levels were not long and most could be beaten within 5 minutes or less.
Graphically the game uses a brighter color palate which I felt worked well for the game. The character and enemy animations look good and that helped me enjoy the game more. The game also has a option for you to switch the color palette to a more comic book color scheme which tones the colors down a little darker which I felt was a nice touch. The games audio is also well done from the sound effects to the music. Overall I felt the game had a good presentation.
The game has a campaign that supports 1 to 2 players and is also the main part of the game. The game supports three levels of difficulty which is noticeable in the enemy aggressiveness and boss difficulty. There is a Time Trails mode that gives 3 areas to pick from that are broken into five 30 second areas. You are given one life to get the fastest time. There is also a two player versus mode where you fighter each other using the turtles in a best 2 out of 3 setting. The time trails mode is alright and the versus mode is a nice diversion. They do add some more features to the game which is not a bad thing.
While my own enjoyment of the source material does help me enjoy this game more than some people, it is still a good game in its own right. The game looks good, sounds good and plays good. The extra modes, while limited, do provide extras to do after the main game. My only complaint about the game is that the game's campaign is short, the whole game can be beaten in around 30 minutes depending on the difficulty.