Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time

"Ninja Turtles at their best, in a video game."

I can easily say that this is the best game based on a show or movie. To tell you the truth though, there aren’t many good ones out there at all. It almost seems like a rule to me that every game based on a movie or television show sucks. (Besides X-Men games) But Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time is awesome! You’ve got all of your mean green turtle power with all of the classic bad guys. Obviously one of the best side-scrollers there is, and I frankly don’t care one bit about the age of games. And I’ve always been a Ninja Turtles fan, ever since I was very little. It was my first favorite cartoon! So naturally, playing a Ninja Turtles game is so cool for me… and I still have likingness for it and I still play this game!

Graphics
The graphics in this game were quite good indeed. The environments have a fairly good amount of detail, as do your turtles and enemies. The animation of all the different attacks in this game was beyond quite good. It was very good. From what I’ve seen, lots of games of this type don’t do very well in this area, so it’s a very good effort that came out well.

Music and Sound
You know how Ninja Turtles music generally is, don’t you? With that city-type music, sometimes happy or intense… you know. To no one’s surprise, the music was just like that in this game. With the city-type tunes, it fit in more than well to the level and made the experience better.

The sounds weren’t really all that good, especially when you look at them right next to music. There was some very minor voice acting from the turtles, and they were their classic catch phrases like “Cowabunga!” and “Pizza Time!” Unfortunately, they sounded horrible and made me want to cover my ears. Other sounds were just little power-up sounds and explosions. The explosions really weren’t too great, either. Not too great at all. But honestly, I’d like to meet someone who thinks the sounds in a game really impact a game. No one? Okay then.

Gameplay
Of course, the gameplay rocks! First of all, you’ve got your basic four playable turtles, and I’m sure you’ve all seen and heard of them before: Leo, Mike, Don, and Raph. (No, not Ralph, and I used shortened versions of their names since I can’t exactly spell their full names correctly.) So anyway, they’ve got all their original weapons as well: Leo has swords, Mike uses a nunchaku, Don used his stick rod and Raph uses his little… things. (Trident-dagger type of things) They’ve all got their little advantages and weak points, so it does really matter a bit about who you’re picking. While you are playing the game, the screen is side scrolling, so it’s just a beat-em-up. Just go through the level while beating up all your enemies and restoring life through pizza. At the end of every level, there is a boss who you must defeat.

And during the adventure, Shredder gets a bit POed and sends you through time. So you really have to go through a bunch of time zones throughout the game! It’s pretty cool to see your mean green turtles go flying through space into a little picture of the time zone… =P

Challenge
Blargh. It was pretty easy, to say the least. I found most normal enemies quite lame in their battle skills and weaponry. Of course, there are difficulty levels that you can adjust and that makes the game much more enjoyable, because playing an easy game is not enjoyable. Playing on hard makes the game much more difficult… finally, I’ve got something. And the bosses, with the exception of a few, were laughable. I find myself saying, ”Haha, that was a BOSS?”

Wrap-Up
Mean green turtles with some good action in a nice side-scrolling game. I especially found this attracting at first because of the entire Ninja Turtles concept. I mean, please. Ninja Turtles are awesome, right?! Anyway, this is a great game that will keep you playing. I still play this game a lot myself. And so do many other people. Screw system age. Remember the game quality for a system. And this is a very good game for the SNES.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/31/01, Updated 05/31/01