Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters

"Yes, dudes and dudettes! Major league butt kicking is back in town!"

“Lets kick shell!” TMNT Tournament Fighters was different from the rest of Konami's other TMNT games. Most of them were side scrollers or beat-em-ups but TMNT Tournament Fighters was a one-on-one fighter that's very similar to Street Fighter 2.

Gameplay- This game plays a lot like Street Fighter 2. Unlike the majority of Street Fighter 2 clones, this one actually came close to the quality of Street Fighter 2 and sometimes even surpassed it. Many of the characters also play like Street Fighter 2 characters. For example, Leonardo's moves are almost exactly the same as Ryu's and are even executed the same way. Raphael is similar to M. Bison, Donatello is similar to Chun-Li, Chrome Dome is similar to Dhalsim, etc. They also added a special character Aska (who can use an ass attack) exclusively for this game. The controls aren't clunky and the moves are easy to pull off which makes this game so much fun. If you've played Street Fighter 2 before then you shouldn't have any problems adapting to this game at all. This was also one of the first games to use super moves although they were extremely easy to pull off. Street Fighter didn't use supers until Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo.

Story- Nothing special. Fighters enter a tournament for different reasons…

Graphics- Excellent. It looks like a Capcom or SNK fighter with TMNT characters. This is probably the best looking 2D TMNT game. The hand-drawn sprites and backgrounds are full of color and detail. The animation is also nice and fluid. Overall, this game could probably pass off as an arcade game (I'm surprised they didn't make an arcade version in the first place).

Sound- The sound is decent. It's about the same as any other fighter on the SNES (grunts, smacks, yells, etc.). Sadly, none of the memorable TMNT tunes made it in this game.

Final Score- 10/10. Highly recommended. IMO this is one of the best fighting games ever. Fans of TMNT or fighting games should definitely check it out and this is a must have for SNES owners.

There are also NES and Genesis versions of this game but they're completely different and not that great.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/27/04