Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan

"Poor, Poor Robots.."

The year was 1990. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was all the rage. Almost everybody was a fanboy {or fangirl} and if you weren't, you were a reject. It's popularity was like a license to print money, thus came a great wave of products. Of all the items created, the video games were the must have. {Well, that and the videos.}

Sadly, when I was all but a young boy, I too was a fanboy. Sucked in by their ''good always wins over evil'' cliche, I couldn't get enough of the these shelled heroes.

But all things must pass, and I soon grew out of the fanboy phase, and into the.. err.. more ''mature'' aspects of April that they seemed to have either ignored or designed into her to get an older male audience.

So now, 13 years after this games release, I'm ready to review a game from my childhood.. hopefully I'm not too biased now to be unfair..

Plot-
Score: 1
Reason: The standard ''April's been kidnapped! Let's beat up Shredder to save her!'' story line. It seems Shredder has nothing better to do with his time than kidnap chicks in yellow body suit things to make a bunch of turtles mad. But, all kidding aside, this is the plot of a whole lot of these games. They call this the ''Fall of the Foot Clan,'' but you know they'll just be back for another game. These things have a way of not dying until they're sucked dry.

Music-
Score: 5
Reason: While not the best music, atleast almost every level has it's own music, which is a plus. However, the sound effects are pretty bad. Some whacks here, some booms there some almost party favor-esc sounds all around.

Graphics-
Score: 5
Reason: Standard Game Boy stuff. Nothing all that great.. though some of the backgrounds are pretty decent.

Control-
Score: 7
Reason: The controls, for the most part, are pretty good. However, jumping is pretty slow and awkward. It was a nice feature for them to give them the ability to use throwing stars when they kneel.

Difficulty-
Score: 1
Reason: To start it off, you can choose which level you want to start at. That's right, you can INSTANTLY move to the last level of the game. And since there are no items to collect, or power ups to be found, you can beat the game in about 10 minutes. Even if you play through the entire game, you shouldn't have much trouble. Most of the enemies are easy to read and react to. And, to add to the ease of the game, there are hidden ''areas'' in most of the levels that easily recharge your life meter to full.

Overall-
Score: 5

Bottom Line: If you're a fan of the Ninja Turtles, then get this game. If not, just pass this game up.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/25/03, Updated 07/25/03