They are heroes in a half shell....but seem to be possessed by the devil

The past few months have been slightly odd for me. Out of the blue, I remember suddenly receiving an 80s cartoon quiz from a friend at work and I remember seeing images of very random 80s cartoons that I had completely forgotten about (does anyone remember Bravestarr, Denver the Last Dinosaur or Poddington Peas?). In fact, I think I had ended up growing up so quickly that I quickly forgot about these cartoons and the quiz was a great reminder of my childhood years of watching multiple cartoons in all my youthful innocence. But I think it has to be said that one of the few 80s cartoons that I vividly remember is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I vaguely remember what happened in various episodes but having watched the movie, played the video games on the Super Nintendo and on the original Game Boy console and having collected multiple ninja turtle action figures, I was a huge fan back in the day. Thus I was very excited when I saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the Game Boy Advance (from now on in referred to as GBA) in the local department store. Having just received a GBA as a present for my 21st birthday and attempting to diversify my one-game collection, I thought this would be the perfect game to get. In some way I am glad that I have gotten it. But to some extent, I was left pretty disappointed. More on that later.

For those of you who do not know who the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are, you either have been living in a cave in the last 30 years or you were just born the other day. Just kidding. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are essentially turtles that are mutated and have human-like qualities. On top of that, they have possessed and been trained as ninjas by Splinter, a human-sized rat who also possesses human characteristics. There are four turtles whose names are Leonardo, Raphael, Michaelangelo and Donatello. Leonardo wears the blue mask and has a pair of katana (i.e. samurai swords) as weapons. Raphael adorns the red mask and his weapons are a pair of sais (or fork-like swords). Michaelangelo dons the orange mask along with a pair of nunchaku (or nunchucks or the chain-like weapon that has two pieces of wood that is tied together by a chain of some sort). And last but not least, Donatello has the purple mask using the bo (i.e. a long wooden stick) as his weapon. Together, the turtles fight crime and try to overcome the evil Shredder, a human being adorning a metal mask and costume that is used to hide his identity, and his Foot Soldiers who are essentially human thugs that wear purple masks (that cover their entire faces as opposed to only the eyes as is the case with the turtles) and costumes and use their ninja skills to fight against the turtles.

As one can guess from what has been said above, the objective of this game is to go through a series of stages by killing off various bad guys (including Foot Soldiers, general thugs and mini leaping robots) before reaching the final stage and the final face-off against Shredder. As to how the individual turtles gets to eventually fight Shredder differs from turtle to turtle. Leonardo's story involves rescuing April O'Neill and crawling through sewers. Raphael's story involves his rivalry with Casey Jones, a man who wears a mask and fights using an ice-hockey stick and baseball bat. Michaelangelo's story involves fighting 20-foot monsters created by mad scientist Baxter Stockman and avoiding lava. Donatello's story involves fighting multiple foot soldiers and flying on a hand glider. After each individual turtle finishes off his story, they all have to go through the same final stages in the lead-up to the fight against Shredder. The characters' stories is structured in such a way that each turtle has two stages where they walk and attack various enemies, ride some sort of vehicle either killing enemies along the way or in a race and fight a boss of some sort in the final stage of each respective story.

However it has to be said that the various stories and how they tie in with the overall plot to defeat Shredder are weak. Raphael's story, for example, does not seem to have any relation to the overall objective of the game and parts of the game seemed to steal some ideas directly from the aptly-named film from 1990 (again, Raphael's incorrect story about his rivalry with Casey Jones). Certain characters are mentioned once or twice during a character's story but are never mentioned again afterwards which means the story ends up being somewhat incomplete. I was not overly enthusiastic about how it introduces some key characters from the cartoon but does not even mention other key characters from the cartoon (I will not say who but you will be able to figure it out when you play it). I would have also preferred if certain characters from the original cartoon were used as bosses in the final stages of the respective turtles instead of random characters that I never heard of or seen in the original TV series before. I also feel that by introducing the older characters it would have tied up the various loose ends within the plot a bit better as these characters have a stronger link to Shredder than some random monster that does not seem to have that same bond as the other characters do. As a fan of the original cartoon series, this is what I would have preferred.

It should also be mentioned that there are hidden stages that can only be unlocked once the game has been completed by all the characters. However, be warned it is similar to a particular stage and Raphael is the only character that is seen in the unlocked stages. Again, it is slightly annoying that these stages can only be played with Raphael and would have easily worked if all characters were able to play these stages.

Before I carry on ranting about the various faults within the story, a little bit about the technical aspects of the game. In regards to the overall game play, this is actually one of the best aspects of the game. It is very, very easy to play this game and each turtle has similar yet, at the same time, different functions. Each turtle is able to jump and are able to attack an opponent using their weapon and by kicking and all turtles have some sort of mid-air attack. The turtles also have a special attack that can be used and one can use such an attack if they want to ensure that the rest of the enemies on screen lose some of their life. One should also be warned that certain characters are easier to use than others. I find that all the characters are pretty easy to use but Donatello is significantly harder to use than the other characters. The game play is somewhat simplified as this is a GBA game but I find that the simplistic nature of the game is good. However the restricted movement and stop-start game play to complete each part of a stage does start to drive one crazy and becomes pretty repetitive but to me, this is a relatively minor problem as I was still able to enjoy the game.

I also found that the controls are very responsive and easy to learn. Other than the directional pad on the GBA, there are only two buttons to learn: jump and attack. You can also be assured that when you constantly press the buttons, the characters on the screen will emulate what you want your character to do (i.e. jump or attack or do a jump-attack).

I also really liked the graphics of the game. The different backgrounds for the characters' stages are nicely illustrated and there is even some movement in the background whilst you fight enemies (which was rare on the old Game Boy console). The attention to graphic detail is particularly solid for a GBA game and the various shades and colours used in the game are used to great effect on the characters and in the background. The characters are also designed very well and move freely on the screen. One minor complaint I do have is that the turtles themselves look pretty sinister. They always have a somewhat angry look on their face and they do not seem to be shown as the cool dudes that they are supposed to be. The 2-D graphics shown on this game were pretty impressive and shows the great advances in the improvement of graphics from the original Game Boy console to the Game Boy Advance.

The game uses some very basic sounds. Like the original Game Boy console, the sounds used for this game are of a low quality. The music used in various stages also pretty low in its quality. Even with that said, I did enjoy the theme music for the game. It is also pretty easy to differentiate between the various sounds of the game. For example, sounds used for attacking robots and attacking human opponents are different whilst the attacking sounds for the turtles themselves are different too. The energetic, rocking background music suits the game pretty well.

However the biggest problem I had with this game is the replayability of the game. Once you are able to figure out how to play this game you will easily complete this game within a week. Once the stages are complete and all the hidden stages are unlocked, there really is no other incentive or reason for one to play this game. The fact that the hidden stages all concerns Raphael makes it even more monotonous and less interesting to try out the different hidden stages. The lack of flexibility in determining the outcome of the game is probably another reason why the game's replayability is not that high. Once one completes the game on all the levels of difficulty (i.e. easy, normal and hard), one knows what happens at the end of each stage. Considering that this game cost me about US$70, I expected a bit more from the game. I guess if one were to prolong the playing time for this game, the game autosaves for you at the end of each stage. Therefore you can complete a stage then turn the game off at the end of the stage and complete a stage a day to lengthen the playing time of the game. I have never tried this method myself so I cannot say if this will actually work (hey, its merely a suggestion).

Despite all its flaws, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is still a game worth purchasing. Although the game does have a lot of fighting, I would not have any hesitation in allowing a 7 or 8 year old kid to play this game as no blood is shed and I do not think this is the type of game that would turn a child into a violent child. If I am able to turn out to be a non-violent person after watching the cartoon series and playing the game at the young, young age of 7 then other children that age should not be affected. I also would strongly suggest any Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' fan to get this one as this is a rather enjoyable game and is the type of game that would get one re-acquainted with childhood memories. However be warned. This game will be completed very, very quickly.

Thanks for reading the review.