Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Japan 4 Players, version 2) - MAME machine

Arcade Video game published 35 years ago:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles スーパー亀忍者 © 1989 Konami.
(Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Super Kame Ninja)

A sideways scrolling beat-em-up in which up to four players can choose to play as either 'Leonardo' (blue, katana blades), 'Raphael' (red, sais), 'Michaelangelo' (orange, nunchakas) or 'Donatello' (purple, bo staff) as the infamous turtles fight against the might of Shredder's army to try and rescue 'April O'Neil' and 'Splinter', before a final confrontation with their arch-enemies 'Krang' and 'The Shredder'.

Ninja Turtles featured just two buttons - for 'Jump' and 'Attack' - making for simple and immediate gameplay. Visually the game made great use of its license and perfectly captured the spirit of both the original comic-book and cartoon series upon which it was based. The game also featured a 'buy-in' option, meaning that new players could join in at any time.

TECHNICAL
Game ID: GX963

Main CPU: Motorola 68000 (@ 8 Mhz)
Sound CPU: Zilog Z80 (@ 3.579545 Mhz)
Sound Chips: Yamaha YM2151 (@ 3.579545 Mhz), Konami K007232 (@ 3.579545 Mhz), UPD7759 (@ 3.579545 Mhz)

Screen orientation: Horizontal
Video resolution: 304 x 224 pixels
Screen refresh: 60.00 Hz
Palette colors: 1024

Players: 4
Control: 8-way joystick
Buttons: 2

TRIVIA
The subtitle of this game translates from Japanese as 'Super Turtle Ninja'.

Export releases:
This game is known outside Japan as "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [Model GX963]" and in UK as "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles [Model GX963]".

This game was based on the first season of the original 1989 cartoon show.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in 1984 and published by Mirage Studios. The whole idea for the comic book (which was originally published in Black and White) came from the nickname 'Ninja Turtle' that one of the creators had when they were young.
In 1987, Playmates Toys bought the rights of the characters to produce a line of Action Figures. That same year Playmates made a TV adaptation of the story for a 5-episode mini series which became a huge success. Two years later, the series went on full production and was aired on CBS stations from 1989 to 1996 (with brief hiatus in 1993-1994).
The success of this 'Humanoid Action Animal' concept spawned (or shed some light on) many other comics, toys and TV shows such as Bucky O'Hare, Swat Kats, C.O.W. Boys of Moo Mesa, Street Sharks, Biker Mice from Mars among others; most of them became complete blunders.

After the first series was cancelled other shows based on these characters appeared, such as, Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation (Saban Productions, Live Action), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and TMNT Fast-Forward. However, the 1980's craze never took off again.

Konami hit the jackpot with this game. It was so successful that Konami went on a license-acquiring craze. They got the rights to many American (and some European) TV shows and Comic Books for home and arcade videogames with a quality so good that sometimes shadowed the original work.

This game is mainly based in the first 5 episode mini-series. However, it contains some references to the original comic book. The opening scene is a mix between a scene in the TV show in which a building is raided by the TMNT to find for the first time the Technodrome and a scene of the comic book in which Shredder sets fire to April's building when he finds she's harboring the turtles (that scene was also taken for the movie). At the Parking Lot scene, there is a van that has the logo of TCRI. TCRI (or TGRI in the movie) was the company responsible for the mutagen; in the TV show, it was Shredder's invention.

The first names of turtles; Michaelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, and Donatello, are the names of Italian Renaissance artists who lived between 1386 and 1564. Three of those artists had full names which were respectively Michaelangelo Buonariti, Raphael Sanzio and Leonardo Da Vinci; but as for Donatello, that was his only name.

In the ending epilogue, Konami spell Dimension X: 'Dimention X'.

Soundtrack Releases:
Konami Special Music Senryo-Bako Heisei 3 Nen-Ban (KICA-9005~8) (December 21, 1990)

TIPS AND TRICKS

• Various Sewer Level Tricks:

1) When fighting in the sewer level, move your character as close as you can to the edge of the stone floor without falling to the water. If done correctly, no enemy in this level including the boss can touch you here as long as you remain on the floor's edge!
2) Stand just below the ledge in the middle of the screen. Then jump straight up. You will land just on the edge of the upper level. Nothing can hurt you for the rest of that level, but you can kill anything that comes close enough to you (You can't move up or down though, or you'll have to repeat this trick).
3) You can keep from getting hit by walking right along the edge of the brick floor. This prevents enemies from attacking you from multiple directions. You still need to nail enemies directly in front of you or behind you. This is easy with Donatello.

• You can theoretically get unlimited points. Use the yellow guy's boomerang. Lead one yellow guy in such a way that he gets stuck at an object (fire hydrant or barrel) between you and him, aligned horizontally. He will try to move toward you, but he won't be able to move since the object is near him. Get close enough to him so that he starts throwing boomerangs. You can kill each one for (wow!) 1 point.
• Killing most bosses consist of 3 strategies: They all consist of moving vertically towards the bosses.

1) Move vertically upwards, hit the boss, and move vertically downwards. Repeat until dead. Works well on Bebop.
2) Wait for the boss to move vertically down towards you, wait for him, hit him, and move vertically upwards. Repeat until he's dead. Works best on Rocksteady. Best results occur when you hit and run at the same time.
3) Wait for the boss to move vertically towards you. Jump over him, move through him and attack as you do this, keep moving. Repeat. Works well on the big robots.

SERIES

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Super Kame Ninja (1989)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Turtles in Time (1991)

STAFF
Director: H. Ohyama
Sub director: K. Takabayashi
Game programmer: G. Suzuki
Character designer: Moriyanma 25
Graphic designer: K. Hattori
Visual designer: Y. Asano
Animation designer: K. Yamashita
Sound director: Shinji Tasaka
Sound designer: Imo Hideto
Music composer: Mutsuhiko Izumi, Miki Chang
Hardware designer: S. Matsumoto

PORTS

• CONSOLES:

[JP] Nintendo Famicom (dec.7, 1990; "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [Model RC853]")
Microsoft XBOX 360 [XBLA] [JP] (mar.14, 2007)

CONTRIBUTE
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