A playthrough of Ultra's 1990 license-based action game for the Nintendo Game Boy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan.
Showing up about four months ahead of TMNT 2: The Arcade Game on the NES, Fall of the Foot Clan was the second TMNT game that Konami put out for a Nintendo machine. I remember it being a pretty big deal at the time - the show was insanely popular, the blockbuster movie had only just recently left theaters, and it was one of the best games Konami had produced to this point for Nintendo's fledgling handheld system.
Instead of the vaguely non-linear game play of its precursor, Fall of the Foot Clan is a left-to-right scrolling beat 'em up that feels like an updated take on Irem's Kung Fu Master.
The turtles all play alike, and the controls are easy to master. Between a standing attack, a jump kick, and an unlimited supply of shuriken that can be thrown by ducking and hitting the attack button, you're equipped more than well enough to handle the Foot Clan.
It's a much simpler game than the first NES game ( • Teenage Mutant Ninja T... ) was to accommodate the shift to the small screen, but it was a gift to everyone whose soul had been utterly crushed by the NES game's difficulty level. The relaxed flow of play, probably a result of the developers' attempts to minimize ghosting on the Game Boy's passive matrix LCD panel, made Fall of the Foot Clan a much easier game. That's not a bad thing, mind you. For a Konami game of its vintage it's remarkably friendly to the casual gamer, and unlike the first TMNT game, I'm sure many people managed to see this one through to the end.
It's a bit quaint to look at now, but it was an impressive bit of work way back. The sprites are huge (relative to the screen size, at least) and they dwarf anything you'd typically see on the NES, and the soundtrack (courtesy Michiru Yamane) does magic with the Game Boy's audio. There weren't many Game Boy soundtracks that ever managed to top this one despite how early Fall of the Foot Clan came out in the system's life.
This was one of those games that I would pop in for a quick game again and again and I never got tired of it. It's mindless, easy fun, and it's a great choice if you want to chill with a game without getting frustrated.
*Recorded with a Retroarch shader to mimic the look of the original hardware.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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