A playthrough of Konami's 1994 license-based fighting game for the NES, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters.
This video shows each of the game modes:
Story mode played as Leonardo 2:12
Tournament mode as Shredder 16:13
Vs. CPU mode with the remaining characters 21:34
The NES's official library of about 700 games spans a huge array of genres, but for as popular as the versus-fighter became in the wake of Street Fighter II's release, the 8-bit console wasn't well suited to the genre. Urban Fighter, Karate Champ, and Best of the Best were conceptually similar, but it wasn't until Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters appeared at the end of the NES's life that the machine finally saw a fighting game cast from the Capcom mold - a "Street Fighter II clone," if you will.
And while it obviously can't compete with the SNES version of Tournament Fighters, it's no slouch of a game. You get your choice of seven selectable fighters (the Turtles, Casey, Hothead, and Shredder) that can dash, block, counter, and throw, and each one has his own unique special moves. There's even a fireball finishing move that any fighter can use if he can collect the orb that Splinter drops into the arena.
All the basics are here, and though the game play is a bit on the simple side, it's rock solid. The game offers standard 1P story, 2P versus, and 4P tournament modes, the controls are responsive, the SF2-style command inputs feel natural and are easy to pull off, and the characters are reasonably well balanced against one another.
The game moves at a speedy pace, and though they come at the cost of some occasional flicker, the characters are large and surprisingly well animated. Hothead is especially impressive - he's enormous for a playable character in an NES game! The soundtrack is fueled by some punchy chiptune rock, and along with the requisite "FIGHT!" voice sample, there are quite a few digitized grunts, yells, and screams thrown in to good effect. Shredder's beefy yell is one of the greatest noises I've ever heard come out of an NES.
Konami's final NES game makes a valiant effort to deliver an experience on par with 16-bit fighting games, and the result is nothing short of jaw-dropping. Since its inclusion in the upcoming Cowabunga Collection means that you'll finally be able to play it legitimately without having to fork over hundreds of dollars for an original cartridge, I'd absolutely recommend giving it a shot.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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