Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Turtles in Time (Arcade) (Switch)

 

They're heroes in a half shell and they're green!

The second arcade game of TMNT games. Now Kraang appears on live television and steals the Statue of Liberty so the turtles suit up and fight on some construction that takes them to the sewer where Shredder sends them true a time portal to prehistoric time so the turtles gonna fight their way back to stop Shredder and his evil plans. After prehistory they end up on a pirate ship captained by the mutants from the second TMNT movie and then a train ride in the wild west. If I wouldn't know better it sounds like the music for this stage sounds like Sunset Riders? And coincidently they both came out in 1991. The boss is the alligator dude.

If it's the alligator dude I read in the comics he apparently was some small time thief that stole a crystal ball from a witch and while in New York dropped it into the sewer where he encountered the witch again and was turned into the alligator dude (I don't recall his name). That was terrifying as a kid and the worst part was that the comic was at least a 2-parter and we only had the first issue. So I don't know what happened.

After that they travel to the future, first a futuristic city on earth where they fight Kraang on a highway and then a starbase from the year 2100. After that back to 1991 and the final confrontation with Shredder. A much easier game, proven if not by a much lower death count. Started with 101 (added an extra life by accident) and ended on 52, almost 25 lives less spent on this game, and it felt like I did a lot better as well. A better game overall than the last game. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade) (Switch)

They're the worlds most fearsome fighting Team!

Something short, the Arcade version of the Teenage Mutant Turtles game on the Cowabunga Collection for the Switch (and other platforms). A fire burst out in Apil's apartment so the shelled crusaders set out fighting through hordes of footsoldiers and mousers to rescue April and later on Splinter from Shredder, Bee-Bop and Rocksteady, Baxter Stockman, Kraang and... the rest of the bosses I don't recognise. After April's apartment it's the streets of New York, above and below followed by a factory that is the entrance to the Technodrome where the final confrontation of the Shredder. After his defeat the Technodrome explodes, our heroes escape and the game is over.

I was a huge Turtles fan as a kid, which is strange since we didn't have the series, but our neighbour had several of the episodes taped on a VHS. The ones I recall is one where some crazed scientist invents a machine that freezes people (where the ending is Donatello hanging frozen over a pit of acid or something) and one episode where a vase contained a genie (?). We got some comics from my cousins that also had the NES-game. The comics was based on the TV-series and not the original comics run or something. I got a Raphael toy with a motorbike that turned into a helicopter as well. And I saw the first two movies when we borrowed it from the neighbour when they came out.

Not much say about the game, short, brutal at least for one player (but it's solved with infinite continues). Started with something like 108 continues that ended somewhere just above 40. Would have liked a bit more recovering frames after each hit since I got pummeled over and over by the last bosses. No stake with the arcade version, but still,  quarter muncher is a rather telling description of the game.