Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

aka: TMNT
Moby ID: 10839
PlayStation 2 Specs
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Description official descriptions

Based on the newer anime styled FOX cartoon of the same name, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles features Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello as green ninjas. Living in the sewers, they creep out when nobody is looking to fight for truth, justice and another slice of pizza. Fighting against the public face of inventor Baxter Stockman and the more shadowy figure of Shredder and his Foot Clan, these Ninja Turtles will get the chance to make their opponents eat shell!

The game is a 3D beat-em-up with multiple players. The game sprites all resemble the cartoony look of the TV show and each turtle features unique moves, sound bytes and fighting style all his own. Ninja Turtle moves include a weaker/quicker attack, a stronger/slower attack, Ninja Shuriken and a Jump-Kick.

Spellings

  • 忍者神龟 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

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Screenshots

Promos

Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

93 People (75 developers, 18 thanks) · View all

Director
Game Designers
Main Game Programmer
System Programmers
Assistant
Lead Designer - Character Design
Designers - Character Design
Lead Designer - Character Animation
Animators - Character Animation
Character Setup
Lead Designer - Level Design
Designers - Level Design
2D Designer
Lead Editor - Image Edit
Sound Producer
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 52% (based on 33 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 39 ratings with 4 reviews)

Old-School, Yet Missing One Important Element.

The Good
To start, the main pull was the graphics. This visual effects are great, with the cel-shading, and cartoony attacks. It's an impressive looking and well animated title to watch, and each turtle behaves differently, unlike the original arcade games of yore. The cut scenes also blend in well with the style, and help to advance the story, which seems based off plot lines from the new series.

The "authenticity" factor is further enhanced by having the actual voice-overs from the show, which is a cool feature.

And to it's credit, it feels like one of the old-school Turtle games. Lots of enemies to fight, things to smash.... If you like a good stomping through button-masher, this works pretty well. And I do like the fact that going through bonus rounds gives new attack abilities. Clever move for an attempt to broaden the game's depth. And there's also a lot of cool bonus features, including some great choices for unlockable characters.

The Bad
I can't go any farther without hitting the biggest problem: It's not four-player, and there's no excuse for that. Sure, they adjusted that in the sequel, but for this game, how they dropped the ball on such an important feature is beyond me. Konami was well-known for its 4-player madness in the late '80' - early '90's. The fact that they didn't do it here is just puzzling.

The voices? Authentic, but repetitive. If you're going to use voices for attacks, Konami, keep it diverse. And they didn't. Hearing Michelangelo scream "Eat feet" over and over during his attack... well, it's a bit much. The music is also on the forgettable side. It's a shame that the new "Turtles" theme wasn't quite as catchy as the old one. I barely remember the music in this game, if at all.

In terms of difficulty, this game ramps up pretty high, and stays tough, even for two players. That junkyard robot boss will just destroy players, and I don't like that. If they're going to be tough or have a high life bar, that's one thing. But don't make some lower-ranking boss a huge time-consuming process. It kills the mood. Wait until the end so that it's more worthwhile.

The Bottom Line
Don't get me wrong. As an old-school gamer, I freaked when Konami announced that a new TMNT game was on the way after all these years. And for most respects, I was happy. It's just that it killed me when I found out that the game was only two-player, and for this game, that just doesn't seem right.

The game does a good job emulating the old games, while adding some new features to make the game more "now". I liked the presentation. I liked the graphics and authenticity of the (overused) voices. I'm just glad that the "beat 'em up" genre has made something of a return again, because these types of games were among my favorites. But no matter the attempt, I just feel like something is missing.

And it's that 4-player thing.

You can tell the people who made this game were Turtle fans just by the bonus content alone, and some of the original programmers worked on this game as well. Still a fun enough game, but it's not the full return home that you would expect or even hope for.

GameCube · by Guy Chapman (1748) · 2004

A great game. Fantastic art direction with gameplay reminiscent of SNES beat'em-ups.

The Good
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 for the NES was one of the first (and sadly, only) games I owned, and somehow, I never ever got bored of it. Whether I played it alone or had a friend with me, I knew the ins-and-outs of every single level, I had it down to a math. I knew just when to smack that fire hydrant that would blow the cap off it, knocking down a row of foot clan ninja dudes, I could deflect Krang's blows way before he knew what was going on, and Shredder never stood a chance. I was a true Ninja Turtle, baby.

And while I think this latest addition falls a little short of the "fun factor" that I felt when playing TMNT2, it's still a great beat'em-up, true to the series and complete with multiplayer coop!

First of all, the art direction is wonderful. A cell-shaded game that looks and plays like it's coming right out of the cartoon or comic book, with "krash!!" and "slash!" and "kapow!" appearing in comicy letters over various cartoony explosions and fights. With tons of levels to play through and a story that unfolds as you play a long, four characters to choose from with their own combat styles, this game is hours of great fun.

The Bad
Unfortunately, I have a few gripes about the game. I'm not certain, but I heard somewhere that this game is based off a new cartoon of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that is supposedly more true to the comic book series. I've never read the comic, and the only 'Turtles I know are from that old Saturday-morning cartoon, so the change in characteristics in this game is a bit awkward for me. Between stages, you're treated to animated cutscenes that may or may not have been taken from this new cartoon version. They're...okay...but they're not nearly the level of quality of the old version. April O'Neil looks like a ditsy valley-girl, Casey Jones is just a dumbass, and the Turtles all seem to be way too similar. In the old cartoon, Raph had a temper (and made terrible jokes), Leonardo was the wise leader type guy, Donatello tinkered, and Michaelangelo partied and stuff. Now, it's still there in these cutscenes, but it's been very, very dulled. If it weren't for Donatello mentioning "technology" every now and then, or Leonardo saying "I don't think that's a good idea" once or twice, the only way you would be able to tell the Turtles apart would be by the color of their headbands. And the animation hasn't improved after all these years, either. It just doesn't look like as much effort has been put into this one, aside from some 3D post-production effects. It looks more like an anime than my favorite Saturday morning cartoon.

I wish there had been more varied, or interesting levels in this game. One level is played on the back of a semi truck racing down the street, another level takes you into some underground cavern, and one level you're in some sort of Tron-esque world, but other than that all the levels are pretty boring and hard to tell apart. They're just boring and uninteresting. Why couldn't there have been more levels like the truck one? That one rocked, but it was far too short.

The game saves your place after every stage completed, but it doesn't save your spot after every level, meaning, if you play through seven levels within a certain stage, die at the end-boss, you've gotta play through the entire thing again. I suppose this beats having to play through the entire game from the start like in my old TMNT2, but I've been spoiled by mordern games and I EXPECT a savegame feature, if not a better checkpoint system. The fact is, I haven't even beaten the game. I'm on the very last stage, and I cannot beat the end-boss. He's a pain in the ass, and it takes almost an hour to play through the stages to get to him, and it's aggrivating when you've done it five times only to fail each time.

Levels could have moved along a bit faster. Fighting the bad guys is loads of fun, but there's nothing more to it than rapping on the attack button until they all die, and some levels, they just don't stop coming at you. One wave after the other after the other after the other...and then you move up a few feet, fight a hundred more bad guys...move a few feet, and so on. It's fun for a while, but it just goes too slow.

The Bottom Line
If you're a fan of beat'em-up games, I would really recommend this one. The great graphics alone almost makes up for its faults. And any game is fun with coop!

Windows · by kbmb (415) · 2004

1, 2, 3, 4, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES!!!

The Good
I got TMNT for my GameCube as an early Christmas present, and OH, MY GOD I was SO impressed!!! The graphics ARE SO FREAKING AWESOME!!!!!! THE GAMEPLAY ROCKS!!! I also found it cool that the moment you turn on the game, you get treated to the new cartoon theme music! And some cutscenes look like they were taken directly from the show!!! The VS. Mode is FUN with a capital F!! Need I say it again, this game is SO F-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-N!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Bad
Are ya kiddin'? NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Bottom Line
Fans of TMNT of all ages: FOR THE SAKE OF PETE, GO TO YOUR LOCAL STORE AND BUY THIS ULTRA FUN AND ADDICTIVE GAME NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This game DEFINITELY gets a 10 out of 10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GameCube · by Dark Cloud (31) · 2003

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Multi language support for German or UK version? Leonardo Righi Jun 5, 2021

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Shoddyan.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Guy Chapman.

Game added November 1, 2003. Last modified February 5, 2024.