nostalgia is one shell of a thing.
If there is one franchise that I know backwards and forwards, it’s the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was old enough to be its target demographic when the original cartoon series hit in 1987, even if I was already aware of them through their more mature comics that preluded their turn into being a kid-friendly brand. Still, throughout the years, there have been some great games featuring the heroes in a half shell as well as some rather disappointing ones. While this collection is a mixture of both, it is undeniably a treasure trove of turtle power.
Back in June, we were treated to the wonderful TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, a spiritual sequel to the original arcade games, dripping in nostalgia and seriously bringing the goods when it came to replicating the feel of those original games. Now that the Cowabunga Collection has been released, you can more easily grasp just how well Tribute Games executed its vision and how several of these games have either aged remarkably well or just don’t quite hold up.
The Cowabunga Collection features 13 games ranging from the original arcade beat’em ups, their ports on the home consoles, the franchise’s dip into the fighting genre, as well as a few of the handheld adventures on the original Gameboy. While I’ve played the majority of these games at various points in my life, some, such as the original arcade classic, I haven’t played since visiting the local arcade back when I was in high school.
Included in this collection is also a wealth of extra content that borders from being somewhat trivial to downright incredible. While the screengrabs of each episode of every cartoon series can feel a bit random in their inclusion here, the real impressive content on display is easily the design documents showcasing the history behind these games as well as checking out all the original game boxes, comic book covers, and soundtracks for each and every game. While some aspects of the design documents are censored, likely due to the rights of other publishers, it’s still a very rare treat to see such a behind-the-scenes history showcased in such a celebratory way.
This collection also takes four of its included titles and offers them up with online play, complete with rollback netcode. While this is accessed through a different menu, you can take the original Arcade Game, Turtles in Time, Tournament Fighters (SNES), and the Genesis version of The Hyperstone Heist online, and that is it. You can create lobbies or join random ones, and honestly, the few matches I checked out ran pretty damn well.
Draped in a comic book-style menu, where the game’s cover and gameplay are front and center in full color, the presentation here pops. The comic panels are oddly pulled from the original graphic novels, where the turtles all featured red bandanas and were far more graphic than anything we really have seen from the franchise since. Each game also allows you to opt into either the standard US release or the Japanese one, with some games having slight differences in how a character’s move will act, text and sound effect differences, or, in the example of Tournament Fighters, Aska’s Japanese version wears slightly less of an outfit and has a particular “bounce” to her victory pose that we never had in the US release.
Each game can also start with various enhancements that change from game to game. The arcade games allow you to start on any level, turn on god mode, as well play through nightmare mode, which is aptly named. Turtles in Time for the SNES has similar settings to start the adventure off on any level, as well as extra lives, which is also shared with Tournament Fighters, and being able to play as any of the boss characters. On the Genesis side of things, we have level-choosing settings for Hyperstone Heist as well as friendly fire damage, and playable bosses with Tournament Fighters, which adds even more content to a really enjoyable game.
For the NES, we have the removal of slowdown and sprite flickering on the 1989 classic, and a variety of settings for their attempt on the arcade game such as level selection, god mode, extra lives, and fancy jump kicks, with most of those settings carrying over to the Manhattan Project. The NES version of Tournament fighters has the same setting as the first title on the NES, with the three Game Boy titles having very little to no settings apart from Back from the Sewers allowing you to have level selection and infinite lives.
Each title also has save states, image filters, the ability to change its aspect ratio, and a custom strategy guide that does a great job at detailing each and every game, complete with brand new artwork. If I had to make a single comment on what I do find disappointing in this collection, it is that not every game has the same button used for selecting characters or starting the game. It’s often a random guess and can be frustrating to a certain extent when it says “Press Start” and they really mean for me to press Y instead.
Before I wanted to put out a review for this collection. I wanted to complete each and every game, and while there are a lot of games here, many of them are not terribly long. You can get an idea of the length of each game by watching the included “watch” mode where you can check out a video of someone playing it, and when you want to jump in, you can press Y to simply be right there in the moment, taking over the playing part and continuing from that point forward. It’s a very cool trick that is constantly impressive.
Starting off the collection are the pair of arcade classics in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Turtles in Time. These four-player beat’em ups are impressive and are still considered the best games to come from the TMNT license. Due to the era of arcade manufacturers snagging as many quarters from you as they could, these games packed a punch with numerous enemies and attacks designed to really bring the pain. While the console ports lessen this difficulty greatly, you can still easily top up your lives here and take advantage of the rewind feature to easily push you through these fairly short adventures. These are certainly the best versions of these titles by far, sporting a nice crisp image, fluid speed, and a pretty alright soundtrack.
Starting us off via the NES era is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This 1989 adventure is known for being tough as nails due to some rather poor design work, making Donatello one of the only turtles to be able to push through some areas safely, due to the reach of his bo staff. It also has a variety of poor platforming areas, disappointing controls, and countless other issues that make this still one of the worst TMNT games to date. It’s a shame that there is no god-mode here due to the difficulty, and honestly, I see this as the only game in this package that people likely skip over.
Turtles II: The Arcade Game is exactly what you think it is, a 1990’s NES port of the Classic Arcade Game. Now, this isn’t any sort of 1 to 1 port as it takes a visually superior game and shrinks it down to the simplistic 8-bit era. It’s certainly a lot easier than its counterpart, and its console prequel, but it’s still a decent enough adventure to push through to see how it fairs on the far weaker platform. With the package having a vastly better version a few clicks away, I see this as the version you likely play once for the novelty and carry on with the Arcade version afterward.
Turtles III: Manhattan Project was a direct follow-up in 1991 for the NES that took the same beat’em up formula as the Arcade port, and added a few new bosses in Tokka and Rahzar, Leatherhead, and more. While a longer game than its NES predecessor, it might fall into the same “one and done” playthrough due to its age and comparable offerings in this package with simply better games to play.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time is the 1992 SNES version of the Arcade sequel, sporting one of the best arcade ports of its time. Apart from a bit of a sluggish speed due to the hardware, this port runs surprisingly well. While the Genesis didn’t get this version, it did get Hyperstone Heist, a game that bounces around from being an original arcade beat’em up to one that remixes various stages and enemies from both arcade games amongst its few new additions. While it does lack a few moves and features from the SNES Turtles in Time port, it has a much faster pace that really benefits not only the gameplay but grants it a somewhat easier difficulty as a result.
Wrapping up the console additions to this collection are the three variants to Tournament Fighters, with the NES, SNES, and Genesis each having unique takes on the 2D fighter. With the fighting game genre really taking off due to the success of Street Fighter II, it was only a matter of time before the TMNT franchise would dip into those waters. While the SNES version is considered the best of the trio, though to be fair the NES version is what it is due to the hardware, the Genesis version is still quite enjoyable. Each title has its own style of its attacks, special moves, and even how the stages work, as the Genesis version has the ability to break through certain parts of the environments to reach new areas. It is also worth pointing out that while there is single-player battles to take on, the AI is pretty damn harsh, making it a vastly better experience with friends or taking the SNES version online.
Then we come to the Game Boy titles; 1990’s Fall of the Foot Clan, 1991’s Back from the Sewers, and 1993’s Radical Rescue. Each title is very different from one another, but one thing they all share is their somewhat sluggish speed. This is where I feel a sped-up feature could have benefitted them each. Fall of the Foot Clan has very basic sprite work, with the turtles all sharing essentially the same sprite with slight changes due to each of the brother’s weapons. It’s a very basic side-scroller that is enjoyable for its simplicity but is also a rather short affair, at around 20-25 minutes. While there is a decent adaptation of the theme song offered here, it is simply just played far too much.
Back from the sewers attempts to give the turtles more animations, but the sprite work here is painfully mediocre when compared to the previous titles. especially with whatever the sprite artist was thinking when attempting to draw a drop kick. While the game is twice the length of Fall of the Foot Clan, it’s the weakest of the GB games by far. Radical Rescue certainly benefitted from the additional development time as not only are the animations and artwork far better than Back from the Sewers, but you also have additional moves like Mikey using his nunchucks to hover across gaps.
While there is certainly going to be personal preference over the quality of each title here, this is nonetheless a substantial collection that has had a lot of care and attention given to it to make these games the best versions of them, especially those that feature online play for the first time. Taking this collection as it is, with all the additional content that showcases various stages of development and advertising, this becomes much more than a commercial product, it becomes a time capsule of some absolute TMNT excellence.
Developer - Digital Eclipse. Publisher - Konami. Released - August 30th, 2022. Available On - Nintendo Switch, PS4/5, Xbox One/Series X/S, Microsoft Windows. Rated - (T) Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood, Mild Suggestive Themes. Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch. Review Access - TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection was purchased for review.