Slamming, slashing, bashing and throwing Foot soldiers out of the screen? That is the classic feeling when I played Turtles in Time back during the SNES era. This is definitely one of the best ‘Beat Em Up’ games, surpassing its previous predecessors and DEFINITELY surpassing any TMNT games that came out after that. With the current advanced technology, I was thinking the newer versions would easily outdo Turtles In Time. Guess I was wrong.

I had my first experience when my cousin brought me to the arcades back in 1992. There were many games present but Turtles In Time caught my eye. Mainly because I was already a fan of TMNT thanks to the showing of the animated series (1987). The arcade version featured a 4 person co-op play brings out the thrill of having all four turtles whacking on the screen at once. Sadly, life was short and it was game over before I know it.

Not long after that, Turtles in Time was ported over to the Super Nintendo. A Genesis version was later released but under a different name called Hyperstone Heist. That version was similar yet different in some ways compared to Turtles in Time.

When the SNES version came out, I had mix feeling of both happiness and sadness. Happy because I can play Turtles in Time as many times as I want, sad because the four player co-op didn’t make it. It would definitely be a blast having 3 friends over to play together. Sad, you just can’t have them all.

The other thing which attracts me other than the turtles itself, is the gameplay. You literally just mash the default punch button to do combo attacks and with a little trick, you can slam enemies back and forth or throw them out of the screen. The second skill is crucial because you will need that fight Shredder at mid point of the game. I find that most players have difficulty executing the throw technique. Most of the time they ended up with the ‘back & forth’ slam.

The music featured in this game is definitely the best and the most memorable among the other TMNT games. From the moment you jump into ‘Big Apple, 3am’ to ‘Technodrome: The Final Shellshock’, you will find that the music for each stage is fantastic and it fits in very well. I myself personally like the ‘A.D. 2100: Starbase: Where No Turtle Has Gone Before’ music. It’s basically a hyper-remix of the original TMNT theme song.

Boss fights are nice but not all are memorable. Most of them have a certain pattern which you can easily identify and take advantage of. Fighting Shredder on both encounters would require a faster reaction time, especially Super Shredder on Hard mode. He has a skill which totally kills off a life bar out of your turtles.

I really had lots of fun playing this game with my uncle, cousin, friends and also by myself. It is just sad that after more than a decade, a true successor never came. Perhaps Konami should consider porting this version over to the NDS and let the current generation gamers experience the true glory of TMNT. That would be “shellshocking”. – DynaStorm

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.