History VideoGame / TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1989

* NintendoHard: Area 2 is the infamous swimming stage. Area 3 is a maze to find Splinter (though once you have the missiles, you can go right to where he is if you know the way, obviously). Area 4 is a "choose your path" with different roads to take to get to the end and towards the end are instant kill traps like fire pits and sliding spike walls. Area 5 is full of tough enemies and has a randomly placed boss who is difficult to defeat, and Area 6 is FULL of tough enemies. The jet pack-equipped laser troopers will make you tear your hair out. This game is TOUGH. But it is certainly NOT impossible.

* CriticalStatusBuff: Mike's attack strength doubles when he's down to half-health (Four bars). It kinda makes you want to [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential avoid healing him]] in order to abuse it.

->''"Anyone unfortunate enough to have a Nintendo device in the house will be familiar with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who star in one of the most insidiously addictive Nintendo games. The turtles live in the subways beneath Manhattan, where, exposed to radiation, they have grown into teenager-sized, intelligent creatures, and have absorbed such items from the culture as surfer jargon."''

A side-scrolling {{platform game}} released in 1989 (1990 for the PAL region) for the UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem and 1991 for computers. As you could tell by the title, it was a video game adaptation of ''Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' which had become a cash cow franchise towards the end of TheEighties. Like the rest of the franchise it's ultimately based on [[ComicBook/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesMirage the original comic created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird]], but nearly everything about it (Splinter being Hamato Yoshi mutated, the Technodrome, The Shredder being alive and having a retromutagen gun, the existence of Bebop and Rocksteady, and April O'Neil as a reporter) came from the hit [[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987 cartoon]], though the box art and some of the in-game art style came from the comics. Perhaps due to brand recognition, this game was one of the best selling NES titles published by a third-party company.

The four eponymous characters – brothers Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael – are in hot pursuit of the Foot Clan, the most dangerous criminal empire New York has ever seen. Their babe-licious human friend, Channel 6 News field reporter April O'Neil, had just been kidnapped by the Shredder, the deadly leader of the Foot. To give you an idea of how deadly he is, the instruction manual describes him as "a villain more vicious than an army of mind altered Creator/{{Bruce Lee}}s." That's deadly. His plan? Brainwash April and train her in ninjitsu so she will become part of the Foot! The Turtles must save April, storm the Shredder's [[SupervillainLair Technodrome lair]], and steal his Life Transformer Gun, which can turn their beloved Master Splinter back to his original human form of Hamato Yoshi.

Although only a single player game, you can switch between the Turtles on the fly at the pause screen. Each turtle is essentially a life, meaning you have four lives. When the vitality gauge of a Turtle is completely depleted, he is "captured." When all four are captured, it's GameOver, and you are only given a chance to continue twice. It can get very painful when you are down to only Raph and Mikey, as Donatello's bo staff has the longest range and strongest attack power, Leonardo's katana has middling range and attack power, Raph's sai has the worst range and strong attack power, and Mikey's nunchaku have short range and the weakest attack power. This means that if you're down to Raph and Mike, you're likely going to be taking a lot of damage since you have to be right up on the enemies in order to hit them, and most don't die in one hit. Still, you are given a few chances to rescue captured Turtles.

Released a little later in '89 was [[VideoGame/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesTheArcadeGame the arcade game]], which was nowhere near as polarizing and is almost unanimously considered a classic in the BeatEmUp genre. Thanks to the arcade game's success, most games based on the Ninja Turtles henceforth would be {{beat em up}}s as well, although some, such as a couple of the UsefulNotes/GameBoy titles, would be platformers like this puppy.

LP'ed [[http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/TMNT/ here]] by LetsPlay/ProtonJon, of ''VideoGame/KaizoMarioWorld'' [=LPing=] fame, in honor of the game's then-recent re-release on UsefulNotes/{{Virtual Console}} (speaking of the VC release, it's 600 Wii points, instead of the usual 500 for an NES game, due to licensing issues; and said licensing expired, causing the game to be de-listed, although previous buyers can still re-download it).

* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: As to be expected from he franchise, the sewers are huge.

* AllThereInTheManual: It's only in the instruction book that it's mentioned that the Turtles are after Shredder's Life Transformer gun; as a result, those who don't have the manual are of course confused by [[spoiler:Splinter turning human]] at the end of the game.

* ConspicuousElectricObstacle: Underwater level has electrified seaweed that hurts in contact, when active. It also has electric beams.
* CoversAlwaysLie: The cover would imply that the game is strictly based on [[ComicBook/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesMirage the Mirage comics]], but not only does the game adapt aspects of [[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987 the cartoon]], in-game, the turtles all have their colored masks, while the cover has them all wearing red.

* HighVoltageDeath: The dam in Area 2 is filled with electric plants that can zap the turtles upon contact.

* NintendoHard: Level 2 is the infamous swimming stage. Level 3 is a maze to find Splinter (though once you have the missiles, you can go right to where he is if you know the way, obviously). Level 4 is a "choose your path" with different roads to take to get to the end and towards the end are instant kill traps like fire pits and sliding spike walls. Level 5 is full of tough enemies and has a randomly placed boss who is difficult to defeat, and level 6 is FULL of tough enemies. The jet pack-equipped laser troopers will make you tear your hair out. This game is TOUGH. But it is certainly NOT impossible.
* NonStandardGameOver: If you fail to defuse the bombs in the underwater portion of Area 2, the bombs explode, causing an instant game over, regardless of how many Turtles were remaining.
* OddballInTheSeries: Overlapping with EarlyInstallmentWeirdness. Most of its successors were {{Beat Em Up}}s that are mostly straigtforward beatable affairs. This installment was a PlatformGame best remembered for being NintendoHard.

* SecondaryAdaptation: A 1989 single player PlatformGame that took plot cues from ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'', despite basing more of the art style on the cartoon's comicbook origin, ''ComicBook/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesMirage''. It was initially released for the UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem console.
* SentryGun: Technodrome has wall-mounted spherical turrets that track the player and fire slow bullets.

* SuperDrowningSkills: Thankfully, the turtles won't drown if they fall in the water filling the sewers in Stage 3, but they are whisked away by the (seemingly mild) current, splashing ineffectually, and reappear on the overworld close to the entrance. This feels a little jarring considering that the turtles were perfectly capable of swimming in Stage 2.
* SuperNotDrowningSkills: There's no air meter when swimming in Stage 2, as the only restriction is the time limit before the bombs you're trying to disarm detonate. Which, granted, is shorter than how long many species of turtles can hold their breath for.

[[caption-width-right:349:Best enjoyed with [[{{TrademarkFavoriteFood}} pizza]], of course. [[NintendoHard Or Aspirin.]]]]

* ManOnFire: One of the enemies.

* SuperDrowningSkills and SuperNotDrowningSkills: The Turtles know how to swim in Level 2 but they suddenly lose that skill afterwards. Justified in the latter case as the currents are too strong to swim. If a Turtle falls in the water, he isn't "captured" but instead carried back outside the current building.

* SuperDrowningSkills and SuperNotDrowningSkills: The Turtles know how to swim in Level 2 but they suddenly lose that skill afterwards. Justified in the latter case as the currents are too strong to swim. If a Turtle falls in the water, they aren't "captured". They're simply carried back to the beginning of the level.