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* NightmareFuel: In the underwater area, if you get pulled by the [[OneHitKill glowing orange seaweed]], you witness your turtle getting strangled and pulled into the seaweed as he's [[NeverSayDie getting captured]].
to:
* NightmareFuel: In NintendoHard: Area 2 is the underwater area, 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 get pulled by know the [[OneHitKill glowing orange seaweed]], you witness way, obviously). Area 4 is a "choose your turtle getting strangled path" with different roads to take to get to the end and pulled into towards the seaweed as he's [[NeverSayDie getting captured]].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.
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** The notorious dam level, [[FanNickname dubbed]] "That Damn Dam" [[FanNickname by some]], and some fan theories persist that this level was what turned famed movie critic Creator/RogerEbert off of video games (he played to this level, which allowed him to spot an inaccuracy in ''Film/TheWizard''.) The dam level owes its infamy to the following factors...
** It's an [[UnderTheSea underwater level]].
** It's a TimedMission. You are charged with defusing eight bombs under a time limit, with annoying sea life everywhere trying to inhibit your progress. Failing to defuse them all before time runs out will result in a...
** NonStandardGameOver. It doesn't matter how many turtles you have left; you fail once, and it's all over. Luckily it's the ''only'' game over of its kind in this game, since according to gamers who managed to pass this level, the game gets even ''harder''.
*** Then when you get to the later levels, it doesn't get any easier from here in. The third level is a maze where you have to find the correct solution to it. The fourth level, the Foot Air Base, will have you pulling your hair out. It's not only another maze, but it's also full of dangerous hazards, including liquid flame pits in some of the underground tunnels that will kill any turtle instantly on contact. Thankfully, the boss of the level itself isn't too difficult.
*** The Abandoned Warehouse is the fifth level and it's quite difficult due to many factors: The enemies in the caves are DemonicSpiders, and one of the three caves contains the boss, the Technodrome Defense System. If it doesn't, it brings you to an empty room, and you're forced to backtrack to the beginning of the cave. The game generates it before you enter the level, and there's no clear indication on which cave is correct until you either find an empty room or the boss. To make things worse, the enemies respawn when you exit the empty room, so you'll inevitably have at least one turtle with low health.
*** The final level, inside the Technodrome, definitely takes the cake. No checkpoints, an array of DemonicSpiders unique to this level, and some rooms are full of spikes. Fortunately, Shredder is an AntiClimaxBoss, and even then, he may sneak in a OneHitKill if you don't know the trick to defeating him, forcing you to resume from the beginning of the level.
** It's an [[UnderTheSea underwater level]].
** It's a TimedMission. You are charged with defusing eight bombs under a time limit, with annoying sea life everywhere trying to inhibit your progress. Failing to defuse them all before time runs out will result in a...
** NonStandardGameOver. It doesn't matter how many turtles you have left; you fail once, and it's all over. Luckily it's the ''only'' game over of its kind in this game, since according to gamers who managed to pass this level, the game gets even ''harder''.
*** Then when you get to the later levels, it doesn't get any easier from here in. The third level is a maze where you have to find the correct solution to it. The fourth level, the Foot Air Base, will have you pulling your hair out. It's not only another maze, but it's also full of dangerous hazards, including liquid flame pits in some of the underground tunnels that will kill any turtle instantly on contact. Thankfully, the boss of the level itself isn't too difficult.
*** The Abandoned Warehouse is the fifth level and it's quite difficult due to many factors: The enemies in the caves are DemonicSpiders, and one of the three caves contains the boss, the Technodrome Defense System. If it doesn't, it brings you to an empty room, and you're forced to backtrack to the beginning of the cave. The game generates it before you enter the level, and there's no clear indication on which cave is correct until you either find an empty room or the boss. To make things worse, the enemies respawn when you exit the empty room, so you'll inevitably have at least one turtle with low health.
*** The final level, inside the Technodrome, definitely takes the cake. No checkpoints, an array of DemonicSpiders unique to this level, and some rooms are full of spikes. Fortunately, Shredder is an AntiClimaxBoss, and even then, he may sneak in a OneHitKill if you don't know the trick to defeating him, forcing you to resume from the beginning of the level.
to:
** The notorious dam level, [[FanNickname dubbed]] "That Damn Dam" [[FanNickname by some]], and some fan theories persist that this level was what turned famed movie critic Creator/RogerEbert off of video games (he played to this level, which allowed him to spot an inaccuracy in ''Film/TheWizard''.) The dam level owes its infamy due to the following factors...
** It'sbeing an [[UnderTheSea underwater level]].
** It'slevel]] as well as being a TimedMission. You are charged with defusing eight bombs under a time limit, with annoying sea life everywhere trying to inhibit your progress. Failing to defuse them all before time runs out will result in a...
**a NonStandardGameOver. It doesn't matter how many turtles or continues you have left; if you fail once, and run out of time, it's all over. Luckily it's the ''only'' game over of its kind in this game, since according to gamers who managed to pass this level, the game gets even ''harder''.
*** Then when you get to the later levels, it doesn't get any easier from here in. ** The third level is a maze where you have to find the correct solution to it. it, starting off with entering a nearby building to get missiles for the Party Wagon in order to destroy barriers along the way.
** The fourth level, the Foot Air Base,will have you pulling your hair out. It's is not only another maze, but it's also full of dangerous hazards, including liquid flame pits in some of the underground tunnels that will kill any turtle instantly on contact. Thankfully, the boss of the level itself isn't too difficult.
*** ** The Abandoned Warehouse is the fifth level and it's quite difficult due to many factors: The enemies in the caves are DemonicSpiders, and one of the three caves contains the boss, the Technodrome Defense System. If it doesn't, it brings you to an empty room, and you're forced to backtrack to the beginning of the cave. The game generates it before randomly determines which cave the Technodrome is hiding in when you enter the level, and there's no clear indication on which cave is correct until you either find an empty room or the boss. To make things worse, the enemies respawn when you exit the empty room, so you'll inevitably have at least one turtle with low health.
*** ** The final level, inside the Technodrome, definitely takes the cake. No checkpoints, an array of DemonicSpiders unique to this level, and some rooms are full of spikes. Fortunately, Shredder is an AntiClimaxBoss, and even then, he may sneak in a OneHitKill if you don't know the trick to defeating him, forcing you to resume from the beginning of the level.
** It's
** It's
**
** The fourth level, the Foot Air Base,
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Changed line(s) 39 (click to see context) from:
* UnderusedGameMechanic: Using ropes to cross gaps. There's only one rope item in the entire game, and you use it on a couple of gaps immediately afterward, amounting to a couple of cutscenes of your turtle throwing a rope, and that's it. The devs seem to have implemented the rope item and felt obligated to use it somehow.
to:
* UnderusedGameMechanic: Using ropes to cross gaps. There's The ropes only one appear in Stages 3 and 4, and all of the rope item jumps in Stage 3 are optional. The first building in Stage 4 requires the entire game, and rope to reach the second building, but there is an easy to grab rope pickup shortly before you use it on a couple of gaps immediately afterward, amounting to a couple of cutscenes of your turtle throwing a rope, and that's it. reach the roof. The devs seem to have implemented the rope item and felt obligated to use it somehow.somehow.
* UnwinnableByMistake: When the player defeats the Technodrome boss, the active turtle will automatically move into position to jump into the hatch that had been spawning foot soldiers. If the turtle is standing on the Technodrome's tank treads when delivering the final blow (easily done by, for example, using Donatello's upwards attack), there is a chance that the turtle will take collision damage from the front of the treads when moving into position. If this damage is enough to defeat the turtle, the game will soft lock; the player will be brought to the turtle select screen as usual, but will be unable to select any of the remaining turtles. The only option at this point is to restart the game from scratch.
* UnwinnableByMistake: When the player defeats the Technodrome boss, the active turtle will automatically move into position to jump into the hatch that had been spawning foot soldiers. If the turtle is standing on the Technodrome's tank treads when delivering the final blow (easily done by, for example, using Donatello's upwards attack), there is a chance that the turtle will take collision damage from the front of the treads when moving into position. If this damage is enough to defeat the turtle, the game will soft lock; the player will be brought to the turtle select screen as usual, but will be unable to select any of the remaining turtles. The only option at this point is to restart the game from scratch.
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Added DiffLines:
* AnticlimaxBoss: After all the crap it takes to reach him, Shredder is a relative pushover due to the fact that he's the only boss in the game that can be knocked back. Players who get him in the right rhythm can just keep smacking him without giving him a chance to counter.
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Even critics of the original NES game have to admit that the music is pretty catchy, especially the title theme, the sewer theme, the warehouse theme, and the main boss theme. The fact that none of it is based on music from the '87 series and still leaves an impression is even more impressive.
* BadassDecay: As mentioned above, Shredder is a pathetically easy final boss, while various other sources showed him [[CurbStompBattle dominating all 4 turtles singlehandedly]].
* BreatherBoss: The Big Mouser at the end of level 4. It's completely stationary, and its only attacks are occasionally firing an eye laser and dropping regular mousers. If you stand under it with Donatello and spam your upwards attack at its weak point, neither of these will ever hit you.
* CommonKnowledge: The Dam stage is not the hardest part of the game; much like the infamous Turbo Tunnel from ''VideoGame/{{Battletoads}}'', it's merely where the game ''starts'' getting much more difficult.
* DemonicSpiders: It's bad enough that there are respawning enemies but there are some enemies that really make this game unfair and annoying to play.
** The worst enemy that you will encounter in the game are the Rocket Men armed with laser guns in the later sections of the Technodrome. They appear and move so quickly that you almost can't react to them without getting hit. What's even worse is that there are sections of narrow halls that make getting shot or running into them an inevitability. It also takes two shots from the Scroll, ''the best sub-weapon in the game'', to kill them. Or if you have single shurikens, it can kill them just as quickly.
** The Climb Busters, large spider-like robots in Area 5, are notorious for making climbing sections a total pain since they move fast towards you and you're completely defenseless while climbing the wall.
** Needle Beasts are large porcupine in the underground sections of Area 5. They're cheap and unpredictable as they jump and attack in completely random patterns, making it hard to not get hit by them.
* DifficultySpike: Area 3, and it only gets [[SerialEscalation worse from there]].
* GameBreaker: The scroll weapon makes quick work on most bosses. However, it's extremely rare and can be replaced by other subweapons.
** Also Donatello, considering that his bo staff had absolutely absurd offensive power and range, which made most boss fights pretty trivial.
* GoodBadBugs:
** By pausing the game at the right time, you can make the Giant Mouser boss fight even easier. Normally, you have to wait for it to open its mouth to attack, but pausing the game makes it vulnerable at all times.
** The North American MS-DOS version has a required jump that is literally impossible to accomplish. However, you can still beat the game without cheats, if you do a sequence of extremely strange actions (although you still skip the rest of that level). If you have rope, there's a place on the overworld that you can walk, which triggers the use of the rope. Suddenly, you're using the climbing animation on the overworld. If you now enter a specific building, you will fall through the floor into a glitched level. You might end up dead, or the game asking you to insert another disk, or just trapped in a broken level, but there is a chance that the game will instead teleport you to the beginning of the next level. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDurUuIUiWo]]
* MemeticMutation:
** "Don't let the Foot Clan destroy the dam. You have my support."[[labelnote:Explanation]]April tells the Turtles this when they rescue her. Then the dam level begins.[[/labelnote]]
** "[[WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd Okay, what the hell did she ever do for you]]? Stupid [[IconicOutfit banana raincoat]]-[[WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd wearing bitch."]] [[labelnote:Explanation]]The Turtles rescued April moments ago, making AVGN wonder what support she'd give them.[[/labelnote]] Area 2 isn't all ''that'' difficult, though it does feature an UnexpectedGameplayChange and very precise movements. The Internet believes it is utterly impossible.
** [[WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd Cowabunga...COWA-FUCKIN' PIECE OF DOG SHIT!]] [[labelnote:Explanation]]AVGN's concluding rant of the NES game begins with this phrase. He also used it for his full theme song and the review of the third live-action movie.[[/labelnote]]
* {{Misblamed}}: Franchise co-creator Kevin Eastman [[https://www.ign.com/articles/not-even-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-co-creator-could-beat-that-dam-level recalls]] people getting mad at him for the Dam level, apparently thinking he and Peter Laird made the game themselves and designed it. In reality, while they were involved in aspects of the games, they weren't the level designers, and Kevin Eastman himself admits to never having beaten that level.
* NightmareFuel: In the underwater area, if you get pulled by the [[OneHitKill glowing orange seaweed]], you witness your turtle getting strangled and pulled into the seaweed as he's [[NeverSayDie getting captured]].
* OvershadowedByControversy: You cannot bring up the PC port without someone bringing up the UnintentionallyUnwinnable GameBreakingBug in the third stage. It's physically impossible. The port is already quite bad in general, but this bug is responsible for at least 90% of the discussion surrounding it.
* PortingDisaster: The North American PC version to say the least. The third stage cannot be completed without cheating or [[GoodBadBugs a very strange glitch]] because of a design flaw in one of the sections in the sewers. The jump is impossible to make because of the ceiling being shorter and the platform on the other side being too far away. The UK ''Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles'' corrected this by extending the platform, but retained the other design decisions that made many aspects unintentionally more difficult.
** As shown by Creator/JamesRolfe, the Commodore 64 version is definitely inferior to the NES version, with two of the biggest problems being the slower gameplay and that jump and attack share the same button.
* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: The original NES game is infamous for its [[NintendoHard extreme difficulty]], including unbalanced characters, a sudden gameplay shift in the form of a timed swimming section, a steep difficulty curve halfway through, and nonstop hordes of strong enemies. (And to top if off, the MS-DOS port is [[PortingDisaster even worse]].)
* SurpriseDifficulty: Sure, the game's reputation precedes it nowadays, but back in '89 when the game dropped, at the height of Turtlemania... let's just say there were a ''lot'' of pissed-off youngsters.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSong:
** The first few seconds of the intro music sounds ''incredibly'' similar to "Stone Cold Crazy" by Music/{{Queen}}.
** The Area 5 overworld theme resembles the opening riff of Music/TheBeatles' "Come Together".
* ThatOneBoss: The Technodrome boss in level 5. First of all, level 5 is ThatOneLevel in itself due to the fact that the boss is randomly placed at the end of one of three caves. As for the Technodrome itself, the prong in its front fires a powerful lightning beam that covers a third of the play area, making it nigh impossible to approach without using secondary weapons to destroy said prong[[note]]or [[GoodBadBugs exploiting a glitch]] with the pause menu that makes the bottom half of the beam disappear[[/note]]. On top of that, it also has two turrets on the body firing a constant stream of bullets at you, as well as the open compartment at the top which [[MookMaker spawns infinite Foot Soldiers]] to further hinder you. All of these have to be taken out if you want any chance of safely attacking the eye at the top, which is the boss's true weak point. Hope you packed a lunch!
* ThatOneLevel:
** The notorious dam level, [[FanNickname dubbed]] "That Damn Dam" [[FanNickname by some]], and some fan theories persist that this level was what turned famed movie critic Creator/RogerEbert off of video games (he played to this level, which allowed him to spot an inaccuracy in ''Film/TheWizard''.) The dam level owes its infamy to the following factors...
** It's an [[UnderTheSea underwater level]].
** It's a TimedMission. You are charged with defusing eight bombs under a time limit, with annoying sea life everywhere trying to inhibit your progress. Failing to defuse them all before time runs out will result in a...
** NonStandardGameOver. It doesn't matter how many turtles you have left; you fail once, and it's all over. Luckily it's the ''only'' game over of its kind in this game, since according to gamers who managed to pass this level, the game gets even ''harder''.
*** Then when you get to the later levels, it doesn't get any easier from here in. The third level is a maze where you have to find the correct solution to it. The fourth level, the Foot Air Base, will have you pulling your hair out. It's not only another maze, but it's also full of dangerous hazards, including liquid flame pits in some of the underground tunnels that will kill any turtle instantly on contact. Thankfully, the boss of the level itself isn't too difficult.
*** The Abandoned Warehouse is the fifth level and it's quite difficult due to many factors: The enemies in the caves are DemonicSpiders, and one of the three caves contains the boss, the Technodrome Defense System. If it doesn't, it brings you to an empty room, and you're forced to backtrack to the beginning of the cave. The game generates it before you enter the level, and there's no clear indication on which cave is correct until you either find an empty room or the boss. To make things worse, the enemies respawn when you exit the empty room, so you'll inevitably have at least one turtle with low health.
*** The final level, inside the Technodrome, definitely takes the cake. No checkpoints, an array of DemonicSpiders unique to this level, and some rooms are full of spikes. Fortunately, Shredder is an AntiClimaxBoss, and even then, he may sneak in a OneHitKill if you don't know the trick to defeating him, forcing you to resume from the beginning of the level.
* UnderusedGameMechanic: Using ropes to cross gaps. There's only one rope item in the entire game, and you use it on a couple of gaps immediately afterward, amounting to a couple of cutscenes of your turtle throwing a rope, and that's it. The devs seem to have implemented the rope item and felt obligated to use it somehow.
----
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Even critics of the original NES game have to admit that the music is pretty catchy, especially the title theme, the sewer theme, the warehouse theme, and the main boss theme. The fact that none of it is based on music from the '87 series and still leaves an impression is even more impressive.
* BadassDecay: As mentioned above, Shredder is a pathetically easy final boss, while various other sources showed him [[CurbStompBattle dominating all 4 turtles singlehandedly]].
* BreatherBoss: The Big Mouser at the end of level 4. It's completely stationary, and its only attacks are occasionally firing an eye laser and dropping regular mousers. If you stand under it with Donatello and spam your upwards attack at its weak point, neither of these will ever hit you.
* CommonKnowledge: The Dam stage is not the hardest part of the game; much like the infamous Turbo Tunnel from ''VideoGame/{{Battletoads}}'', it's merely where the game ''starts'' getting much more difficult.
* DemonicSpiders: It's bad enough that there are respawning enemies but there are some enemies that really make this game unfair and annoying to play.
** The worst enemy that you will encounter in the game are the Rocket Men armed with laser guns in the later sections of the Technodrome. They appear and move so quickly that you almost can't react to them without getting hit. What's even worse is that there are sections of narrow halls that make getting shot or running into them an inevitability. It also takes two shots from the Scroll, ''the best sub-weapon in the game'', to kill them. Or if you have single shurikens, it can kill them just as quickly.
** The Climb Busters, large spider-like robots in Area 5, are notorious for making climbing sections a total pain since they move fast towards you and you're completely defenseless while climbing the wall.
** Needle Beasts are large porcupine in the underground sections of Area 5. They're cheap and unpredictable as they jump and attack in completely random patterns, making it hard to not get hit by them.
* DifficultySpike: Area 3, and it only gets [[SerialEscalation worse from there]].
* GameBreaker: The scroll weapon makes quick work on most bosses. However, it's extremely rare and can be replaced by other subweapons.
** Also Donatello, considering that his bo staff had absolutely absurd offensive power and range, which made most boss fights pretty trivial.
* GoodBadBugs:
** By pausing the game at the right time, you can make the Giant Mouser boss fight even easier. Normally, you have to wait for it to open its mouth to attack, but pausing the game makes it vulnerable at all times.
** The North American MS-DOS version has a required jump that is literally impossible to accomplish. However, you can still beat the game without cheats, if you do a sequence of extremely strange actions (although you still skip the rest of that level). If you have rope, there's a place on the overworld that you can walk, which triggers the use of the rope. Suddenly, you're using the climbing animation on the overworld. If you now enter a specific building, you will fall through the floor into a glitched level. You might end up dead, or the game asking you to insert another disk, or just trapped in a broken level, but there is a chance that the game will instead teleport you to the beginning of the next level. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDurUuIUiWo]]
* MemeticMutation:
** "Don't let the Foot Clan destroy the dam. You have my support."[[labelnote:Explanation]]April tells the Turtles this when they rescue her. Then the dam level begins.[[/labelnote]]
** "[[WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd Okay, what the hell did she ever do for you]]? Stupid [[IconicOutfit banana raincoat]]-[[WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd wearing bitch."]] [[labelnote:Explanation]]The Turtles rescued April moments ago, making AVGN wonder what support she'd give them.[[/labelnote]] Area 2 isn't all ''that'' difficult, though it does feature an UnexpectedGameplayChange and very precise movements. The Internet believes it is utterly impossible.
** [[WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd Cowabunga...COWA-FUCKIN' PIECE OF DOG SHIT!]] [[labelnote:Explanation]]AVGN's concluding rant of the NES game begins with this phrase. He also used it for his full theme song and the review of the third live-action movie.[[/labelnote]]
* {{Misblamed}}: Franchise co-creator Kevin Eastman [[https://www.ign.com/articles/not-even-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-co-creator-could-beat-that-dam-level recalls]] people getting mad at him for the Dam level, apparently thinking he and Peter Laird made the game themselves and designed it. In reality, while they were involved in aspects of the games, they weren't the level designers, and Kevin Eastman himself admits to never having beaten that level.
* NightmareFuel: In the underwater area, if you get pulled by the [[OneHitKill glowing orange seaweed]], you witness your turtle getting strangled and pulled into the seaweed as he's [[NeverSayDie getting captured]].
* OvershadowedByControversy: You cannot bring up the PC port without someone bringing up the UnintentionallyUnwinnable GameBreakingBug in the third stage. It's physically impossible. The port is already quite bad in general, but this bug is responsible for at least 90% of the discussion surrounding it.
* PortingDisaster: The North American PC version to say the least. The third stage cannot be completed without cheating or [[GoodBadBugs a very strange glitch]] because of a design flaw in one of the sections in the sewers. The jump is impossible to make because of the ceiling being shorter and the platform on the other side being too far away. The UK ''Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles'' corrected this by extending the platform, but retained the other design decisions that made many aspects unintentionally more difficult.
** As shown by Creator/JamesRolfe, the Commodore 64 version is definitely inferior to the NES version, with two of the biggest problems being the slower gameplay and that jump and attack share the same button.
* TheProblemWithLicensedGames: The original NES game is infamous for its [[NintendoHard extreme difficulty]], including unbalanced characters, a sudden gameplay shift in the form of a timed swimming section, a steep difficulty curve halfway through, and nonstop hordes of strong enemies. (And to top if off, the MS-DOS port is [[PortingDisaster even worse]].)
* SurpriseDifficulty: Sure, the game's reputation precedes it nowadays, but back in '89 when the game dropped, at the height of Turtlemania... let's just say there were a ''lot'' of pissed-off youngsters.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSong:
** The first few seconds of the intro music sounds ''incredibly'' similar to "Stone Cold Crazy" by Music/{{Queen}}.
** The Area 5 overworld theme resembles the opening riff of Music/TheBeatles' "Come Together".
* ThatOneBoss: The Technodrome boss in level 5. First of all, level 5 is ThatOneLevel in itself due to the fact that the boss is randomly placed at the end of one of three caves. As for the Technodrome itself, the prong in its front fires a powerful lightning beam that covers a third of the play area, making it nigh impossible to approach without using secondary weapons to destroy said prong[[note]]or [[GoodBadBugs exploiting a glitch]] with the pause menu that makes the bottom half of the beam disappear[[/note]]. On top of that, it also has two turrets on the body firing a constant stream of bullets at you, as well as the open compartment at the top which [[MookMaker spawns infinite Foot Soldiers]] to further hinder you. All of these have to be taken out if you want any chance of safely attacking the eye at the top, which is the boss's true weak point. Hope you packed a lunch!
* ThatOneLevel:
** The notorious dam level, [[FanNickname dubbed]] "That Damn Dam" [[FanNickname by some]], and some fan theories persist that this level was what turned famed movie critic Creator/RogerEbert off of video games (he played to this level, which allowed him to spot an inaccuracy in ''Film/TheWizard''.) The dam level owes its infamy to the following factors...
** It's an [[UnderTheSea underwater level]].
** It's a TimedMission. You are charged with defusing eight bombs under a time limit, with annoying sea life everywhere trying to inhibit your progress. Failing to defuse them all before time runs out will result in a...
** NonStandardGameOver. It doesn't matter how many turtles you have left; you fail once, and it's all over. Luckily it's the ''only'' game over of its kind in this game, since according to gamers who managed to pass this level, the game gets even ''harder''.
*** Then when you get to the later levels, it doesn't get any easier from here in. The third level is a maze where you have to find the correct solution to it. The fourth level, the Foot Air Base, will have you pulling your hair out. It's not only another maze, but it's also full of dangerous hazards, including liquid flame pits in some of the underground tunnels that will kill any turtle instantly on contact. Thankfully, the boss of the level itself isn't too difficult.
*** The Abandoned Warehouse is the fifth level and it's quite difficult due to many factors: The enemies in the caves are DemonicSpiders, and one of the three caves contains the boss, the Technodrome Defense System. If it doesn't, it brings you to an empty room, and you're forced to backtrack to the beginning of the cave. The game generates it before you enter the level, and there's no clear indication on which cave is correct until you either find an empty room or the boss. To make things worse, the enemies respawn when you exit the empty room, so you'll inevitably have at least one turtle with low health.
*** The final level, inside the Technodrome, definitely takes the cake. No checkpoints, an array of DemonicSpiders unique to this level, and some rooms are full of spikes. Fortunately, Shredder is an AntiClimaxBoss, and even then, he may sneak in a OneHitKill if you don't know the trick to defeating him, forcing you to resume from the beginning of the level.
* UnderusedGameMechanic: Using ropes to cross gaps. There's only one rope item in the entire game, and you use it on a couple of gaps immediately afterward, amounting to a couple of cutscenes of your turtle throwing a rope, and that's it. The devs seem to have implemented the rope item and felt obligated to use it somehow.
----
